"Sprechen Sie Englisch?"
So, yesterday Sarah's mother had to go to work, so Sarah and I got up at the lovely hour of 5:30AM along with her mother, had breakfast and then headed out for the day. We went our separate ways when we got to the S-Bahn, though, and Sarah and I spent the day at her boarding school and it's rural town.
It was really beautiful and peaceful, but holy crap, was it way out in the middle of nowheresville. Which turned out rather amusing, seeing as they probably VERY RARELY ever saw foreign tourists and it was really apparent on their faces whenever I would talk. (Which brings me to another thing I've noticed and that's that I'm often mistaken for a native German when I don't speak, but I'll cover that later, if I remember.)
It's rather funny to walk down this nearly empty street next to Sarah and as this boy was walking down the opposite side of the road, we started talking. We had been nearly silent up until he had just about passed us and the brief flicker of shock on his face when Sarah and I started exchanging in English was just priceless.
Today was very fun as well, though. Today we got up and after Sarah and I were dropped off at the station, we made our way to Alexander Platz so that I could pick up "Elisabeth" on DVD now that I had euro on me and not just my card. However, we were informed by the man selling tickets that they would not be selling merchandise until later, and so we decided to wander around the plaza until that time.
We went shopping in H&M, a clothing store, and C&A, another clothing store. (Yes, those are seriously the names of both the stores. I'm not abbreviating.) I'm not really into clothes shopping, but I found some cute hair barrettes so I'm happy. After that, I suggested we look at all of these itty bitty little tent-booths set up around the outside of the Friedrichs Kirche. This proved interesting and I was able to get a swatch of the german flag for about 2 euro, but what really got me excited was that suddenly there was a lot of noise behind us. We're in a very busy part of town, though, so I wasn't really paying attention. However, Sarah tapped me on the shoulder and explained that the noise was coming from a demonstration that was making it's way down the street. I turned, curious as to what this "demonstration" was and oh. my. god....
It was a Scientology raid! Anonymous had staged a protest in Berlin and I was there to see it!! 8D I took a couple pictures as they went by, and I was so excited that I kept blabbering to Sarah about it for the next hour and a half or so.
This excitement could only have been matched, though, by my first german anime-fan sighting (or rather, my first sighting of a german in cosplay.) We were waiting for the train home when I looked over and saw a guy in an all-too-familiar outfit. He was dressed as Monkey D. Luffy, the main character of the pirate anime/manga One Piece! Needless to say I flipped out. After a brief moment of working up the courage to do so, I ran up to him and barraged him with a big, bright smile that I'm pretty sure frightened him and took him off guard. I quickly asked if he spoke English and he replied 'yes, a little' somewhat haltingly. I was thrilled and immediately continued my barrage of happiness and excitement, first asking to make sure that he was in cosplay and then going on to ask him where he was wearing it to (or rather, from, considering it was about 5PM their time.) He informed me that there had been a cosplay party of sorts in the city and that he had to go home now and that's where he was headed. I wanted to ask him more, but I was kind of afraid that I was making it appear that I was hitting on him or something, so I gave him my thanks, explaining I was an anime fan from America (in case he couldn't tell) and then bounced back over to Sarah.
Today was a truly wonderful day. <3
It was really beautiful and peaceful, but holy crap, was it way out in the middle of nowheresville. Which turned out rather amusing, seeing as they probably VERY RARELY ever saw foreign tourists and it was really apparent on their faces whenever I would talk. (Which brings me to another thing I've noticed and that's that I'm often mistaken for a native German when I don't speak, but I'll cover that later, if I remember.)
It's rather funny to walk down this nearly empty street next to Sarah and as this boy was walking down the opposite side of the road, we started talking. We had been nearly silent up until he had just about passed us and the brief flicker of shock on his face when Sarah and I started exchanging in English was just priceless.
Today was very fun as well, though. Today we got up and after Sarah and I were dropped off at the station, we made our way to Alexander Platz so that I could pick up "Elisabeth" on DVD now that I had euro on me and not just my card. However, we were informed by the man selling tickets that they would not be selling merchandise until later, and so we decided to wander around the plaza until that time.
We went shopping in H&M, a clothing store, and C&A, another clothing store. (Yes, those are seriously the names of both the stores. I'm not abbreviating.) I'm not really into clothes shopping, but I found some cute hair barrettes so I'm happy. After that, I suggested we look at all of these itty bitty little tent-booths set up around the outside of the Friedrichs Kirche. This proved interesting and I was able to get a swatch of the german flag for about 2 euro, but what really got me excited was that suddenly there was a lot of noise behind us. We're in a very busy part of town, though, so I wasn't really paying attention. However, Sarah tapped me on the shoulder and explained that the noise was coming from a demonstration that was making it's way down the street. I turned, curious as to what this "demonstration" was and oh. my. god....
It was a Scientology raid! Anonymous had staged a protest in Berlin and I was there to see it!! 8D I took a couple pictures as they went by, and I was so excited that I kept blabbering to Sarah about it for the next hour and a half or so.
This excitement could only have been matched, though, by my first german anime-fan sighting (or rather, my first sighting of a german in cosplay.) We were waiting for the train home when I looked over and saw a guy in an all-too-familiar outfit. He was dressed as Monkey D. Luffy, the main character of the pirate anime/manga One Piece! Needless to say I flipped out. After a brief moment of working up the courage to do so, I ran up to him and barraged him with a big, bright smile that I'm pretty sure frightened him and took him off guard. I quickly asked if he spoke English and he replied 'yes, a little' somewhat haltingly. I was thrilled and immediately continued my barrage of happiness and excitement, first asking to make sure that he was in cosplay and then going on to ask him where he was wearing it to (or rather, from, considering it was about 5PM their time.) He informed me that there had been a cosplay party of sorts in the city and that he had to go home now and that's where he was headed. I wanted to ask him more, but I was kind of afraid that I was making it appear that I was hitting on him or something, so I gave him my thanks, explaining I was an anime fan from America (in case he couldn't tell) and then bounced back over to Sarah.
Today was a truly wonderful day. <3