They Never Told Us This...

It's going to be hard. They did tell us this. But the never told us what little things are going to make it so darn hard. I miss my clothes at home - I just want to be able to shrug into my drama jacket with the masks on the front and zip it up against the cold, and remember all the great times with the crazy people I called my troupe. I miss my trusty old history club tshirts that had memories of midnight Apples to Apples parties and unfortunate debate arguments. I want my Washington DC hoodie, with its strange and unidentifiable stain on the shoulder, but its warm soft fuzzy inside that was guaranteed to keep me warm on a freezing cold...August? day. I miss my shoes and socks and hoodies and tshirts...

I miss not understanding a class because the material was new, instead of the language the material was presented in...I really miss hugs from my mom and dad. I miss walking in the door and being assaulted by my dogs. I miss knowing people at school....

But I'm getting better. Sometimes all of this stuff will just come at me at once, and I won't be able to think of the things that I know are good. I won't be able to remember them because of the impenetrable wall of unhappy things coming at me. I'm making friends at school. Slowly, but I am. There's a girl in my choir class who is really nice. We're going out for Chinese next week, because she doesn't have classes and a I have a four hour break. I'm beginning to recognize people. Today, while I was sitting on the U-Bahn wall waiting for the bus, a couple girls from school recognized me and waved.

I think that all of these bad things are coming at me so often because I'm so busy that when I have the time to sit down and think the things that come first are the things that I'm missing. Three days a week, I get up at eight o'clock, get ready for school, sit on a bus for forty minutes, walk the 500 or so meters to school, sit in classes I don't understand, and then get on a bus for an hour, and then get on a train for fifteen, and then walk a kilometer to my German lesson, then go back home. It's, as unlikely and impossible as it seems, a rather exhausting day. One more day out of the week, I have class from eight until eleven thirty, at which point I can come home for four hours before going back to school for a three hour art class. I am not the best artist in the world. In fact, I'm probably among the worst. On a good day, I can draw a stick figure and people will recognize it as such. But...somehow, and I don't know how this is, I'm kind of enjoying that class. The teacher calls all of the stuff I draw "rather good, not quite good, but rather good." I can tell he's not massively impressed, but I'm hoping that he recognizes the fact that I'm trying. He's really funny and a very smile-y guy, but he smokes and you can smell it on him all the time.

I'm really enjoying my exchange so far. I really am. But with all of the things I'm doing, with all of the work that I'm doing, it gets hard to remember the good things. And with so much stuff to do for school, or German, it's hard to meet up with my friends, something I desperately want to do. Hopefully, I'll get more used to the schedule within a week, get less exhausted and be able to meet up with them. And then, there's always the fact that in less than a month, I won't be going to Frohnau three times a week. That is one good thing that I will NOT be forgetting anytime soon, I can assure you.

So, from my place in my city, I'm wishing all of you who are reading my blog in your place, in your city, a good night and an even better day to come.

Dear Grampa,

So...Grampa, I hear you're reading this every morning?? I'm sorry I haven't been updating every day!! But really, my individual days aren't that cool. I mostly get on a bus and go for half an hour and then sit in classes I don't understand, talk to some people between classes, and then get on a bus and come home. :p

I'm slowly (very, very) becoming used to my school. After standing in the hall where I though bio was for twenty minutes and not seeing anyone in my class or the teacher, I figured out that I hadn't been told that that class (like too many others) changes according to the day. After asking one of the younger kids I saw in the hall (and getting laughed at because of my German...), I went to the secretary and told her that I didn't know where my class was. We went back up to the hall where I had been, asked one of the teachers and then I followed the secretary down to a hall I had never seen before, and found my class. I felt like an idiot, walking in in the middle of a lecture. I was very, very, very happy, though, when the teacher started pulling out microscopes. Finally, something I know about!!! I was even happier (if it can be believed) when she handed out slides. I immediately started adjusting my microscope, trying to find the best focus on the leaves of Elodea that had been freshly plucked from the plant. When I found it, I will admit that I was quite taken by the beauty of something I managed to do for myself in Germany, and in a science class, too. And then, the girls sitting next to me had trouble finding theirs, so I helped them. That felt really good, too.

Today was the first day of classes that I had already experienced, so hopefully that little room-mix up won't happen again.

Yesterday, in addition to being in love with a microscope, I drew!! I drew a walnut in art class!!! Something I haven't done (drawing, not specifically a walnut) in four years!! And I didn't fail completely!! Or so I think....the teacher didn't seem to be too impressed. But I'm very proud of myself.

