noch krank

hallo!
currently i'm correcting a dude on my floor's thesis. he had to write it in english and wanted to get a native speaker to proofread it for him.
stuff is 20 pages long. it's about tuburculosis so that's interesting but it's turning out to be a bit harder than expected. he's paying me but i'm still trying to figure out how much i'm going to charge. any suggestions?
anyhow, here's my break from that.

most of my pals are already at home so things have been kinda slow around here.
but last night was quite fun. a friend and i met up at a weinerei (winery) in mitte. how the winery works is that you pay 2 euro for the cup and can fill it up as many times as you want and then at the end you pay what you think it was worth.
that would NOT work in america.
anyhow,
it was really fun and the wine was tasty but we deeefffffinitely forgot to pay. honestly, it didn't even cross my mind till we were eating falafel afterwards.
speaking of which, i'm pretty sure it has msg or some other addictive additive in it because my mind is always on falafel, and when i eat it i just think of how there's probably no better food in the world.
after that heaven in my mouth we headed of to a small club. we thought it was going to be soul night but it turned out to be reggae night. still way fun and we danced until quite late.
and OF COURSE i woke up at 11 am sharp this morning.
i'm hoping that when i'm back in california i'll get my sleeping back into the groove because i can't seem to get much here.

whatever, worth it!

and i finally got all my christmas shopping done, yay! all i have to do is pack clothes and i am ready for california. and the weather i've been hearing about better turn around because i've been bragging non stop about how wonderful california weather is, so i hope it lives up! really though, i've ended up idealising california so much i'm not even sure if what i'm thinking is close to what it really is.
guess i'll find out!

sicko:(

i'm taking the night off cuz i've been pretty sick for the past two days.
just got up from a nap actually. i had really weird dreams about swimming with dolphins and stuff...i guess being sick will do that to you.
i started to feel kind of ill on tuesday but still decided to have cocktails with friends and then go to a Weihnachtsabendessen afterwards to say bye to everyone before we all head back to our home countries for Xmas. So i guess Glühwein doesn't really coun't as a homeopathic cure to a head cold. Just because it's warm doesn't mean it's good for you. I figured this out after i woke up sounding like a 57 yearold new york taxi driver with the black lung.
anyhow, still didn't keep me from my gift buying ways.
i now have no money (actually no money) but you brizzos at home will have gifts!

on wednesday i woke up late, took the morning to shop a bit and let myself get lost in Mitte (like always).
and mid evening Emilia and i met up for some more shopping at Warschauer Straße. After getting what i needed we had a bit to eat at probably the worst restaurant in berlin. It was insanely cheap, and you could taste it. I had vegetable risotto and she had pizza. We both complained about how oversalted and gross they were. I'm pretty sure it went straight from the freezer into the microwave. But how much could i complain when i got a meal + bread +tea for 5 euros.
the proof is in the pudding though, you get what you pay for!

today i had early Mikrobiologie then Chemie, where our prof yelled at us for being so loud. He said everyday with us was like being in a kindergarten.
i quite agree with him though. I'm not sure what it is, but everyone in the lectures are always soooooo loud and talk through the entire lecture. It's really quite rude but everyone seems to do it. But in this particular lecture today, everyone was especially loud, cracking open beers left and right, laughing loudly. yes, students do drink beer in class here. gotta love germany!
but it kind of makes me uncomfortable because that stuff isn't really tolerated back in the states, or at least not as much. maybe it has something to do with having to pay for university.

headed down to the zoo to tranfer money from american account to german, fell asleep and here i am now!
i was thinking about going to 'Soul Night' at a club but i don't think that's a good idea.

so instead i'm spending my time plotting how i can continue this experience for as long as possible. Really though, i don't know if i'll be allowed to have as much fun as i'm having right now again in my life.
Since 2nd semester is totally ruled out of the picture i'm thinking i can come back after school lets out for summer in santa cruz?
maybe chill with everyone while they finish up, then live with a friend and travel some more.
and then come back to either germany, spain or italy to study abroad again during graduate school.
most, if not all of my friends seem to be graduate students. so by darn! i'm doing the same!
but summer plans definitely means i have to find a job so keep your fingers crossed for me on that one!

busy bee

hallo!
ok, so i've been heck of busy lately doing tons of fun stuff. but that means i was out dancing/cafe-ing till 7 last night and for goodness knows what reason, woke up at 11am this morning.
so i'm dead tired and need to sleep.
but more to come! i can assure you though, that i am absolutely loving it more and more every day here.

oops!

