shopping hell

i kept yesterday mostly open so i could get most of my christmas shopping out of the way.
well, actually I didn't buy anything.
I headed down to KuDamm figuring they would have some nice things for everyone. It was SO insanely crowded.
First i headed through the mini-Christmas Festival. overwhelming part 1.
then took 10 minutes to get about 100 meters down the street.
stopped into Peek & Cloppenburg, a really nice department store. It was even more insane inside. Got shoved around by all the other shoppers foaming at the mouth. Perused some handbags and headed out of there.
The streets were lined with souveneir stands, but when i literally couldn't turn to look at a nutcracker place i decided it was time to go.
i'll try again during the week early in the day. hopefully there will be less people that way.
oh no...this isn't even the worst of it, it's not even December yet!

Aufenhaltstitels

(I definitely did not take this picture, and Berlin doesn't look like this just yet. I just thought it was pretty)



This morning I woke up at 6am to make it to the Ausländerbehörde so I cold get my Aufenhaltstitel (residency permit) because I got hassled at the airport twice because I didn't have it. And technically I only have 3 months to do it, which means I have 2 more days.
That's not going to happen.
The office that i went to very early in the morning is closed permanently for "organizational reasons", meaning that I'm going to have to wake up at the crack of dawn, again, wait in a long line to get this darn thing.
i guess it's ok because i realized after the fact that my passport pictures aren't 'biometric'. They're really big on this 'biometric' stuff. it means you're face has to be centered, almost to the edges of the photo, completely straight up-and-down face, and no smiling. I was smiling in mine...
only the germans would prevent you from smiling :)

in other news, last night Ida, Linda 2 and I went to see Deathcab for Cutie. The opening band was also really good. At first I was a bit hesitant about this concert because they are by all means not my favorite band, and i can find them a bit...melancholy, after a while. But I love live music, and i want to see lots of concerts while i'm here, so i decided to just go for it and see them.
They turned out to actually be really good though and I had a great time.
However, the girl in front of me was a bit too into it and wouldn't stop dancing. and i mean like, club dancing...at a deathcab for cutie concert. anyhow, she would frequently dance her way into blocking my view. No hard feelings though. I've had my fair share of being the 'annoying dancing girl' at concerts that i'm just way too into. so, i guess i should say: rock on dancing girl! just don't block my view... :)

and yesterday i went on my first snow run. It was ok. i learned that i should probably wear my snowboarding gloves because my hands were FREEZING. i ran extra slow but felt super tough running in the snow. My new cold weather running gear + old northface were definitely sufficient, except for my butt got really cold at the end.
However, afterwards i was completely exhausted. it wasn't an especially long run either. normal length at a slower pace. but it really just sucked it out of me.
something to get used to!

Dublin Times

Actually, we were recommended by locals not to read the Dublin times. Apparently it is reserved for old people. The guy who i bought a poster from specifically told me to wrap it in a Dublin Times. haha, anyhow.

I spent the weekend in Dublin with Ben and Alan, two kids from UCSC.
I skipped my Friday lecture and caught a plane over there. This sounds flakey, skipping lecture and all. But i assure you, i spent the night before going through all the slides, taking notes and studying them. I actually lerned more that way that I actually do during the lectures....anyhow,

My flight was at 12:50 and they recommend you check in 2 hours early. It being my first time at Schönefeld Airport, i figured i would leave myself three. I was SO early that i had to wait almost 2 hours to even check in. Better early than late though, right! (we'll see a repeat of this later in the trip) Got through securtity, and thereafter realized i accidentally smuggled in my tear gas. The security lady even took out my bag of liquids, held it up and just scolded me because i guess the zip lock too big, no qualms about the tear gas though! Although it's pink, it's definitely still a weapon and i was a bit surprised that i got it through both there and back. oh well!
After waiting for 2 hours, then another 45 minutes (the plane was late), and then 30 minutes inside of the plane on the ground, almost 3 hours in the air (we were flying against the wind), and 30 minute bus ride into the city i finally made it!

met up with ben and he showed me the way back to the hostel. Alan, ben and i wandered around a bit.
Got situated with the pretty part of the city. We had plans to find something, but i forgot what...Keep in mind, i'm writing this on about 2 hours of sleep. We ate dinner at FARM, an organic restaurant. I got some tasty apple champagne drink and an asian salad. Afterwards we headed to the shopping area and searched for gloves for ben.
We explored the trinity campus a bit and then dropped into JUICE, a vegetarian restaurant, for some coffee. I got a soja latte and a fruit crumble. The fruit crumble was delicious. Warm baked apples, apricots and pears covered in cinnamon and baked seeds. My soy latte was kind of weird though. And the waitress made us move twice which i didn't like. so we didn't tip.