Today, after my double English, I went to Frohnau for a lesson, but first I did a little shopping. See, I haven't had one folder, and only two notebooks, for all of my classes, for the last week. So it was high time I got some supplies. School shopping, one of my favorite things in the world!! But things in Germany are very strange...instead of folders, there are.....I don't even know how to describe them...little document files, but with two prongs and a transparent front, with a colored back. Well, paper here is different too. It's...thinner, or so it feels to me. And there are FOUR HOLES. And then you put it in the...files, I think they call them, by putting the prong through the middle two holes. It's very strange, to me. But I needed some of these strange school supplies, so I went to Karstadt and got some. While I was there, I happened upon a shelf full of PURSES ON SALE!!!!

For those of you not here, or in regular contact with me, you need to know that here, girls bring very large handbags to school instead of backpacks. This happens in the States, too, but here it's rather rare to find a girl carrying a backpack to school. And, my purse isn't that great for day trips, either. If you are going on a trip to the city, even for a couple hours, there are a few things you need to have with you: ipod (for music on the bus/train/U-Bahn, and for the German dictionary in case of language emergencies), book (bus/train/U-Bahn), bottle of water (or juice), food, wallet (duh), hand sanitizer, and anything else you might desire. Well, my purse is wonderful and I love it, but it's a tight fit for all of the things mentioned above. A really tight fit.

All that discussed, I've been looking for a new purse since school started. Well, I came upon success today at Karstadt. :) I found a really cute, rather large, muted grey-beige bag with just enough structure to not look like a big sack and, as it developed when I got home, the PERFECT size. It takes even my fullest day at school (this one's a little tight, though), my wallet, my Kindle, my ipod, my handy (cell phone for all you Americans), my German work, my lunch and a bottle of water!!! And, even though it was a little over my budget of 20€, ringing in at just about 27€!! I'm very pleased with my purchase, especially considering the fact that I did all of my considering with one hand full of two notebooks, five files, a bottle of apple soda (yes, you Americans, apple soda. It's amazing. I don't know how I'm going to survive without it when I come back.) and a piece of bread. I was standing there like an idiot, flopping this bag around with one hand, trying to see if the notebooks would fit.

All in all, it was a good day. I didn't get lost on any transit, I caught all my buses, I managed to evade the creepy old homeless guy who sits and drinks and smokes in the bus shelter at the bus stop near my school, I drank apple soda, ate marzipan cake, only had two hours of school...yep. Good day. Oh, and did I mention that I have Drama tomorrow?? I do!!!

P.S. I'm sorry that turned into a long rant that was easily identifiable as that of a teenage girl, Grampa. :)

You Think It's Hard Going to School......

Think again. Until you've gone to school that's taught in another language, you cannot complain.

I woke up at six thirty this morning so I could be at school at eight o'clock today. I freaked a little bit because my bus from Rathaus Spandau to school was running a little late, and then when it finally did arrive, it was so packed I could barely find room to stand. I managed to get to school in time, and then got to spend some good quality time in the halls, looking for my art class. After wandering in what I suspected was the right area for a few minutes, I came across a case full of....MASKS. Art-y enough? I went in, sat down and looked around confusedly for a few minutes, until a teacher came in, looked at me pointedly and I got up and told him (in German) that I'm the exchange student, and have only a little German. "There are two art classes, and I think that you are in the other one." He pointed me through a little adjoining office/supply room, to the other class. I walk in, find a seat next to a girl I recognized from the previous day. The teacher comes in and starts talking. And then a girl from the row in front of me moves back to the seat next to me. And the teacher is still talking, and I still (big surprise) have no clue what he's saying. Then he stops talking and the girl next to me says, "He wants us to..umm.....I think, analyze? the painting." It turns out that she had spent a year in Nebraska and was going to be my translator, of a sort. I've been assigned one in every class. Well, we analyzed the painting and then the teacher went back to the front of the room and started talking again. There were many times when it seemed like he was talking to me, specifically. He would say something, do some sort of...comic portrayal of what he had said, I suppose, and then everyone in the class would start laughing. Although I know and realize that it's not the case, it seemed to me like he was saying something to or about me and then everyone would laugh about it. Like I said, I realize this isn't true, but....when you don't have the slightest clue what's going on, and he's looking right at you and then everyone starts laughing.....it sure seems like it.

