Ich bin eine Elefant!

hahahah, that's been ida's slogan for the past few days.

Yesterday was jam packed.

after sleeping in ida, linda, carmen, annelie and i went on the free Berlin walking tour. It was so cool. Our guide had so many awesome stories and we saw so much.  It was long too, over 4 hours. We got to see:

-Brandenburger Tor

-the Reichstag

-Stand over Hitler's Bunker

-the Holocaust Memorial (which is actually very close to where I live)

-and theres a really interesting story about how and who they commisioned to create the 

graffiti proof coating. google it, if you wanted to hear it all it would take quite a while

-Book Burning Memorial- a little window into the ground where you see thousands of empty shelves

-Potsdamer Platz

-SS Headquarters

-Museum Island, open doors and free on thursday evenings, i'm soooo there

-The Berlin Wall

-TV Tower, cool but kind of just looks like a massive disco ball to me

-Gendarmenmarkt (a beautiful square with the Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom and the Konzerthaus

-Pariser Platz

-Luftwaffe HQ

-Bebelplatz

i told you we saw so many things!

I highly reccomend the New Berlin tours if you're ever travelling europe.

the tour left us all with full heads and tired bodies so we made our ways home for a bit.  After doing some serious resting and buying groceries i went out.

A kid from our class just moved into a new apartment so he had a party to break it in.

It was a nice place and a lot of fun but just too many americans. no one was talking in german, not even the two lone german people there.  it was primarily UC students which was a bit of a drag just because...well, frankly, i'm around UC students all the time when i'm home.

And i think people have a skewed perception of how santa cruz really is.

One girl had only been to santa cruz on 4/20. ok, NOT santa cruz all the time, and a bit embarassing.

Another guy said he wished he had gone to santa cruz '...because of alll the mushrooms'.

HUH?

ok. NO.

anyhow...

Linda and Ida brought them a housewarming gift of Finnish bread, beer, salt and candy.

Apparently it is Finnish tradition to always bring salt and bread to a new place as a housewarming gift.

Also, the german girl said if you don't look someone in the eye when you Prost, you have bad luck (she said sex but i think it would probably apply in all directions) for 7 years!

We headed out to a different club called White Trash Fast Food.

On the way out we ran into Jakob, a danish guy from class, and his friends, they were going to the same club so we all went together.

A neo-nazi made fun of my german speaking on the train.  I was so shocked that he was making fun of me so meanly until i saw his friends and what he was wearing.  They had shaved heads and were deffffinitely neo-nazis.  It was my first encounter and obviously not a good one.  I didn't defend myself further than saying 'that's not nice at all' and 'i'm learning german' because frankly, i just didn't want to get in an argument with a neo-nazi.  He's a neo-nazi for goodness sake, he probably hates my guts because i have dark eyes or some other irrational reason.  So i think it's for the best i didn't say anything else.

BUT, the club was fantastic.  First a punk band played for a bit then a dj took over which was more fun.  I got winked at by and danced with a drag queen. They loved me! But we hit the road when the drag queen striptease started.  It actually wasn't a drag or gay club at all, drag queens just ran the show i guess. but the show was just a weee bit much for me and we hit the road pretty much immediately.

i'll post pictures soon!