then we headed to the pub. At the first pub we met a nice old man and talked beer with him. After losing our seats after visiting the toilets, we all headed to a different pub. there were seats here which was nice. Here we chatted and danced in our seats for a long time. We also met 3 really friendly Irish girls. They gave us some pointers on what we should do while here. They also told us not to read the Irish Times. They were super friendly and took us out dancing. 10 euro in and the drinks were SO expensive, so i skipped that. We danced for a long time and it was such a blast. The irish drunken dudes were kind of bro-like. Like the jock-ish type california guys with huge lifted trucks. Not in the way they dressed, but they were all such tools. But the 3 locals, ben, alan and i still had an amazing time nonetheless. We actually never got their names, but it was great to hang with locals. From here we all went home, so pooped.

But then after about 2 hours of sleeping, our inconsiderate Bavarian roomates came in, turned on the lights, kept on the lights and were really loud. I couldn't believe how rude! they were very drunken, but still!

So after a shabby sleep, we woke and headed to search for breakfast. Got some bagels and made our way on the long walk to the IMMA museum. Walking turned out to be a good idea, because we saw so many cool things along the way.
IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) was really cool but we were exhausted by the end of it. We recharged with fruit and coffee at the museum cafe. Here i learned how much i like a good Americana.

Ireland was really cold. I looked at the weather online, and it incorrectly told me it would be around 10 Grad. NO, it was way colder at around 2 or 3 grad. So i was kind of a stiff eskimo most of the time.

We had been recommended a pub, Ryan's Pub, but because of the rugby match it was incredibly crowded. After dropping in we headed pretty much immediatly out. Caught a bus back to the main part of town and started our search for dinner. We decided upon a soup and wrap place. I got some vegetarian sushi and a garbanzo bean salad. Alan and ben got stew bread bowls. Really tasty meal. After re-charging i found an AWESOME accessory store with crazy cool headpieces, coinpurses and hats. I splurged on a cooky red felt head piece and got a gift for someone. I would have bought more of those crazy things if they weren't so darn expensive. Not exactly an irish souveneir but i don't think i'll be able to get it anywhere else!
I think i'll be wearing it over christmas or some other festive party, so a picture will come eventually. but they're kinda like those things Kenley would wear in Project Runway.

We all had flights at 6am, meaning we would have to get to the airport at 4am, meaning we would have to leave at around 315am, meaning we weren't sleeping that night. Plus we only paid for one night in the hostel.
But this was a loooooooong, good, fun night that included:
-coffee shop till closing
-visiting cheese shop to ask recommendations as to where to go when you have to stay up all night
-went to the recommended Library Bar in the Central Hotel where we sat for hours drinking wine and talking about the environment and medicine.
-Took stuff out of hostel locker
-started raining really hard
-took shelter in a burger king for the next 3 hours until we caught a bus to the airport

i think the Dublin airport is absolutely the coldest airport...ever. metal seats, cold hard (but glittery) floor, and AC pumped even when it's practically snowing outside. this made for an extremely uncomfortable 'nap' before my flight.
Said bye to Ben and Alan and got on my plane. Slept but was in literal pain my legs and feet were so cold.
I think i hit my cold threshold while i was on the plane because i just couldn't get warm for the life of me and actually couldn't even imagine the concept of 'warm' any longer.
Got to berlin, caught a bus saw some new parts of berlin, u bahn to s bahn and home!
the city was covered in snow and just beautiful.
it was great to feel like i was coming home.

dublin was great and i think i finally got my concept of time back after a 3 hour nap. spent most of today enjoying being warm.

can't wait to see what this snow business has in store for me!


p.s. i have way more pictures but blogger isn't let me upload all of them right now but you can go here and see them if you want.

luckiest unlucky person

yesterday i went on a really awesome run, until the end when it started raining.
and until i got back to my house and realized my room keys had fallen off of my key chain. i had all my other keys BUT my two keys that let me into my house and room.
shoot!
alone, in the rain without money, cell phone and only wearing jogging clothes.
after some frantic pacing and looking around i saw the custodian getting into her car.
sprinted across the street and asked for help. she told me to the Vermieterin's office. But of course, they're closed on wednesdays.
So she very kindly started calling someone and was going to let me into the house so i wasn't standing alone in the rain.

while she was doing this, i luckily saw the Vermieterin walking past. After tons of waiting and 130 euros later, i have a key.
and because they don't want somone finding my keys and coming into my room, they changed my lock and gave me new keys today.

a hassle, but i'm just glad i can get into my room and didn't have to spend the night sleeping in jogging clothes on the street.

tomorrow i go to dublin!

