Blisters

By the title of this post, I'm sure you can figure out my biggest dilemna: blisters. It all started when I went to see where my language course was on Sunday. Then today they just got worse. I'm resting for the rest of the day so my feet can rest and I can catch up on this blog!

Any who...yesterday was the first day of the language course. My teacher's name is Katarina and she is very nice. She talks fast but I think it is helping us with the process of learning German. After class yesterday we went to a biergarten (thats beer garden in German. See, I'm catching on!). It was fun and the beer was good. After I bought my beer, my teacher informed me that it is the beer that only tourists buy. I was a little bummed because I want to be like a native but the beer was delicious so I didn't really care in the end. Here is a pic of my bier:

Today after class I went to a place which they call Museum Island. It is was it sounds like; it is I think 4 museums in close proximity to each other and they all have different artifacts and paintings. We went to Neues Museum which has Egytian artifacts and other cool old stuff. The museum has a cool background story: it was heavily damaged during WW2 so it has been closed until the last couple of years. Here is a picture from google of what it looked like before restoration:

And here is one of what it looks like now:

I discovered today that I'm not a huge fan of museums (sorry Sister). My feet were killing me but even if I had the right shoes on, I think the hour that I spent there today still would have been enough. I payed more attention to the building itself and its architecture rather than the priceless (well not exactly priceless...) pieces. So after a painful walk back to Simone's apartment, I took care of my little piggies and am now just hanging out.

The next few days are going to filled with a couple more tours so I hope I can get some more good pictures to post. And I wanted to leave you all with this picture of Zen (copyright The Daily Show).

Keep it green!!

I'm Here!!

Hello All! I made it safe and sound to Berlin. I'll try to put the events leading up to arriving in order but don't hold it against me if they're not. So here we go:

I prepared for this trip for at least a month before leaving. It was ROUGH! Well...kind of rough. Lots of emails, shopping trips, and other preparatory things (basically boring stuff). After the buckets of tears shed (I'm talking about you Dad) I was off. Going through the airport was fine but got a little cold during the strip search (just kidding). The flight to Philadelphia was good. Sat next a nice guy (Hi Kai!!) and left 30 minutes later than was scheduled. This resulted in me having to use my fast-paced walking skills to get to the next gate for my flight to Frankfurt. I made it just in time and got to enjoy all the free movies and complimentary meals. Only slept for about 15 minutes but the guy next to me was insisting on me sleeping on his shoulder. I told him thanks, but no thanks. On arrival in Frankfurt, I found out that I was going to be on a plane with about 20 French middle schoolers. This made me a little nervous since at the gate they were pretty loud and rambunctious. But once on the flight I was perfectly distracted by the awkward public display of affection from the couple next to me. At least I got a free candy bar out of it.

Finally, made it to Berlin. Took a taxi from the airport to the apartment that I will be staying at for the two weeks that I'll be here. Here are a couple of pictures:

I know, I know. I took the picture of my room this morning so my suitcase is open and my stuff is already all over the place. My host's name is Simone and 20 minutes after she greeted me, she had to leave for 3 days to go and visit her parents. I'm here on my own for the next couple of days so I'm going to get the feel of the land. Yesterday I didn't really unpack or anything because I almost had a mini-tantrum since by electricity adapter/converter didn't work on my laptop charger. So I made a trip to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

It is the main railway station in Berlin and is filled with cool food places, shops, and is just a cool building overall. I did get my adapter and had a nice dinner there. The walk there was about 30 minutes and I got to see a little of the city. After I got back from my excursion I got in my pajamas, turned on Friday Night Lights and passed out!

So today I'm just been catching up on some stuff and now I'm going to see where my language school is at. I'm still a little tired even after getting about 12 hours of sleep but everything is going good so far. The people that I have encountered here for the most part speak English which is awesome. I was worried that the first few days here I would feel stranded since I don't speak the language and Simone is gone. But I've got my maps and I'm ready to do more exploring!!

Keep it green!
Brianne