And then the other teacher came in and said something and everyone started leaving the room, but leaving their things there....cue confusion. Oh wait. You don't need to cue it because it never left. I get up and follow, and there's a photographer. Turns out it was picture day. The photographer says a bunch of stuff, and then everyone starts doing...what he said to do. I stand patiently in the back, trying to be invisible. And then when everyone else was done, the photographer looked at me and then said something in rapid-fire German. *looks around "Was?" The teacher: "Take a picture!!" The photographer: "You speak English?" Me: "Ich bin Austauschstudentin aus Amerika...." Photographer: "Write your name here." *writes name Photographer: "Hold that and smile." *smile "Sit there, no don't stand, sit there and smile." *smile

And then we went back to the art room, and the teacher talked for a while more. Let me tell you something about sitting in a class and not understanding a word of the lecture. It's very tiring, because you're trying to understand the lecture, but no matter how hard you try, you can't suddenly understand. So even though you know you're not going to understand it, you listen to every word, with the hope that you might understand a word. Not five words, or a sentence, not even a phrase, just one word. So you expend all of your energy listening, and getting nothing out of it, except for maybe one word every ten minutes, or maybe there's a word you keep hearing, so you look it up, but then you don't hear it anymore. Recognizing a word is, at the same time, the most wonderful and awful part of not knowing what's going on. The excitement and pride is there, but it's accompanied by the realization that you've been sitting there for an hour, and understood maybe five words.

Chem was next. This was good. When I found the room, I was very happy. The teacher seemed very nice, and as I sat there, I learned that he's very funny as well. No, I could not understand why he was funny, but I could tell that he was. I found myself laughing, even though I didn't know what I was laughing at. This was a welcome change from the art class. And I understood things, I recognized things on the board. I spent so much of my time last year thinking about chemistry, that thinking about it again was almost like I was...home, in a way. I mean, I still had no clue what they were talking about, and what the homework was, but there was a periodic table on the wall, and there were burettes and erlenmeyer flasks and we did a lab with pH. All of these things are so familiar to me, it was a very comforting thing, being there after art, which was so foreign. For all my lack of tangible, present understanding, being in that chem room provided enough understanding so that I could relax.

Choir was after chem and a fifteen or so minute break. All the students mill around in the lobby/foyer/whatever during breaks, so I went down with the girl who had been assigned as my "translator" during chem. Of course, I lost her, but some of the girls who I had spoken with yesterday found me, and it turns out they're in choir too, so I went with them, across the street and to the choir room. Choir is choir. Another relief, though not as...glaring as chem.

And then, finally, it was time to go home. As always, by the time I was at the bus stop waiting for the 135, the döner stand was calling my name, today in a most vicious manner. For those of you who don't know, döner is one of the most amazing parts of living in Berlin. No dirty-water-hot-dogs for us, we get lean beef with lettuce, onions, red cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, yogurt sauce all in a warm, crispy pita bread. Once you've had your first, you'll never go back. They're sooooooooooooooo good. And the 135 is often slow....meaning I'm sitting there, starving, being taunted by the neon lights of the Kaplan sign.....darn you döner, for being so good and tempting. Somehow, I managed to resist and finished my lunch on the bus. When I got home, my host mom had made delicious fried chicken and amazing cheesy potatoes and brocoli and I pigged out. I was soooo hungry, and it was soooooo good. I love my host mom. :)


Today was also drama club!! For those of you who really know me, you know that this is kind of....super monster huge big and important and exciting. I was a little nervous, though. It's just a little hard to act in a language you don't know...but Carlo came with me, and we got to the school, and I was nervous and a little confused (as always...) but we found the group, and it seemed to me like it was NOT going to work. There were a bunch of them who were very close, and it seemed like they weren't exactly open to new friends. But I was very wrong. When we got to the room and settled in, and started off with an icebreaker, everything flowed very well. We were messing each other up and laughing, making faces at each other...it was good. I can't really tell everything, because we were there for two hours and it was a full two hours.

All I can say is, after this morning at school, I was really worried. I'm not anymore. I'm feeling really good because I've got something to look forward to every week. I have friends, and I have my favorite thing back. I'm on exchange in Berlin, Germany, I have an amazing fantastic host family, my family in the States loves me and is thinking about me (and I'm thinking about you, too. <3), I'm learning German, and I have a drama club again. I have a stage again, I've got a family here and in the States. I've got friends. It's going to be hard, no doubt, but I've got what I need to make it through anything.

Sarah's [Mis]Adventures in BVG-Land

Today was...interesting. To say the least.

