Ach...

So this weekend was kind of a bust. I tried to go to a museum thingy on Saturday but since it was the weekend the Tram was running differently. Long story short, I didn't make it in time for the English tour. I did go today but more on that later. Since all I ended up doing on Saturday was walk around trying to find something to do/take up time and having no luck, I just stayed in yesterday because I didn't want to deal with the hotness and mostly everything is closed on Sundays anyways.

Today after class I did make it to the museum (?) that I really wanted to go to. It was a prison that was used by the Soviet's after WW2 and then the West Berlin police (Stasi) from 1945 to 1989 (I believe). It was more of a torture facility than a prison though while the Stasi used it. People would be picked up by the Stasi (who dressed in plain, commoners clothes) and then come to the prison to be questioned. They were most likely tortured psycologically and not physically. That was a totally different story while the Soviets used the facility. It was an interesting tour and my tour guide did a very good job of telling us a good amount of facts but not too much where we would be overwhelmed.

I've been here for about a week now. I still really like it and am glad I'm getting to know the public transportation system. On the ride back from the museum today, I was comparing our bus system in Ann Arbor to the Tram system here. I came up with two very obvious differences: (1) The stops/stations are much farther apart here. I accidentally got off the Tram this morning one stop too early and it resulted in an extra 5-10 minutes walking. If this would have happened in Ann Arbor, most likely I would have only had to walk a couple of minutes to the next stop. I would like to know the reasoning as to why the stops are so close to each other in Ann Arbor. I'm guessing the efficiency of the system would be greater if there were fewer stops. Also, (2) the tram system has its own lanes. They operate in the middle of the road, in place of a median. This enables them to stop without disturbing traffic and reduces the amount vehicles on the actual roads. I hope someday we can have a system like this in Michigan, whether its in Detroit, Ann Arbor or even East Lansing (I know but we need change somewhere).

As far as culturally speaking, I am still a little overwhelmed by the language barrier. I feel bad when people come up to me asking for directions in German and I can't do a thing for them. My classes have been going well and I've been kind of hanging out with my classmates outside of class. We're all different so there is a nice mix of people but they like to do different things than I do so we don't exactly click. Not everybody has to be best friends though, right? Haha.

Until next time:

Keep it green!!