Wanna meet my band?

Pictures will be coming soon. I just have to upload them... :)

But here is what I've been up to for the past week or so.

Thursday: Roisin Murphy was SO GOOD!!! She was so awesome live. It's the type of music that can be really theatrical and awesome in person. The whole place felt like a club and she had some crazy outfits & props as well. I've also never seen such stylish fans in my life. The concert was in Kreuzberg and the crowd was primarily gay, extremely 'chic' artisty types. Ida and i were pretty close, but due to the amoung of men, we couldn't really see all that well. But during the middle of the concert i naturally had to use the bathroom. So when i got back there was NO way i could find Ida so i just situated myself as close as i could. But i ended up seeing the show better than i could before!
It was a really great night. There are a lot more good concerts coming up so i'm definitely going to keep going.

Friday
went jogging, and then to my genetics lecture. The lecture itself was, ok. It wasn't anything new to me so i wasn't completely engaged. Afterwards I was contemplating skipping visiting this vegetarian restaurant before I had to pick up my shoes from the shoe repair people. But boy am i glad i went!
I made my way down to Kreuzberg and visited Yellow Sunshine. Here i got a seitan vegan cheeze burger plus a dessert of vegan tiramisu.
HOLY SMOKES
if i remember what fudruckers tasted like, this was it, but better and probably (hopefully) healthier. it was soooo good. i had devoured it by the time i got to the U-Bahn station (2mins). The tiramisu, i ate at the station. It was pretty good, but overall forgettable. The meal as a whole though was sooo good. It felt nice to eat some junk food after a week of healthy-ish food. I'm too lazy to make anything too complicated so steamed veggies + tofu is a VERY common meal.
In my food bliss i traveled to pick up my shoes from the cobbler and headed home.

This left me with about 20 minutes to get to the Bundeskanzlerampt, which is ilike the german White House. Well, 20 minutes was too long and i definitely should have left earlier. i thought a different building was the Bundeskanzlerampt and ended up trying 4 different entrances asking if they knew where my group was. Finally one official helped me figure out that i indeed was not at the correct building. I made it through secruity late and caused a bunch of annoyed, huffy puffy sighs, but i was just glad i made it in. After all my frantic wandering around i had finally made it!
Because you have to make an appointment about 3 months in advance, i wanted to make sure i didn't miss it.

But the actual tour wasn't all that amazing. It was cool, but to me it was kind of like a really nice office building with REALLY nice art.

sadly, during all my wandering around through gravel and grated vents (i don't know why they had so many of these here), i lost the heel thingies for both of my boots...
so i guess it's back to the cobble tomorrow!

i took a little nap and then met up wiht some friends in a different house of Siegmunds Hof. This was really fun but then we all got an itching to dancing. After too much thinking it over we finally just said 'LET'S GO!' and went. Maybe we should have thought more because the club we chose sucked. We went to Bang Bang Club, and it was indie-pop music. The music wasn't that bad except for me having liked them 5 years ago and they would play the same songs over and over again.
All the people there were kind of young too...and emo. I even got a youngin trying to impress me with: "here, meet my band. I'm the singer'
...uh, no.
pretty much left after that.

Saturday
Emilie and i wanted to go shopping. I need a new sleeping mask and she wanted hand gloves. We went to a VERY crowded AlexanderPlatz and had a lot of fun laughing at old woman clothes. There was also an Animal liberation demonstration going on. I took a peek to see if they had any free goodies but ditched it when i saw that there were none. There were a lot of police and they were playing bad music so i didn't see much of a reason for me being there. Well, Emilia bought a dog shirt for her friends dog and i didn't buy anything. It got really dark really fast and that made us both tired. After stopping first to buy groceries i headed home, ate and then napped.
That evening Ida, Anna and i went out. We all didn't know where to go and wanted to try somewhere new. After dropping by Alexanderplatz so i could visit an ATM, we all decided upon Watergate. This is the club that I tried last weekend but the girl was drunk so she couldn't get in. The line wasn't too terrible but we were kind of nervous because it was just opening up (01:15). Ida got a text about some 'underground' club in kreuzberg but i was not budging. It was already kinda late and i wanted to see what it was like before we left to some unknown place.
SOOOO glad i stayed. Really fun music and fun people. We danced the whole night until Ida couldn't feel her legs anymore. I could have danced longer but when your friend can't feel her legs, that's a pretty clear signal to go.

