i just got my photo taken with me and my room for some newspaper about the studentenwohnheims. quite cool!
if i ever find out the newspaper or the pictures, i'll post it.

kleine ausflug...

before i get started on what i've been up to for the past week, i just want you to take a little look at this map of berlin. and zoom in real good so that you find Babelsberg, it's the stop before Potsdam. Meaning the far bottem left corner. So Mateusz and i fell asleep on the s-bahn on our way home from a WG (Wohnheimgemeinschaft) Party last night. the party was in Friedrichshain, so an u-bahn away from Alexanderplatz. On the S-Bahn back to Tiergarten from Alexanderplatz both Mateusz and i fell the heck asleep and woke up simultaneously as the s-bahn was pulling into Babelsberg. The stark realization occured when i saw on the stop announcer thing that potsdam was the next stop. that is SO FLIPPING FAR AWAY from where i live. so we sprinted off the train and luckily, at the same moment another train had just pulled in going in the opposite direction. It's about another hour or so from where we were to where we live, so naturally we fell asleep...again.
gosh darnit!
we woke up in alexander platz...where we started, except for about 2 and half hours later. We jumped off the train and watched our train pull away the second that we stepped foot on the platform. so we had to wait about 10 minutes or so and then DIDN'T sleep from alexanderplatz back to tiergarten.
ive never wanted to be in bed so bad.
but i can now say i've experienced the proverbial 'fall asleep while on the s-bahn and wake up somewhere crazy' experience that seemingly all exchange students go through.

anyhow...
yesterday i was quite busy.
romain, ida and i went to see the philharmonic. it was great to get out and have some 'culture' for the weekend. the building was beautiful and the music was even better. i chatted with some old german dude about silicon valley and witnessed a medical emergency also. our seats were 20 euro and actually not that bad, it was one of those music halls where every seat in the house is a good seat. afterwards we got ida a döner and bought a few beers.
we headed back to siegmunds hof where a few friends were meeting. a guy from my floor is moving back to brazil so he had a going away party. i knew this was going to be happening, and i was already planning on going but i didn't realize how massive it was going to be. i've never seen so many people on my floor, ever!
it was a blast listening to brazilian music and drinking Caparenas. Hanging out for a bit was fun then we headed to a WG wig party in Friedrichshain. lots of people were wearing wigs and it was reallly fun.

then mateusz and i fell asleep on the s-bahn :( but still a pretty funny adventure
but today i was 'total kaputt' and didn't wake up until about 2.
emilia and i went for a bit of 'sonderpreis' shopping in alexanderplatz. at zara i got 2 shirts for 6 euro!!!!
today i'm taking the night off and staying in, i'm just too tired. i'm going to try and get some work done because i have a presentation in my german course on monday. last monday a girl present and got totally torn apart by the professor..for abotu 10 minutes in front of the whole class, so i definitely don't want a repeat of her experience so this presentation has to be good.
but lots of studying in anycase, our exams are coming REALLY fast.

in the meantime though i've been plannng my trip to london and amsterdam.
i can't wait!!

i have lots of pictures but the uploader thing isn't working, so you're just gonna have to wait. sorry!

I'm Back!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, things have just been really busy over here.
But here is a synopsis until i get to a real post, and I've been taking pictures so there will definitely be lots of those coming your way soon :)

-I've been studying my caboos off because finals are right around the corner,
-saw the duke spirit last week (i'm not sure if i mentioned that yet)
- got vegetarian burgers in prenzlauerberg on a beautiful sunny saturday. didn't leave the house the following sunday...just studied :(
-saturday found a really really cool club in friedrichshain (i think). We started out with 7 people and ended with just mateusz and me.
-met up for coffee with emilia in prenzlauerberg on monday. it was rainy but still really great to catch up.
-bought tickets to london/amsterdam! I'm going to be spending a week there after my last final and before my parents come to Berlin. I'm expecting it to be really great but unfortunately expensive
-am working my butt off trying to find a job/praktikum for the summer but it is actually quite hard. for praktikums i can just find chemistry ones. and for jobs i only see ads for: telemarketers, sex workers and models...and i'm not interested in doing either three so it seems i'm going to have to search a bit harder.

it's crazy that my time in berlin is actaully starting to come to an end. everything is kinda building up and there is a TON of stuff to do in really little time. I'm just trying to enjoy every second here!
and fingers crossed that i can find a praktikum/job for summer, that way i can come back :) :) :)

finally finals

ugh.
so the studying has begun. I have a presentation, 3 oral exams and two written exams coming up early-mid february. This whole school thing has been pretty non-commital until about now when i realize that i have to seriously start hitting the books. But in between that i've been out to coffee a bit and saw a concert on tuesday.
the duke spirit, and they were soooooo good.
i met up with a girl from my german class there and we enjoyed the good tunes.