The original plan was to go visit another exchange student at his house, just across the border in Brandenburg. Then I got a call that the plan had been changed, and we were going to meet in Friedrichstraße, one of the big transit stations in Berlin. There are three different levels - the S Bahn on top, with about twelve tracks; the main level with all the shops and maps; and the U Bahn station in the basement. I stayed on the first two levels.

Well, I got to Friedrichstraße about ten minutes before we were going to meet up. Since I was hungry and thirsty, I went to a market and got some bread, water (bubbly, of course) and gummi bears because.....well...do I really need a reason to get gummi bears in Berlin? By the time I was out of the market, it was the time we were planning on meeting. So I wandered around the station. And I wandered around the station. And then I called one of them. But apparently I had the wrong number, because my phone yelled at me in German. And then I wandered some more. And a little bit more. And, just for the heck of it, I wandered around a bit longer.

Well, at about ten to three, I realized that I had probably missed them, and that they had probably had the good sense to leave without me. So I decided that I would just get the next train back to Spandau. All was good, except for the fact that the next train to Spandau left in twenty minutes, and that I had missed the last train by seven minutes. But it was alright, because I had my ipod and my German vocabulary quiz app on my touch. So I'm sitting on the platform, after looking five different times at the timetable to be absolutely sure that I would not miss the train.

Well, come five minutes before the train is scheduled to leave, I look at the departure board and it does not say Spandau. Needless to say, I was freaking out a little. Until I looked across the station and saw the Spandau train leaving from another platform. Now, I was cursing. In English. Under my breath. Since I didn't want to stay in Berlin, much less Friedrichstraße, much longer, I decided to ask one of the policemen to help me.

Now, this is where I'll mention that when I first got to the station and started my RYES-quest, I had seen a whole bunch of policemen in a huddle in front of the Berlin souvenir shop. This made me wonder a little, but I passed it off as nothing important. However, when I was searching, I passed the same place multiple times, and therefore the same policemen multiple times. On my fifth or so tour of the station, I was starting to worry that they were going to peg me as suspicious and start yelling at me in German. Luckily, that did not happen.

So I went down the stairs and was making my way to one of the policemen when I saw the BVG Service desk. This seemed a more logical place to ask a question about trains than policemen. "Sprechen Sie English?" "Ein bißchein." "I need to get to Spandau, and I think I just missed the train, but I don't know why, because I was at the right platform but the announcements were saying Spandau but they were in German and I don't know German and when I looked the train was on a different platform and I don't know why and I need to get to Spandau." *looks at departures board "Go up those stairs. The train to Nauen is the next train." *goes up the stairs that I just came down, muttering all the while

So I sit on a bench on the platform for five more minutes. At one point, I got up to look at the clock (the BVG time is different than the time on my ipod) and when I turned around, an old guy had taken my seat, and then patted the seat next to him....it was a little creepy. I sat down on the very very edge of the bench and held my purse very tightly.

Well, the train came. It was an Express, which means (for those of you in Sherman who don't know much about public transportation....oh wait...that's me...hmm.....) that it goes on the same track as the city trains, but it doesn't stop as often, so it goes faster. Well, I had no choice but that train, even though I remembered my host mom saying a few days ago, "Don't take the big trains, they are very expensive." Did I mention that the express trains have two levels? Yeah. They're bigger than the regular city trains. But I didn't want to look at the timetable again because of how it had turned out the last time I had done that, and I was not going to sit around in Friedrichstraße station for another hour, so I took the train. Lalalalalalalalala, sitting on the train going to Nauen via Hauptbanhof, Zoologischer Garten, Charlottenburg and SPANDAU. And then I look out the window and don't recognize anything. Cue heart attack. The fact that I had only been on the train for twenty minutes and even Expresses don't go to that fast. And then someone in a uniform came around and people were pulling out their tickets.....I told you about the whole don't-take-the-big-trains-they're-expensive thing, didn't I? Cue stroke. I pulled out my transit card with my unsmiling, ponytailed self glaring out and showed it to the uniformed woman, hoping and praying that she would smile and move on. She did. I don't think I can tell you how relieved I was to not have to pull out my wallet and hand over some exorbitant amount of money. But not, I don't think, as relieved as I was when I recognized Spandau station and that we were slowing down.