picked up some snacks before we waited for the S-Bahn back home. Ida's can only take one S-Bahn so we had to wait about 40 minutes. Not really a problem, it's not really that unusual to not sleep very much on weekends.

Sunda
went to grocery store. Translated notes for a bit.

Today
just had chem and now i'm about to head to my lab. It's only 3:16 and already dark though!
every day i feel like i'm in a Harry Potter movie or something :)

germany has treated me really wonderfully today.
to recount my day i:
woke up early for my 8am Mikrobiologie lecture in Wedding. I was actually running late but somehow ended up getting there early. I even had a pretty good time understanding the professor...minus all his jokes ;/

headed home and went on a really enjoyable run.
i also played hooky for my next lecture.
twice a week i have an hour-long chemistry lecture. seeing as how i've already taken chemistry i'm sure you can understand how incredibly boring this is for me. well, i have all his lecture slides that he follows strictly, and technically attendance isn't even mandatory, soooo i decided to take just one day off for myself.

i headed off to Alexanderplatz.I was going to change to the U-Bahn here to head to a shoe store I had heard about, then i realized i wasn't wearing socks so I dropped off to buy some and a tarrif card for my handy.

well well well, walking across the platz some cell phone promotion dude started to walk towards me and i did my usual speed-up, smile awkwardly and try to avoid eyecontact business to avoid being hassled into a newspaper subscription, cell phone plan or something else.
well he asked me my name, and i pulled the 'confused don't speak german, wide eyed' look that usually gets these people off my back pretty quick, buuutt, then he started to speak in german. introduced himself and said 'i just saw the most beautiful girl walking across the platz and i had to find out her name', i was like 'HUH?', then he said 'you have the best vibes, keep smiling and i hope you have a great day!'
didn't even try to sell me something!

a little weird, surprising and definitely unexpected. but hey, who doesn't like a compliment now and then.

from alexander platz i headed to Rosenthaler Straße to buy some shoes.
I had heard about Calypso Shoes before and it's famous for having the best vintage shoes. Last week i had tried to visit the store, but went the wrong way on Rosenthaler Straße and got pretty lost... But the owner from the picture is known as 'the Queen of All Shoes' and she either she likes you, or she really doesn't. But she totally loved me! She spent so much time with me helping me find the perfect pair of winter boots. After a few pairs I finally decided upon some half-calf black boots with the coziest, warmest fuzzy lining. they feel like un-ugly uggs. hahah, that's a mouthfull. but after this weekend when i came home and couldn't feel my toes they were so cold, i came to the realization that i'm going to be needing warmer boots.
after purchasing the boots i realized the sole was a bit undone and so she handed me 5 euros and gave me the address of the nearby cobbler.

On the way walking there i was racking my brain trying to find the vocab to describe my shoe situation. on the way i dropped into an organic bakery, bought some REALLY bad bread and used their bathroom. really all i needed to do was use the toilet but i felt uncomfortable doing so without buying something. but they lady working was so nice and cheerful that i probably could have without a problem. too late now, and i ate the bread anyways :)
but i got to the cobbler and the lady working was super friendly and explained what they will do to them and i can pick them up tomorrow after 3. And it's only costing 4.50 euro! So technically i just made 50 cents :)

i had planned on visiting the all-vegan store and a vegan fast food place that has desserts, but i didn't really have an appetite any more so instead i just headed to the grocery store. I'll probably head there tomorrow after picking up my shoes.

Tonight Ida and I are going to the Roisin Murphy concert!!! We bought the tickets a while back so it's cool that we're finally going. I'll post some picture tomorrow.

And tomorrow with the EAP people, we're going on a tour of the Bundeskanzleramt which is like the german White House. You have to make reservations way in advance so i think it will be cool.

things have been going really great, and as always i'll keep you posted!