i'm heading to the opening of the new EAP office here in berlin soon. free bagles and prosecco, i'm there! afterwards we'll see if i can boulster up the energy to go to the gym, and then i'll be hitting the books again.
the weather today made berlin seem like a scene out of harry potter and sucked all the energy out of me.
things were so sunny and beautiful before also! :(

anyhow, wish me luck!

warming up

just finished up the weekend and my first week back from the states. and i can say that it was awwwesome.
i went out to lunch, and my 'out' i mean in the mensa, with ida and anna. we sat there for quite some while just chatting and stuffing my face with salad.
i also dropped by mateusz's place and gave him his xmas gift. he gifted me a bottle of really good polish vodka. i actually ended up getting a second bottle from emilia too! a true polish gift, vodka. but really, when you mix the stuff with some apple juice it tastes like actual apple pie! this is both pleasant and dangerous. it's called 'bison grass vodka', it has a strand of grass in it, but its a saying or something that they only use the grass that bison have peed on. hahaha, don't think thats true but still funny.

on friday everyone met again in the weinerei. if i didn't explain earlier this is a 'pay what you want' weinerei, and they have food too! we got lucky finding a big table because there were probably about 15 of us. here we just hung around till late drinking wine and catching up, it was quite nice.

on saturday i woke up too early :( (i've been having trouble sleeping in lately) and studied a bit. final exams are coming up and i have to make sure i know everything. it would be really unfortunate if i threw these grades down the toilet ecause it still affects my GPA. but i'm not doing that! at around 2 i went to idas place, shared some music and did some grocery shopping for dinner later that evening when ida, merce and i ate dinner at emilias place. we all brought a little something and emilia made some tasty tasty spaghetti.
we chatted, ate and drank some wine. the wine plus not that much sleep made me REALLY tired so i went home and took a little nap before going out. i almost stayed in because i was so tired, but boy am i glad i didn't!

a seminar for architecture students has a project of designing and building a school or something 'charitable' in mexico and threw 'MEXICO PARTY' to raise money for it.
soooooo much fun.
it was in Festhaal Kreuzberg. it had some fun live reggae/ska-ish danceable music. there was also german rapping which was quite fun to see :)
it had tons of mexican decorations. everyone working it wore either a wrestling mask, a sombrero, an eyemask, or all three! later in the night they played some really fun mexican/spanish/mexican-american music. i could have danced till morning but a friend got sick and was not in a state of being able to get home safely alone, so i left a little earlier...4am. it was still a blast.

on sunday emilia, merce and i went to mauer park floo markt. it wasn't that cold out...i mean, it was cold, but not as much as the previous week. however, the ground was still covered in snow and my feet were FREEZING. absolutely freezing, it was unbearable. emilia was in the same boat so this sped things up going through and we went to a cafe immediately afterwards to warm up a bit. drank some tea, sat around to warm up and then went home to do a bit of work.

today i had class but am going to get some coffee with a friend later and am planning on seeing the Duke Spirit tomorrow.

definitely new

nothing too exciting has happened in berlin for the past few days except for the cold. the cold cold bitter cold. but i assure you, i'm not complaining because it actually is pretty cool to see the snow every day and get all bundled up.
i've kept up the running bit as well. i go incredibly slow and have to carry those little heat packet things today.
but today it was insane! my eyelashes froze, a drop of sweat on my face froze and even my nose hair froze (sorry for the overshare)!
MY FACE FROZE.
a bit painful, and i can't really think of a way to avoid that again except for wearing a mask...which i'm just not going to do.

but i do say that this weather sure makes me feel more tough. compared to california weather i'm living in the arctic, and it's cool to dip into negatives.

i'm glad to hear also that my friend told me there are plenty of Praktikums (like internships) offered for short periods of time that i could probably get hooked up with.
wish me luck!

thank goodness for hats!

well,
i'm a bit ill, i'm not exactly sure what's wrong with me but i'm not feeling too well. i'm quite nauseated and get shakey everytime i get up or down. so after an attempt at the gym i really needed a nap....a 5 and a half hour one.
i hope i can sleep tonight!
anyhow,
i was just about to head out the door to the grocery store until i caught myself in the mirror. NOT ACCEPTABLE appearance for anywhere.
my hair was/still is just too hilarious to keep to myself. and while these pictures probably should never be hitting the internet, i am still in a sleepy stupor and think they're funny. let's just hope future employers don't find this blog!
anyhow, here you are!







...

i have luggage!
yay :)

after a long journey and a great break I am back in berlin.
and naturally, my luggage was lost along the way.

i haven't done anything but groceryshop and read since i've been back because i've been too tired to do anything else.

hopefully i will be back to my normal shenanigans soon.