Berlin-week 1

     The flight from London to Berlin was interesting. They gave us a type of egg sandwich for lunch. I was starving so I ate it, but it wasn't my favorite thing ever... I was in shock once I got off the plane in Berlin. People were speaking German around me! I know... shocker right? I was so glad I was in a group! We loaded our bags on a bus and went to our hostel, which was located between the Möckernbrücke and Hallesches Tor Bahn Station. Hostels and hotels should not be confused. They are very different. We dropped off our bags and went out to eat at a restaurant called Balli. I was terrified of having to order in German, because they talked so fast to the people in front of me, so I convinced Romy to order for me. We split a Dürüm--basically a pita wrapped around lamb meat, lettuce, tomatoes, french fries, fetta cheese, and a garlic sauce. It was huge so I'm glad we split it. I realized that I'm not a fan of fetta cheese.
     On our second day in Berlin we went out as a group and had currywurst--think hotdog with curry powder and ketchup on it. We also got to go to the Berlin Konzerthaus and listen to the Berlin Konzerthausorchester play. They played works by Debussy, Ravel, Ibert, and Lekeu. It sounded amazing, but most of the people in our group were still having a hard time with Jetlag so they were asleep for most of it. It didn't help that it had been cold and rainy all day.
     Day three was a Sunday so we left had church. We went to the Tiergarten Ward and doubled the size of their ward. It was hard to understand a lot of what was being said because everything was in German. It was helpful that I already knew the format of what was going on in English. After three hours of straining to understand German we went back to the hostel to get our bags. Amelia and I had to wait at a Bahn station for an hour because we couldn't move in to our homestay until later. Getting to our homestay was interesting because we didn't know exactly where it was. We wandered around the Alexanderplatz Bahn station for a while until we found our train. It is a maze down there. It felt like were wandered around forever because we had all our luggage with us. Once we got to the right street (the Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse stop) we walked in the rain to her apartment building and had to climb up 83 steps to get to her apartment. That was quite a challenge with all my luggage becuase I would walk up a flight with a bag and have to walk back down to get the other one and then walk back up over and over until I reached her door. After much frustration we made it and were able to put our things in our new rooms.
     I forgot about the fourth of July while I was in Germany, because we were so busy. We had Family Home Evening (FHE) at the church outreach center, which is in the same building we had church. It was fun and we got to eat waffels with an amazing cinnamon sauce.
     We had an Art and Architecture (A&A) class where we got to go around to various museums and monuments and learn about them. Most of the time we met at the Neue Wache, which was an eight minute bus ride from my homestay... I didn't know this until about two weeks later. Before that, Amelia and I took the Bahn because we didn't know how the other forms of transportation worked so it took us almost half an hour to get there everyday. We went to the Pergamon Museum and got to see the Pergamon Altar, the Market gate of Militus, the Ishtar Gate, and many other architectural works.



Market gate of Militus

     We also had a German class at the Goethe Institute which was a 10 minute walk from my homestay. Class was from 1:15-5:45 every week day. It was super long the first day because it was an hour longer than we were expecting it to be.

Totentanz

     For our A&A class we also got to visit the Marienkirche--where the famous "totentanz" picture is. We also saw the Nikolaikirche. It is the oldest church in Berlin!