Mein Leben ist wunderschön!

i'm happy to report that the past few days have been really great.
since obama got elected and my rash went away i've just been in the most wonderful mood.

on friday i had my genetics lecture in North berlin. I went on a morning jog which was unusually difficult and headed to class refreshed. My class is in english and it felt so good to understand everything and really be totally engaged. it also felt really good because i already pretty much knew everything we learned today. when he would ask the class questions i would always answer correctly and what not.
i'm not sure what it is, but something about the location and the class just put's me in a really feelgood-happy mood.
i spoke the professor afterwards about what i need to do to get a grade in the class. i had emailed him previously so he knew who i was. all i have to do is go to the lectures and attend the final, thats it!
still terrifying that there is only one thing that determines my grade in the class though.
and apparently his son studied in napa which is not too far away from santa cruz which was cool to know. he was very nice in that awkard german sort of way.

i took my time walking to the s-bahn station picking up some fruit and cola light on the way there.
from here i traveled to Rosenthaler Straße to buy some used boots. My boots, however cute, cheap and wonderful they are they are definitely NOT waterproof. and when i'm living in a place where it is going to rain non-stop for a few months, waterproof shoes are absolutely essential.
i've heard a lot about this used shoe place, apparently they call the owner and only employee the 'shoe queen', and she either likes you...or not.
but i've also heard they have really good, reasonably priced used shoes. and that's exactly what i want.
well, due to my usual hesitance to use a map i ended up getting lost in semi-familiar places for an hour and a half.
but it was totally ok. i often play the game 'follow the trendy people' to try and find cool shops or cafe's, usually it works but this time i walked through the really cool areas but ended up in some turkish area in Friedrichshain.
i didn't find my shoes but had a really enjoyable walk and bought some really awesome postcards.
i ALSO found a really awesome organic-vegetarian buffet place that i visited today.

i came home from this a bit pooped, so i napped.
napped a bit too long and didn't end up actualy going out until half past 11.
i first met in House 1, across the street from me. i met up with my polish friend, her two visiting friends and a french gal.
we shared a beer on the first floor. kind of funny because NONE of us actually live there :)
i'm not sure how they decided to hang out there, but it worked!
from here we went to meet up with some other kids. We were going to go to a karaoke bar but the people we were meeting (a bunch of french kids) were WAY too drunk, so we ditched that idea.
so instead we went to Zapatas.
i quite like zapatas and here we danced the night away. acutally it was mostly Romain (swiss) and me. the rest of the people got tired and went home. but being the dance machine i am, i was determined to cut a rug till the wee hours of the night.
i met some, ehem, interesting people and am very glad i was not alone.
but i was a popular gal, sheesh.
romain and i got invited to go to the infamous Panorama club. i really want to go eventually and the people that invited us seemed cool. but i didn't feel like putting in the effort to wait in another line for an hour when it was already super late.
so romain and i kind of made a run for it. i was so beat when i got to the trainstation so it was a good that i didn't go.

but i woke up at 10am this morning! what the heck!
i forced myself back to sleep and at 130 i went out to lunch with ida.
i initially wanted to go to this vegetarian restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg but we got off at Friedrichstraße instead of Alexander Platz and decided to look from there.
Good thing i got lost yesterday because i was able to recall the buffet i had seen!
it was delicciousss.
not so cheap but i don't even care. it was healthy, tasty and fast.

from here we headed to Gneisenaustraße a really beautiful part of mitte/kreuzberg (i think).
and i'm so happy to say that i found a really good used record store! it kind of reminded me of Poo Bah in Pasadena.
We spent some time browsing and i picked up a Kate Nash and Neil Young cd. Then we browsed some of the shops around the area. and in a store i definitely ate it after tripping over some display thing and fell into a rack of clothes.
hahahah, always making life interesting :)
but our destination was this Eis salon that i heard had soy ice cream.
the line was annoyingly long and these teenagers cut me in line >|
but when i was finally able to order i found out that they didn't have soy ice-cream but they did have organic vegan waffles, so i ordered that instead.
SO DELICIOUS. i had mine with agave nectar and apple sauce. they were heartshaped sugary waffles of goodness.

in our sugar-bliss states, ida and i explored the area a bit and found a crappy flea market, visited a really small grocery store and went home.

tonight we're going to Watergate club, two djs are having a release party so it should be fun!

prop 8

(now how can you want to make their marraige invalid?)

