Bodacious Berlin!

Meine Damen und Herren! I hope everyone had a happy and chocolate filled easter this season. Also I hope your easter was alot warmer than mine was, because believe it or not here in the wonderful world of Germany it was much colder for easter than it was for Christmas!!! How Neat is That!!! But before any of that happened we all had to bunch together in a big coach bus and take the long 7 hour hall to berlin which actually didn't seem like that long. Mostly because I was knitting, reading, sleeping, and zoning outside the whole time. Now at this point a lot of you I'm sure are going, "What on earth could Neal be knitting this time?" and to answer your question I decided that since my language teacher that we've had for the past six weeks was such an amazing teacher, and I couldnt thank her enough with words I figured I wanted to thank her instead by knitting her a pink scarf that she can have even after I'm gone. But I digress, Once we got there we all piled out and got to our hostel pleasantly named The Three Little Pigs Hostel. We wasted no time dropping off our stuff and began just hiking all around Berlin and saw all the major and world renown statues, and buildings, and landmarks all around Berlin. If i were to guess a mileage I'd have to say that we walked around 5 miles just that one day. And the problem was that the day before either my camera or my battery for my camera decided it didn't want to work anymore, but luckily I just used my IPod to take all 294 pictures of all of Berlin. The second day was bitterly cold around 40 degrees and luckily for the first half of the day we had a bus tour, but for the second half it was all walking which wasnt so much fun. And on this said bus tour our tour guide explained that Berlin was the sunniest city in Germany and as he is saying this it was snowing outside with no a crack of sunshine poking through the crowds. And so for the second part of our tour as we walked around Berlin basically we all huddled together like this. Then on the last full day there we were going to take a 9 hour excursion through the Berlin forests and what have you, but since it was so bitterly cold, they had the heart just to let us go to whatever museum we choose and bring back the ticket as proof that we went. But the other obstacle with that was that Berlin has around 170 museums ranging from History of course all the way to abstract art, and every decade in between. The other option was to go to some of the surrounding flea markets around Berlin, and being that it was a better than expected day out, and wasnt in the mood for museum searching, they  got a good group together and we took trains around the city going to various flea markets which turned out to be really interesting. I did'nt buy anything, but some of the stuff they were selling was very bizarre, and some very questionable. After that we all came back and crashed for a couple hours with a nice mid day nap because the night ahead of us was pretty eventful. For the night life, we walked around a lot of Berlin going in and out of bars and ended up posting up in a bar that had a tab in the middle of the table and everyone would just pick a number on the screen above it, and take as much as they wanted and when someone else wanted to fill up they would click their number and it would monitor how much that person poured. After a long, fun filled night we all made it back home safely to our beds, and in the morning we all hopped on the bus for our journey back home that was much worse than the trip there. I had finished my knitting so all I had left to do was read and sleep, which both were impossible because of all the yelling and seat kicking that happend on the entire ride home. Luckily instead of dropping us all in town and having to take buses back to our places, they drove us all to our dorms. Ours being the first was the best, because after 7 hours on a loud, hot, and smelly bus, I just wanted to crash in my room and just sleep off the rest of the day. Plus our first day of classes started the next day, so I ended up calling it an early night so that I would be dozing off in class. I actually really love my classes too. I have one called Globalizing Capitalism, which is mostly filled with discussion about what our views on globalization, is and if its achievable or not. It's just a lot of brain storming and idea forming which I love to do so I wasnt bored at all in the classroom. And for my second class its called Intercultural Competance, where it's also mainly coming up with definitions of what culture is, and how does one define it, and what goes hand in hand with culture. But just yesterday I was thinking to myself I got my first round of classes left and thought about how I only have 8 more weeks and 8 more classes until I'm back home, which was a bit of a surprise, mostly because when I think of the first day of classes I am used to thinking I have a whole semester ahead of me, but I guess not. But thats all the news for today folks I hope summer is staying more prevalent instead of sporadic warm and cold days like we are having here. Bis spater!

"Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power."

Henry George