Berlin, Koeln and Bathing Suit Success

The Past Two Weeks In a Nutshell: 4 Days in Berlin, 1 Day in Dusseldorf, 1 Day in Koeln (Cologne), 1 Day in Aachen, 1 Evening in Bonn. . .and a week of school. Every day is so densely packed with activity that it is difficult to write it all out. It doesn't help that I think too much about everything and therefore there are more thoughts than I have time to type out.

Last Sunday (as in two weeks ago) I boarded the bus with my class to travel North to Berlin for four nights (photos on facebook). A few highlights and thoughts:

Tour of the underground bunkers from WWII (bunkers that later served as potential nuclear bomb shelters during the cold war). Civilians would be allowed one suitcase with them in the underground. During the cold war it was said that an optimist would have brought an German-English dictionary and a pessimist would bring a German-Russian dictionary. The thought of being trapped underground with over 1,200 other people and no communication to the surface made me think I should develop my nursing, psychology and mechanical skills. . .or just stay above ground and die a free woman (that sounds very dark, I know).

It's good to know approximately, if not exactly, where you are at, and approximately, if not exactly, how to get back to where you need to go or forward to where you would like to go. I took a lot of time to familiarize myself with the main streets and public transportation lines within the city. It was worth it to feel oriented while visiting different parts of the city.

Guided tour of Berlin's Reichstag building where the German Bundestag (similar to our Congress) convenes. In 1990 the federal capital of Germany moved from Bonn to Berlin. It was symoblic of the commitment to the newly unified Berlin. The current building is almost directly on the East/West Berlin divide.

At an Italian restaurant I neglected to order my food quickly and the old Italian waiter complained (auf Deutsch) "If all my patrons were like you I'd be broke." My German friends declared him rude and said, "no tip" despite my objections that Italians just say things and it's not personal. It wasn't ten minutes later that the waiter came up, insisted that for a beautiful young woman he would wait forever, apologized for his behavior, took my hand and kissed it and said he would one day come to America to eat fine Italian food with me and drink nothing at dinner (because I had neglected to order a beverage with my meal). . .we tipped him at the end of the night. Flattery works wonders.

One semi-random group tour we experienced was in KaDeWe, a large, high-end shopping mall in Berlin. I was frustrated that I was in Berlin and touring a mall (I'm not a big shopping fan) but then we entered the 5th floor and the four previous floors of perfumes, dresses, shoes and accessories was forgotten as I looked at several thousand square meters of gourmet food: fish, eggs, cheese, chocolate, coffee, spirits, baked goods, olives. . .I entered the Neiman Marcus of food stores. Among the curious foods were the pig hearts, hooves and lungs in the meat section. There was a French Patisserie and even the French student was convinced the croissants were worth his time (his general attitude is that "France does it better" for food, wine and, well, everything. . .typical Frenchman ;)

The last morning in Berlin I woke up early to take a stroll around the quirky district surrounding our hostel. Just imagine the Hawthorne District of Portland's eastside or NW 23rd and throw a three hundred year old church in every three blocks and you've got my morning. My German roommate Alice joined me for the stroll: "Why didn't we do this every morning?" she asked. As my mom said, it's good to try the easy outings first. If you like them, you can do them again without much effort. I guess I will remember that next time.

Below are some fun pics (unhistoric) of the hostel breakfast area, the front of our hostel and Alice and I singing Beyonce (we both have a passion for silliness :)

After a nine-hour drive from Berlin to Bad Mergentheim I jumped in the car of one of the students from my class who took me to Koeln (3.5 hours away) to meet my other friends from school, Rebecca and Anna. Rebecca wanted me to meet a good friend of hers from home so I joined them at their hang-out (a local bar). We chatted in English and German and before any of us knew it it was 4am. Normally, I'd freak out being up so late because, well, I always do, but when I went to bed I was calmed-down by the birds chirping in the grey pre-dawn sky :

School was very difficult this week. I wrote a 15 page paper on change management with 3 other students (2 German, 1 Singapore). Almost every evening was spent together to get the work done. As the only native english speaker I was the designed typist and translator as the Germans explained their company's approach to change management. The final night the boyfriend of one of my team members cooked dinner for us, made us coffee and brought us dessert as we wrote our paper and prepared our presenttion. He told us, "Let me know what I can do for you, I'm right here." So nice.

Two firsts today: Attending church in Germany and attending a Catholic service. . .I went with my friend Natalia from Colombia. It was very interesting to sit for an hour without understanding what was happening. We sang Psalm 22 "auf Deutsch" and though I didn't understand the words, the music made it apparent that they were singing a song of both mourning and praise. We thought service started at 11am so we arrived at 10:55. The church was packed and after one song everyone around us got up and left. We thought we missed the service and sat alone in the pew a few minutes rather amused by the situation. The second service actually started at 11:15.

Random side note: Rollerblading is cool in Germany. Everyone does it, not just the stuck-in-the-nineties people (Germany has a little late 80's, early 90's flair as it is. . .can you say The Breakfast Club?)

Last Friday during a birthday party in our kitchen/living room area, a Chinese exchange student introduced himself to me in German. I wondered why he spoke to me in broken Chinese-accent German (he seemed to be struggling so much) when I had heard him speak English to the other Americans. I found out that he didn't think I was American! I'm almost always with the German students speaking German and he concluded I must be German! I was tickled by his mistake.

I think girls will appreciate this: I found a swimsuit I liked and I bought it! The worst clothing item to shop for is taken care of, yay!! Who knew I'd have to come to Germany to find success.