Catching Up

So I'm not really sure where I had left of telling you about the things I had been doing the past couple of days. I think its been about a week but I honestly can't remember. I haven't had that much time to get caught up on sharing what I've done during the day so I'm going to try and cover it all now while I have a little time. It's 11:03 PM (or 23.03 as the Germans would say) and I have some homework to do but this needs to get done.

Sooo, I'll begin with last Friday, the 1st. This was still considered part of our orientation week and we didn't have classes or anything that day and instead had a tour scheduled for Dessau. We had to leave rather early, meeting at the train station at 8.30 AM since Dessau is about and hour and a half south of Berlin. However, and I stress the however part, we were informed of a huge dilemma the night before. The subways and buses that run for public transportation around the entire city weren't going to be running on Friday because of a planned strike. They called this a "warning strike" to show the BVG company that the workers mean business and to set an example of what the city would be like if they went on a real strike for several days. Anyways, the strike was set to begin at Midnight on Thursday and last until 3PM on Saturday. This meant that we would all have to walk to the train station that morning and get up even earlier. "Eww" is what I said. It was about a 35 minute walk and rather cold but we made it. The train ride was really nice and I enjoyed reading an American newspaper I bought and listening to my ipod for most of the trip there. The city was beautiful; very suburban and quiet. There we had two things to do: 1. Tour the Bauhaus and 2. Visit the Ministry of Environmental Affairs to look at the architecture of the building. Both were astounding and very neat. I took lots of pictures and will show everyone when I return. The turned out pretty nice too as the sun started to peak out from behind the clouds and we enjoyed a very nice lunch in the Kantine of the Ministry. All and all it was really fun and enjoyable, even I was beginning to get tired of tours. The ride back was nice, slept most of the way and took it pretty easy that night.

On Saturday, we finally had a day off. Good thing too because it would be rather hard to do anything when the public transportation wasn't going to be running for half the day. I slept in till about 10 or so then my roomate, and our friends Kate and Teddy went to a cafe to get some breakfast and coffee. We came back and just did some homework then decided to find a pool that our program director had been talking about because it was suppose to be close and was an alternative to showering. We found the pool, had to walk of course, and got to stay there for 2hours for 4 euro. Pretty good deal That gave us access to the hot tubs, the pool, the sauna, and the salt bath. It was a good experience but wicked crowded probably because of it being a weekend day and the hot tubs were freezing compared to American hot tubs. They were more like hot baths instead of steaming boiling water that I like. That night Brian and I cooked dinner with a couple other students in the Architecture program (Bobby, Leehan, and Meredith). We made home made pizza and bread with some fine wine. It was delicious! We went to bed really early that night because we had to get again for another tour the very next day.

On Sunday, we had another tour and this time it was in Potsdam. Potsdam is just outside of the city, only about 25 minutes. It, like Dessau, is a former Soviet city of East Germany. Only this city was really nice and very typical of the German stereotypical town. It was mostly Dutch Architecture and very grid and with not a lot of tall buildings. Many of the buildings were made of brick are over 300 years old. I liked it alot and it reminded me of downtown Newport. It was also the city of the former Prussian Emperors and many of the old palaces and kings buildings and gardens are still there and very beautiful. This was a very long day, starting at 10AM and we didn't leave till 5PM. After getting back from Potsdam we all took naps for about 4 hours so that we could stay up late to watch the superbowl. The superbowl here didn't start until 24.00 PM and lasted until 4AM. It was all in German and on a German tv station. The weirdest part was that they aired zero commercials. Every time there should have been a commercial, the simply showed a picture of the field. Not a bad halftime show either. So anyways, didn't get to bed till 5.15AM that morning and slept for 3 hours. Although my 4 hour nap helped before that.

So yeah, theres those three days. It is already thursday here and I still have some German homework to do so I will continue writing about my past few days tomorrow hopefully.....or when I get to it ha. But yea, if you ever have any questions about things I've done or you're just not clear about what I've done don't be afraid to post a comment or email. I look forward to them. Bis Dann, Tschuss!