in light of obamas victory i just keep growing more and more angry over proposition 8 in california.
one person said 'i firmly believe that the definition of marraige should not be changed and defined by the choices of a few'

i think the key words here are 'changed', 'choices' and 'few'.
first off.
it wouldn't be changing the definition of marraige, it would be keeping the costitution as it is.

second off.
being gay is NOT A CHOICE. do people choose to be straight? no. it's not a phase, it's not for attention. it's who you end up loving and who you're attracted to. and it's not easy being different so why would 10% (arguably more, and i think of sexuality on a spectrum scale rather than white and black anyways) of everyone choose such a difficult path?

thirdly.
it's not a few. these are our friends. theses are members of our church and family. heck, these are republicans that hold public office.

on the day when americas first black president was elected, and the minorities could rise up and celebrate this great moment in history, millions of californian homosexuals are being denied legal affirmation that they indeed are equal citizens.
proposition 8 literally takes away the rights of homosexuals and is a legal statement that being gay is not OK.
i see this as very not OK.

i am a believer that love is what makes a family strong. not traditionality.

and how is proposition 8 protecting families?
by encouraging hate and discrimination? By teaching that a homosexuals should not be entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals? by treating gay people not as equals, but as the 'other few'?

while america has taken a huge leap forward, california has fallen flat on its butt.

i hope by the time i have kids they will have the opportunity to fall in love, and marry who they want.
something needs to be done about this closed mindedness, i'm not sure how to go about it, but such thinking is dangerous and appaling.

and to think the mormon church was one of, if not the greatest Prop8 supporters. A church that prides themselves on such high 'morals'. i don't see this as being moral in any respect. the passing of this proposition used Gods name in vain, encourages hate and is a huge manifestation of fear.
if everyones marraiges were so strong how would allowing more people in love to get married affect theirs?

all i can say is hopefully either Obama will get this straigtened out or that the supreme court will change things before i have children.

Yes we can! Yes we DID!

things got really good really fast.
first things first,
OMABA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been a while since i've felt so proud to be an american.
i can't help but feel like we're standing at the dawn of a new age, and that we're finally approaching change. I am so happy to hear that my country spoke its voice and voted for change. That we weren't blinded by old party lines, skin color or any other reasons and voted for who i truly believe is the best president for america.
i'm filled with so much hope. Obama, don't let us all down. It is truly inspiring how inspired everyone has become, our faith in this country has been renewed.
ahhh,

well, i was at an election party last night. it was actually pretty lame, cheezy music, expensive everything, and too many old people (no offense mom and dad :) ). But at least all those old people danced! hahahah, and people accused the germans of being bad dancers, these americans beat them all.
but i've been spending the morning watching obama videos with teary eyes. :)

and in other good news, i found out if i participate in the chemistry praktikum I will definitely have enough units and if it doesn't work out i can do an idependent project.
BUT i finally got an email back from the genetics professor and he seemed really nice and said i wouldn't have to participate in the 8 hour long laboratory!! He also welcomed me to participate in the class and said to get a grade all i would have to do would be participate in the final exam. To get written proof that i participated in the class i just need to attend about 2/3rds of the class and get his signature after each one.

So things have looked up really fast!
i'm just walking on air and all my anxiety hast been blown to the wind. i need to not get so stressed out.

but i hope prop 8 and 4 don't pass, let's hope california doesn't let me down!

but for good measure.

rash-tastic

ok, so it seems i may not be taking enough units. i got an email from a different EAP advisor saying that i absolutely have to take 18 units, so i need to find SOME class to take. I've been looking online for the past hour trying to figure something out, i really hope they'll let me take a deficit load so i don't have to take some random entry level physics course or something. There's the possibility of doing an independent study. I would have to find a professor (scary) to be my advisor. Hopefully Margaret Morse, the other EAP advisor and also a UCSC professor could be my advisor and since she's a media studies prof i could just watch a bunch of movies and write some papers. i HOPE HOPE HOPE this is possible.
ugh,
well this plus the election has really taken a toll on my body.
my gnarly facial rash has gotten worse, and more itchy, i've gotten weird red dots all over half my face and neck and i'm half shakey/tired. I feel like i drank too much coffee but i haven't had any today...
i'm just waiting for all of this stuff to get worked out, my body can't take it!

I have my lab tonight and i feel prepared! Hopefully i won't be the last to leave (like usual). It's hard not to though when you're constantly having to double check to see you're doing the right thing. You think bio labs are confusing? Try doing it in german!

