Jul 02, 2005 19:50
Hello all you people who read my lj, most of whom don't leave comments (hint hint)
Time to resume the summary of the goings on in my life..
Last Thursday
Listening and Reading parts of the Mittelstufe II exam in the morning- things went well, though the Hörverstehen was a bit tough.
Used the internet cafe near the school, went back home to go grocery shopping and update lj, except I then found out that the internet here was broken. I thus decided to clean up my room and practice instead.
Last Friday
Writing and Speaking parts of Exam. For the speaking, you are tested as the same time as another person. In the first part of the speaking exam, you are given a sheet with two photos on it. Each person picks one photo to describe in detail, and then you both have to agree on a common theme. In this part, the examiner can ask you questions. The second part entails a bit of role playing in which the two examinees discuss a bunch of choices and then come to a conclusion. In our case, we had just won the lottery and had to pick a house we wanted to buy. We totally rocked this part, hamming it up to the max. The examiners laughed hysterically, and said that they actually had fun testing us. Guess all those skits I've had to do sincee middle school language classes have really paid off. Wow, I just realized that my English language skills have gone down the tubes. No wonder no one comments on my journal. It's painful for ME to reread. Sorry bout that folks.
After the exam, I went to the internet cafe near the school for awhile, then went home, bought a few more groceries, took a nap, ate a snack, then caught the bus and U-Bahn back to the school area to use the internet again before meeting up with the rest of the group near Warschauer Str. We had dinner in a nice Middle Eastern restaurant with very good bread and sesame seed oil, and HUGE appetizers. For dinner, I had Hasoumi (hope I spelled that right), fried goat cheese. It's delicious, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who remotely likes cheese. After dinner, we walked a mile or two (not kidding) to the open air theater in Friedrichshain, since we'd missed the tram. The weather was hot, sticky, and generally miserable, esp. since most of us had worn jeans, expecting the evening to be much cooler. The movie, One Day in Europe, was very good though, and a lot of fun for me, the language buff, since it included Spanish, Hungarian, Russian, German, and French! I was even able to understand some of the Español, which was muy exciting. I miss Spanish...Anyhow, after the movie, a bunch of people went out, but I was beat, so I caught tram, then S-Bahn, then taxi back to the dorm and went to bed.
Last Saturday
Woke up around 10 or so to take a shower and do my hair, then ate breakfast, took the recyclables down to the sorting bins (the handles on the glass bag nearly broke on the way), then went (you guessed it) grocery shopping again before making my lunch and dashing out the door to catch the bus to meet Jen at the S-Bahn stop. We rode the train and U-Bahn to Wittenburg Platz to catch the start of the Christopher Street (Gay Pride) Day. There was a lot of Madonna and techno music, and some very interesting costumes and floats, but no flagrant nudity. We then explored KaDeWe, the premier department store in Berlin, full of interesting, cool, pretty, really expensive clothes, foods, and gadgets that I can't afford. It was fun to look though. After that, we caught the U and S-Bahns to Tiergarten, the parade's destination, but no one was there yet, and it had by this time started to rain, so we abandoned further Gay Pride plans and went to Jen's house to wash our feet and get something to eat. Then it was back to Potsdammer Platz to catch the new Batman movie (awesome cinematics, good acting, and wonderful music) with Dan. Afterwards, I decided to be boring and to go home and get some sleep.
Sunday
Got up, made lunch, used the internet, and dashed to the bus to arrive 40 min. early on the Museum Island to meet the group at the Pergammon Museum. It was a fantastic museum with lots of ancient artifacts such as the Pergammon Altar, Roman and Greek ruins (as in, whole ruins, not itty bitty fragments, though there were plenty of those as well), the Ishtar Gate of Bablyon (absolutely beautiful. I can only imagine what the whole city wall once looked like), and a large display of Islamic ruins and art. I bought a few post cards at the gift shop, then got a snack with Jen at the museum café, which was actually very reasonably priced despite its prime location. I then went home, used the internet, and went to bed.
Monday
Went home after class to nap and eat dinner before dashing off (I seem to do a lot of that here) to another awesome concert at the Philharmonic. The program included a medley of songs by Brahms, an Adagio by Mahler from his tenth symphony, and a wonderful symphony by a composer I can't remember. Some of the group went out afterwards, but given the fact that it was 11 pm on a school night, I thought it best to get myself home, which I managed to accomplish slightly after midnight, due to construction on one of the main S-Bahn lines. I love the Berlin public transportation system, really I do.
Tuesday
Bought notecards at a paper store near the school, then picked up clothes pins and line at Studienforum before going on a gift buying trip with Jen. I'm going to miss that girl next year- she's going to be away the whole time on study abroad. I then went home to eat dinner, use the internet, and notecard my final essay.
Wednesday
Lunch at a Russian café (an ok bread and cheese platter for me), then awesome choclate ice cream on the way to our own three hour tour on the waterways of Berlin. It was a nice farewell overview of the city, and good to hang out with the group again. I then went home for dinner, internet, and a nice long haul with the paper.
Thursday
Laundry before class which resulted in a very large puddle on my floor, which luckily for me is tile. The afternoon conversation class was awesome, since we just basically sat outside at the nearby café and talked as a group with our teacher. After that, Jen, Dan, and I went to East Berlin to meet with Dan and my old German professor. He took us to his favorite beer garten (where I ordered my customary apple juice), and took us on a short tour of the area, where I unfortunately haven't spent much time. I tried curry wurst and liked it too, which was amazing. The prof. then took us to the Soviet memorial in Treptower Park, which was beautiful and impressive, but symetrically overbearing and eerie. More later...
study abroad,
germany