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:)