In anycase, i hope whoever is reading this went out and voted (preferably obama). Hopefully prop 8 won't pass and the US will have a nice new, not an evil marvel comic book villian character, as a president.

here are some of the pictures i left out in yesterdays post.

not the most flattering photo ever, but i promised i'd post it, sooo here you go!

hallo-ween

So things have been good in Berlin. I'm getting used to it being cold, rainy and overcast all the time. And it's starting to get dark and FOUR. Winters pretty much here.
Friday was Halloween. Mateusz, Emilia (both from Cracow), some brazilian kids and I went to a Halloween party at Laura's (italien) WG.
It was a bit too crowded for my tasted but fun nonetheless.
However, a friend of mine got way too drunk, which resulted in me getting poked in the eye incredibly hard from her flailing arms. Seriously though, it was unforgettably hard. Most everyone went to another club, but seeing how i couldn't open my eye Ida and I headed home.
On the train back my eye somewhat recovered but I just kind of looked really cracked out with crazy eyes and wings. (photo is pre-eye poke)
I ran into a good acquaintance of mine, he plays bass for that band i talked about earlier, but i forgot his name...something german:)
Anyhow, he invited me into Bierkeller (the pub at Siegmunds Hof) because there was a party. Here i saw a few of my finnish friends. The music was really bad and the spanish boys were all too friendly so i went to my room to sleep.

Saturday: Didn't really do all that much during the day because I woke up pretty late. Spent the morning looking at food blogs (like usual) and went to the gym. i met a really nice russian-german dude who wants me to help him with english. This is a reoccuring problem. When people find out english is our native tounge, all they want to do is practice their english with you!
This happened during class on friday also. I met a nice german girl who spent 2 summers ago backpacking the sierra nevadas. She told me about some play going on. Who knew the technical uni also had drama classes? But at least she spoke both to me...
I met up with Mateusz and Emilia beforehand so we could head down to Grunewald together where a party was happening. Both of them never fail to crack me up. I expected the Grunewald party to just be a few kids in the kitchen but it was a legit party in a special room and everything! People were dressed up also! There were free drinks (they were disgusting as well)
and tons of fun halloween cheer. I had planned on going to a club afterwards but the music ended up being so good so i stuck around and had such a blast. Mateusz clearly had a good time as well.

sunday:
i didn't really sleep in all that much so i spent most of the morning looking at flights to Vienna.
I have a friend who was in my german class who i plan on visiting for a long weekend in january. Even better, he has a couch so i don't need a hostel! Since the others took a bit longer to wake up and get ready we didn't leave for Schloss Charlottenburg until half past three.
We wandered the grounds for a good 2 hours and were going to enter the museum but it had gotten dark, we were all exhausted and it cost 7 euro...
It was SO beautiful though, every where you looked would make a beautiful picture. We had lots of fun posing with the statues and making fun of the ducks which is surprisingly funny in german. What was also fun were the INSANELY FAT baby statues. So weird and hilarious.
I plan to go back to jog to switch things up from tiergarten.
Speaking of jogging i'm going this wednesday to jog up the 'devils mountain'. Wish me luck!

Today i had class. It was long, drawn out and incredibly boring. After my microbiology course i had a history course that i was thinking about crashing (i'll explain in a paragraph). This course was INSANELY boring. Aside from it being all in quickly-spoken german, there were no notes, handouts, overheads or anything. It was just the prof lecturing in a monotone voice for almost two hours.
fun.
and then i had my german course that made me work hard to keep my eyes open.

So i came to the quick realization today that i have to have my classes all sorted out in about 2 weeks. Eap requires you take 18 units and with my schedule now, i'm only taking 15.5. Soooo stressful.
It actually caused me to break out on a rash on face.
Just what i need, to be rashy and stressed out.
but i'm feeling a lot better after emailing my advisor (the one that actually emails back). She said we can figure out getting my 'deficit schedule' approved. She forwarded the message she recieved from the Big EAP office and things sound good since the classes i am taking are generally intensive.
and by intensive i mean we meet kind of often. i have yet to have substantial homework and all this freetime makes me nervous.

i promise to post more pictures soon! i even got the picture of me and the bear from ages ago. I think something is up with blogger because it is not letting me load anymore.

well the benedryl is kicking in anyways, so
bis später!