I'm back from Wedding after showing up to the wrong lecture. Turns out my Genetik lecture was moved to 8:15am this morning, i definitely forgot all about the change. gosh darnit!

anyhow,
this week has been really fun so far.
Wednesday!
the TU erasmus had a Weinachtsfest in the Volkswagen Bibliothek. Sadly to say, it was my first time in the library....
but it was a fun party. They had Glühwein, which like like warm fruity wine. I don't think there was much wine in the Glühwein, which is probably good considering that we were drinking that stuff like water. It's just so warm and tasty
anyhow, they also had, chili con carne? Not exactly traditional german Christmas food. I skipped out on that dish because of the 'carne'.
it was a nice evening. We just spent the night drinking the Glühwein, and chatting.


ida is the star of all these photos


















Thursday
I actually went to the library to rent books!!!
had to put my bag in a locker, which took me a good 10 minutes to figure out how it worked. Spent some time perusing the bio and chemistry books and found what i needed. I even found a microbiology book in english so i can double check that i know what's going on in the german textbook. I ended up checking out 5 large textbooks. When i got home i immediately dove into my english microbio book.
ahhhhhh, it felt good to actually study again. bet you didn't expect me to say that, huh!
i spent a good few hours catching up on what i was unclear about and just reading/outlining for the heck of it.

when i started to get a little antsty with so much reading i got a call from a german pal, Max who invited me to go to a small gallery opening with him and a friend.
We met his portuguese friend at a chinese restaurant (who also sells glühwein, haha) and headed over to the gallery. it was really small but had some cool prints and art. I was most impressed by the concert posters because some of the other art just got a bit too weirdly sexual for me. maybe i'm just not hip enough or too much of a square, but i can only handle so much! there were also weird sculptures, like these weird skins of goats with bobbing heads and paint splattered all over them...scary
and then they were selling these polaroid pictures for guess how much...
....
just guess...
...
FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY EURO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
for one polaroid. one blurry polaroid.
no thankyou.

anyhow, after a good long time in the gallery we headed to a nearby bar, Cinema. We actually went first into a punkish bar in the back of some other bar but the music was really annoying and the the drinks were expensive, so we left.
the cinema bar was packed when we first got there, but after a bit of loitering we found 3 open seats and snatched them up.
here i treated myself to a tasty Hefeweißen. we spent the rest of the night chatting over candlenight, sipping our beers. it was quite nice.
caught the last train home and headed to bed.

i got a lot of free goodies from the gallery opening, but mostly it was just a very nice night.

didn't take any pictures but i'll upload those other ones soon...PROMISE!

blissful berlin

Hallo!
I haven't updated in all of...two days because I forgot to pay for my internet. Woops!
Anyhow here's what i've been up to.

Saturday
I don't think I did anything all that exciting during the day. I'm pretty sure I just went looking for Christmas present and didn't actually buy anything. That's kind of been a theme with my Christmas shopping. I feel pressure to buy something for everyone that's really german. I can't be studying abroad in Germany and come home with presents I bought from Bath and Body Works. But this makes my shopping like 8 million times more difficult. And my dislike for cheapy souveniers makes finding gifts even more difficult. Chances are though, that when december 20th rolls my way I'm gonna throw all that to the wind and grab whatever I can.

That evening all my TU friends and I (minus Ida, she's in Valencia...lucky pup) met up and headed down to Grunewald for a wohnheim party.
We had been to their Halloween party and it was surprisingly fun. Fun is pretty much guaranteed though when free drinks and food are provided. It was a Nikolaus party and soooooooo much fun. Didn't expect to, but I ended up dancing until 4!! in grunewald too! We always joke about how Grunewald isn't actually Berlin, like "That's not in Berlin, that's Grunewald!"
but turns out that they know how to throw a darn good party. which leads me to tomorrow.


Sunday
deffffffinitely woke up at 2 pm. After slothing around for a bit, mateusz and I visited the Neue Nationalgalerie . We walked there from Potsdamer Platz. If you're ever in Berlin, i recommend exploring around this area a bit. It gives plenty of cool sights to see and is overflowing with 'cultural' things to do. For example, the philharmonie, tons of museums, tons of sculptures, a theater (i think), the national library, tons of movie theaters and way more.