Off the train, down the stairs, past the Dunkin Donuts, across the street with the Rathaus on the other side, up to the bus stops, read the bus' doodad, read the bus' doodad, read the bus' doodad THAT'S MY BUS!!!, run, run, run Wait, why aren't people getting on? Oh, because it's not at an actual stop. lalalalalalala MY BUS IS LEAVING??? WHAT THE HECK??? NO!!!!! Oh. It's just pulling around that bus to an actual stop. Pull out card. Get on bus. Find seat. Sit in seat. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Almost there. Wait. Wait. Push stop button. Get off bus. Walk down street. Home!!! Pull out key. Insert in door. Turn key. Turn key. Why isn't the door opening?? Turn key. Turn key. Still not opening.....ring doorbell. Carlo opens door. Thank everything.

I managed to make it home. And that's where I am now. It was a harrowing day. But now, looking back on it....best. freaking. day. This is why I wanted Berlin. So I could go to museums, see the Berlin Wall (which is what we were going to do today, that I did NOT get to do...haha), use public transportation (of course, when I was imagining this, I didn't think it was going to be quite so interesting.) and that's what I got to do today. Use public transportation. I might be complaining that I had lost an entire day to that trip to my house, but the way I'm choosing to look at it is as follows: I might as well get as much use out of that 27 euros as I can, right???

Drei Tage. :)

I've been here for....two days? Yeah...I've been here for two days, today is my third. And it's Mittwoch!! (My favorite day of the week....because how much fun is it to say Mittwoch?? Very!!) And now I have to decide whether I want to go shopping with my host brother and his friend, and use my metro card for the FIRST TIME (because now I can use the transportation because I HAVE A METROCARD!!) or whether I want to go with my host mum and host sister to a zoo. I don't know!! It's hard, not knowing what's being said, or how to say anything, but still having to communicate.

Yesterday was bad, because I realized it. We were all sitting outside and everyone was talking and I couldn't understand them, and didn't know why they were laughing when they were....I felt like such a failure. But then, when I ran away, one of my friends talked to me and yelled at me a little, and told me to suck it up. So I went back downstairs, armed with a box of nerds and forced myself to say a few things, and then haltingly ask my host sister if she wanted to jump on the trampoline. Luckily, she said yes. Then one of the other people came and jumped with us and she patiently, very, very patiently listened to my German. It really boosted my confidence, that I could say some things in German and that they could be understood.

Well, I have to make up my mind now. I'll be back later. Ich liebe Berlin. :)

Ich bin hier!!!

Well, here I am. More than twenty-four hours with less than two of sleep. Yeah. I'm kind of...something right now. But....here's the big thing. I'M HERE. In Berlin. BERLIN. It's...very strange. I've been here for....less than twelve hours and it already feels like home. My host family is amazing. I was kind of worried about having siblings because I never have, but...so far, alles is gut. Sehr gut.

While I was sitting in the gate at JFK, waiting to board, I looked around aimlessly, only to be greeted by the most pleasant of surprises: three other be-blazered girls. I immediately grabbed my bag and ran up to meet them. Of course, since we were boarding and were NOT, needlessly to say, sitting anywhere near each other, I barely met them before finding my seat and settling in to the eight-hour flight. The person sitting next to me was pleasant enough. It was a good flight in the end, with a surprising two hours of snatched sleep. Unexpected snatched sleep. I succeeded in getting a photo with the captain of the flight, as one of my friends and I had decided we were going to do to commemorate our flight. :)

Got off the plane, went through passport control, found the other girls waiting at the baggage claim area and huddled up, trying to get at our bags as they passed. We all failed. And in English, too. :) But luckily for us, there was a very kind gentleman who spoke English and grabbed our bags for us. One of the girls had a massive welcome party with signs and everything. I couldn't find the Weigands and Jürgen behind the signs, but they found me. :) I'm sitting next to Clara right now, typing this. Speaking Deutsch. :) Ist gut. Ich liebe es. (She just corrected me. :) ) 

We went to Berlin Zitadelle today, after I unpacked. Oh, and as a note for any and all exchange students ANYWHERE. If there is ANYTHING that you're taking that has ANY chance of exploding due to pressure, DOUBLE BAG IT. Or at least single bag. Proof:

That, my friends, is blueberry jam I did not think for a second to wrap. I have learned my lesson. I promise. Nobody gets blueberry jam now. Luckily it didn't ruin anything because it was in the stuff suitcase and most of the jam went ON the suitcase or the plastic wrapped and air sucked sweaters next to it. 

Back to the day. Berlin Zitadelle....dang. My club's namesake.....I like Berlin-Zitadelle now even more than I did before. The reason why? 

And that's only one view. There are about three gazillion other options. That's just the coolest one. :)

Und, meine Familie. :) Ich liebe Sie. :)