Passwort, bitte.

sheer laziness has kept me from writing, but now the looming threat of homework has spurred me on to blog! funny how that works.

so picking up where we left off: saw the magic flute at one of the opera houses here in berlin two weekends ago. the performances, on a whole, were great. so were the costumes. but the set designer literally must have just been drunk when he designed the thing because there was a life-size tree at the VERY FRONT OF THE STAGE. and if you were sitting on the left side anywhere above the first floor (like i was), then 70% of the action was played behind said tree. i wanted to kill myself. but more so i wanted to kill the set designer. but maybe even more so the director for (a) allowing something nonsensical like that to occur and/or (b) not directing around it. not to mention the fact that they actually needed a tree in the show for about three minutes, five minutes before the end of the opera. i want at least seven of my thirteen euro back as reparation.

then i think i had a pretty normal week of class - i dunno, can't remember. but that might be an indicator that it was normal. the birthday party i spoke of was out in bumblef*ck berlin, like a village that got gerrymandered by the city some years ago or something like that. so my friend and i took the train like forty minutes to get there, walked down a pitch-black country-type road (don't worry mom, i know kung fu!), and found the house. we proceeded to play wii for a while while waiting for others to show up, and some did, but they were all guys and then we continued playing wii. eventually i set up the beirut game that i had brought as a gift, and we played, but the germans DIDN'T GET IT. they were like "vy iss zis game taking so long?" and i'm like cuz it just does, stop offending my culture. if anyone who is in or recently got out of college is reading this, you know what i mean. so anyway it was a weird night.

saturday was the performance with the irish dance group. and this time i took the train to an even bumblef*cker part of berlin, i.e. an hour and fifteen minutes outside of the city center, where it was taking place. my friend lives there, and she told me that there are wild pigs in this part of the city. and i was like stop playin, this is not berlin. but it was. technically. the actual performance was at a christmas market, so we all went out there in the freezing cold and did our thing - i in my kilt, mind you. it was fun, the crowd enjoyed it, and then we went back to this girl's house and drank glühwein (german spiced wine, a christmas favorite) and ate baked apples. not bad.

last wednesday i was invited by a friend of mine from spain to go to this underground club that you need a password for - ooh intense. we met up at his house beforehand, and three more of his spanish friends came. and they spoke a lot of spanish and i felt dumb for not understanding more than i did, because my spanish is terrible right now. but anyway we read the email where the weekly password is sent out and it was like "come quietly and lock your bikes up away from the entrance, etc" and gave us the password. so we walked over there and crossed this creepy bridge to the entrance where we gave this burly bouncer the password and went in. we then went down like three flights of stairs into this basement storage area underneath the railroad tracks. very cool space, legit, lots of junk piled everywhere and water actually dripping from the ceiling. only three euro, actually, and the music was good - salsa, old hip hop, etc - and there was a pool table and a ping pong table. a very cool place overall. only problem was it was pretty much ALL SPANISH PEOPLE and i understood very little all night because they all spoke spanish the whole time. i did meet an absolutely stunning spanish girl, and we talked for a while, but theres not much more to that story. at least not yet! sha-ZAM!

though i'll probably shortly retract that sha-zam.

any rate, on friday my friend james daniel and his cousin morgan came to visit. we started off their trip by drinking hefeweizen in the train - a very german thing to do. we then met up with a couple of my german friends (a long with some americans) and went to karaoke. it was a lot of fun, we sang mambo number five and i want it that way, so you can imagine it went well. i was missin' my theatre gays, they would have definitely enjoyed it. and germans doing karaoke is really hilarious - the get really, really into it.

saturday we did a lot of sightseeing, got in most of the major points in the city. then that night we went and saw a rockabilly show at my favorite venue, wild at heart berlin, which turned out to be pretty good. sunday morning was flea market, which was actually cold and miserable and sadly turned up nothing for the first time. then, after a long journey to get them a bus ticket to prague, we were well exhausted and didn't feel like doing anything so we just ate and watched kung fu panda, which was a pretty freaking great movie.

otherwise all is pretty much quiet on the western (or eastern, depending on how you look at it) front. the weather continues to be cold, wet, and dreary, so there isn't a ton of motivation to leave my apartment, or to do much of anything. but i shall continue to find fun things to do and use them as an excuse to get off my ass! never you worry. i aaaam pumped about next semster, though, when it's warm and spring-like, because i've heard that the city just does a 180. rockin'.

oh and at i'm no longer going to ireland, but stockholm, and then granada for two weeks. third leg of the trip is still unknown, but i'll figure it out eventually...

right so honestly i don't have a THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE this week - i guess i haven't been very observant lately. but i'll get you one soon! i promise. for those of you who have sent me emails and stuff, thanks very much! and for those who haven't, i'd love to hear from you!

take care, liebe leute, and i'll talk to you soon.