On the way we laughed at the Jeff Koons skulpture. It was installed about 10 years ago and is already really dirty and theres all this algae in the water. Someone even stuck a sticker on the darn thing. A bit sad, but we found it more funny.
This brings us to the museum where we saw both the Jeff Koons and Paul Klee exhibits.
The Koons (i like to joke about it being 'koons[t], as in kunst, german word for art, anyhow...) exhibit was....glossy. A bit kitsch but cool anyways.

The Paul Klee exhibit was pretty awesome. but i have to say i was in a bit of an 'art coma' half way through it. It was quite a large exhibit and took over 2 hours to get all the way through. Too much for me. I appreciated it but my brain hurt. I can do calc till the sun goes down but can only handle paintings for so long. Maybe that's why i'm studying bio :)

Monday
NO MIKROBIO!!!
this is my morning lecture, 8 am 20 minutes away. I like the class, but that doesn't keep me from being overjoyed with its cancellation this week.
-german language course.
afterwards spoke to a scottish boy in my class and actually couldn't understand what he was saying at first. hahaha, i thought we spoke the same language!?!
-RATATAT!
emilia and i saw Ratatat, an instrumental band from brooklyn, at Club Maria am Ostbahnhof.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.
the opening band was horrible. and i mean bad. they were all dressed in short short white shorts, terry cloth white polos with green stripes, and tube socks. it was bad. the main singer looked like a typical califonia surfer, but more model esque. He was pretty much a tool dancing around without his shirt on. I think he was trying to make up for the bad music.
In between this band and Ratatat, a drunken florida girl visiting for the week started talking to us. She was kinda, beh. All down on america and shiz. I mean, i'm all for being critical if you have valid points, but she was just making sweeping generalizations and enforcing stereotypes. I mean there's a lot of messed up stuff going on, but that doesn't deny that America is pretty awesome in general. I hate it when Americans get all super down on America just because they're embarassed or afraid that someone's going to attack them for it. I mean, you change the way people feel about americans by behaving outside of the stereotype. anyhow, she was alone and very drunk but ended up adding some lol's to the night.

then ratatat came on. SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD.
emilia and i were really close, and i mean 1st row close. we danced our hearts out and had a blast. if you ever have the opportunity to see ratatat live, i HIGHLY recommend it.

pictures coming, i just have to upload them all:)

oranienburger straße

(I didn't take this photo)


last night i came to the realization that all the women standing on the sidewalk of Oranienburger Straße indeed were not waiting for their friends to come out of the club, but rather waiting for their next 'trick'. It's really weird because they're dressed in all winter clothes but wear a corset...outside of their puffy jacket. that's the only real way to tell a prostitute from someone just waiting for their boyfriend or whoever. weirded me out in anycase but can't believe it took me this long to notice!

i came to this realization last night when Mateusz and I were lost in Mitte for an hour and a half last night. A bunch of our friends were at a Weinerei (winery) and since mateusz and i both live in siegmunds hof we headed over there together. our overambition and egos got us lost for an hour and a half. we both thought 'ohhh mitte, i know that place, i don't need to take my map!'
got off at hackescher markt, walked and walked and walked, took a tram, walked in a big circle then finally asked for direcitons then got to the Weinerei...and it was closed. we couldn't get in but all our pals were inside. after a few minutes of waiting our pals came out and we all walked together in a big circle, didn't go into the club and ended the night eating pita and hummous in a turkish döner kebab place.
fun none the less. and now i know mitte pretty well by foot!

today i woke up and made the trip to ikea in hopes to get a broom because my floor gets embarassingly dirty surprisingly fast. browsed around a bit and left with a pillow, a small rug, a few pieces of tableware but low and behold, no broom.

but in other business, i can't believe how close christmas is!!!!!!
it's going to be good to see the sun, and you know home and stuff...i guess. :) just kidding! that'll be awesome.

i got my money back

woke up early today to try and get to the bank first thing to get my money back.
turns out it opens later than expected, at 10, so i chilled in starbucks and drank wayyyyy too much espresso.
but when Deutsche Bank finally opened up, i got my money put back in my account in less than 5 minutes.
it was shockingly easy and they even are making sure that this Elternbeitrag doesn't withdraw any more money.

so, no more stress about that!

