Die Ersten Tage

Right now I'm sitting in the IES Abroad Center eating cold leftover schnitzel because (a) I'm cheap and (b) there's no microwave here. But everythings really great in Berlin so far. At first i was walking around and like "holy shit im gonna be here for a year im freaking out," but then I took a breath and realized that it's all going to be okay. My host is a very nice old lady type named Betti, super sweet and helpful, and my living situation is pretty great. I have a really big room with a nice bed, fold-out couch, TV, refrigerator, plenty of space for my fabulous clothes, etc.

UPDATE: Betti got a lot of sweet-old-lady points for sewing a little loop on to my towel so I can hang it up in the bathroom, without me asking. We also had "Kaffee und Kuchen" (coffee and cake) with one of her other guests - she rents out the other room in her flat - and that was a very cute and gemütlich and very German thing to do.

The area where I live, Prenzlauer Berg, is also lovely. It's really close to this park called Volkspark Friedrichshain, which is sort of Central-Park-ish - huge, with a lot of beautiful old statues and stuff, ponds, cafes, tennis courts (SAMMI), a skate park, fountains, grills, etc. Gotta take a walk around there soon. There's also a couple of really old graveyards right by the crib, which I'm way into in a photographic sort of way. I'm also right across the street from a grocery store, around there corner from a bank, I'm down the street from one of the main shopping centers (Alexanderplatz) there's a freakin' night club across the street, a bakery, a fruit shop, and I'm about five feet from the tram.

Speaking of which, public transport is AMAZING. We all got monthly transport passes and that is all you need to get anywhere in the city at any time of day. Everything is super punctual, and dont even need to show your ticket unless a scary plainclothes controller asks you for it. So basically you don't have to think twice about going anywhere, you just go. As long as you can deal with obnoxious German teenagers dressed to the nines for the club, thinking they're super cool with their mullets and their designer jeans, then you're golden.

This is all kind of boring stuff, I know, but it's still all very preliminary - all we've done is orientation-type stuff. I did go out with some friends last night to this really nice little pub, nice atmosphere, leather couches, etc. People here are generally very nice, and I'm definitely holding my own with the German speaking. I still get unnecessarily frustrated with myself, but it's only the third day and hopefully things will keep getting better. At any rate, IES is taking us on a pub crawl tomorrow, so maybe there will be some fun stories from that.

Until then, bis bald und alles gute!

Willkommen in Berlin

Well, I've finally arrived in Berlin. It took about eighteen hours of travel and I think I slept for one of those hours. I'm trying my best to just push through until tonight, but we'll see how long that lasts. I'm currently in the hostel I'm staying in for one night before registration, and what the hell, it's run by hardcore Spanish punk rockers. No effing joke. I guess that's Berlin for ya. I don't trust them, because I don't trust Spaniards in general -- just kidding, I actually don't trust punks, but that's because I was friends with a lot of them. The fact that they're Spanish is pretty much inconsequential.

I can speak German! Within my first hour I got two compliments. Pretty schnazzy. At any rate, this post isn't very interesting, because I haven't done anything yet, and if there are typos it's because I've changed my keyboard to the German setup. When in Rome.

I'm off to get a cell phone, but more stories as they come. In the immortal words of Cabaret, "Velcome to Berlin, Herr Bradshaw...velcome to Berlin."