The Last Few Days

Again, its been a few days since I last posted. But! I'm getting better and better. This week has been pretty fun and unique. I've had my mornings free to get breakfast and do some work, then get some lunch or see a film, then have some German, then go to more screenings. I've been getting back pretty late too, because some of the screenings have been till 10:30 at night or so. Some have been good, and some not so good. I've already seen one screening today, and I have another one in a few hours. That will be the last of the films and the Berlinale. The awards for the competition films, the Bären, took place last night. I didn't get to see any of the competition films and I'm not sure what the results were. I'll have my reviews and everything up for the Berlinale after my last film and will post it probably tomorrow or Tuesday.

To get on with things though, Thursday was a pretty busy day. I got up early to get some work done and do a little shopping at the store around the corner. Then we had a screening of a film that afternoon at 12:30. Thinking back now, I can't quite remember what film it was we saw on that afternoon. If I recall, it wasn't very good. After the film we had to quickly rush across town to make it to our 2:30 German class. We got there a little late but Dagmar (the professor) was more than understanding and was excited to hear from us how the film was......in German of course. After class, I had a meeting with my allergist to talk about getting my shots at 6:00PM. That went ok. He said he would have to talk to Dr. Musmand back in Maine and I actually had to wait in the office for quite a while. Then I just had to go down the street for another class at 7:30. This class was with a Dutch professor, yet he has spent more time in the States than I have, and it was quite interesting. We watched a short documentary and discussed "Mauer im Kopf." This is the idea of unification and the lack of a Wall and how Germans coped with two cultures - East and West. After that, we had our invitations to a Berlinale Party for the Forum Films. This was a lot of fun. Many of the actors and directors were there, although I didn't really recognize much of them and the ones I did recognize, I didn't want to tell them that their film sucked. But it was fun with my friends and our program director actually showed up and we got to hang out with her for most of the night too. It went way too late for my liking though. We didn't get there till about 11 because our class ran till 10PM. And the subways here stopped at 1AM and began again at 4AM. So we either had to leave the party really early, or stay really late. We ended staying really late and took the first UBahn train home.

Friday morning I got up about the same time to do some work then I had to pick up some more tickets for films during the weekend before another movie at 12:30. After this movie, we again had to rush to German class where we watched a classic movie in class called "Good Bye Lenin." We discussed the film afterwards in German and got some homework. After that we went back to Potsdamer Platz to see another film. We were supposed to see two, but myself and another kid could only get tickets to the first one. So we called it an early night.

On Saturday I had to go back to Potsdamer Platz in the morning to get more tickets for Sunday films. I met another kid there to pick them up then we didn't really have anything to do till later in the afternoon. So, to make a boring story short, we went back to his place, had nutella sandwiches, watched some BBC, then went to a cafe to meet up with some other students, then we all went to the Olympia Stadion to see a Fußball (soccer) game. We had tickets to see the local Berlin team play, Hertha - BSC. They played a team called Bielefeld. It was quite the experience. European football doesn't really compare to any sport in the States. The Berlin team ended up winning the game 1:0 with a goal in stoppage time. The crowd went nuts and the fans and subways were crazy for the next couple of hours. After getting some dinner, we went and saw to more screenings in Potsdamer Platz.

This morning, I got up fairly early. I wanted to get some things done and wanted to go out for some breakfast. I went to a local cafe down the street where I'd been once before. The owner was really nice and I had told him that I would be back. So, I went there (it was actually one of the only places open too) and had a wicked good breakfast and got some work and reading done in the cafe. The owner even gave me my glass of OJ for free on the house. I'll definately be going back there again. I went to another screening at 1:00PM today with two other kids and this was a good screening. Now I'm back in the apartment, doing some writing, some reading, some catching up.....you know. My final screening is tonight at 7:00PM. So when I'm done this I'm gonna do a little more reading, then go grab some dinner and see my final movie.

So on that note. I'll be getting back to you all with my thoughts and writings about the Berlinale.

P.S. - My roomate Brain is pretty into photography and has his own website. You should check it out. Heres the link.
http://www.thewanderingarchitect.com/index.html