Uh oh

So i checked at the ATM today and i suddenly only have around 200 euros...that's not right

Great.
After checking online to track my transactions to double check that i wasn't just being super careless with my money, i find that 339,66 euros has been withdrawn from my account.

WHAT THE HECK
i'm going to the bank first thing in the morning to figure this out.
and to think, just the other day i thought to myself 'oh how wonderful it is that you can just give your bank account out willy nilly and people won't do anything about it'
WRONG

...and i didn't do that either, i'm quite private about my bank account so i have no idea how Storey Elternbeitrag took my money. honestly i don't even really know what Elternbeitrag means, it vaguely translates to parent contribution or fees.
any idea?

well, wish me luck!

Ausländerbehörde (warning: lot's of whining ahead)

So lemme just lay it out for you. Coming from a non-EU country, I can only stay in Germany for 90 days without a visa. After that, i'm pretty sure you get deported.
I came at the end of august, meaning that it's been 90 days at the end of november.
MEANING, i have to get my butt into gear and deal with bureaucracy.
that brings us to my 9 hours at the Ausländerbehörde.
aka.
hell

i had previously attempted to get my visa at a special TU deal where i could get it done more quickly on campus. After waking up really early, i found it was closed for 'organisational reasons'. it was possible to make an appointment to quicken the process, but you have to do it 8 weeks in advance and by the time i found out about the appointments, it was too late to make one before my 90 days was up. SO, i had to go and wait in the line.
and i've never seen a line like this. ive never even heard of waiting like this. trust me, you'll be shocked.

TUESDAY:
woke up at 4:20am, left house at 5:05am.
walked alone to the U-Bahn station in the cold darkness. It was really creepy but i didn't really say any way around it because U-Bahn is the only way to the office.
Started raining on my walk from the station to the office.
had to cross some creepy, windy windy bridge that brought me to a prison-like building. walking the perimiter a bit led me to a line of people curving around the block.
it was about 5:20 by then and there were already about 40 people in line.
AT 5:20!!!!!
keep in mind that the office opens at 7 am.
sooo, i got there an hour and 40 minutes early and still was far back in line/

this leads me to almost 2 hours of cold pain dealing with the windy rain while in line.
talk about a test of mental ability dealing with cold like that.
i can say with all certainty that i have never been colder in my life.
berlin brings all sorts of new experiences, right! ?

i wanted to punch the employees inside, parading around, setting up the line dilly-daddies, being warm...
and then a ton of people cut to the front of the line and a yelling fight broke out.
i can see why though, i spent have the time in line looming over how much i hated the lady in front of me's umbrella.
cut me some slack! it was early AND freezing! the cold does things to your head.
but i was pissed all those people cut, but not pissed enough to actually move my mouth or body and do something about it.
thinking back though, they were probably part of the reason i was there for so long.

got in. waited in line, got a number, waited in a waiting room for about 3 - 4 hours, gave all my papers to some lady, waited again for another 3 or so hours and FINALLY got my number called again.
but during this time i actually thought i was gong to go crazy.
like actually crazy. it felt like prison. so many times i was about to just get up and go, but i knew i couldn't go through it again, so i just toughed through it.
towards the end i met a really friendly russian girl so chatting with her helped pass the time and return me to a state of sanity.

when my number got called i entered a different room where Frau Böse (böse means evil in german, no joke) had my file laid out on the desk. It kinda creeps me out the the goverment has a whole file, just on me. It reminded me of the DDR.
anyhow, she gave me a card and sent me upstairs to pay at the Kassemachine.
the bureacracy was out of this world.
she signed off on the reciept, put few more things in my file and then finally printed out my visa, signed it, and then put it into my passport.

i can't even look at it though, it reminds me too much of waiting in line. but i guess being able to stay is worth 9 hours of brain melting boredom. can't it be considered torture making someone wait 9 hours and not provide music, television, magazines or even interesting pamphlets !?

anyhow, it's done. but if you're from a non-eu country and want to stay in germany for over 90 days, MAKE AN APPOINTMENT.

but turns out my 90 days had restarted because i went to dublin, so i wasnt' being totally illegal!

this whole experience kept reminding me of the opera we did at UCSC last year, The Consul