Berlin

Last weekend my hostmom and I went to the capital city of Berlin. It is a lot more modern than I had expected but it was still fun. We met up with some of Helga´s old colleagues the first night and we went out to eat. The next day we took a 2 and 1/2 hour boat tour on the river that runs through the city. Next was Checkpoint Charlie and the downtown area. That night I went to a club with one of the collegue´s daughters and her friends. I had a great time and got to know them really quickly (they all spoke english extremely well). On Sunday we visited "Gardens of the World" which was fun but hard to enjoy because I was hot and starving. I particularly liked the Arabic section of the park. There were many fountains and exotic flowers. In the afternoon we hung out with another one of Helga´s old colleges on the more residential side of Berlin. We took our flight home at around 6 that evening. I was so tired from all the activity. So overall I would say I liked Dresden better but I´ve heard there are a lot more fun things for young people do to in Berlin. We´ll see when I visit again for a CBYX reunion in December!

Monday--ugh back to school. I am starting to get annoyed with some of the immature male students in my class that distract the teacher from teaching us. I really want to learn german but we spend most of the class time listening to their pointlessly drawn-out stories. I just study on my own to make up for the lack of schooling I am getting during class. In the afternoon we went to have dinner and hang out with some german students. It was refreshing to talk to some new people.
Tuesday we had classes in the morning like always then had a 2 hour lecture on the German and American political systems. I tried hard to pay attention because I know it is an important topic but there is only so long you can hold the attention of a group of 18 years olds. Luckily we had the afternoon free the next day. Three other girls and I went to a lake about 45 minutes away and had a great time. I think I actually got a little color. I was trying to avoid tanning because of the red hair, but it´s been fading so I think it could work.

Thurday was our last tour of Cologne. We visited the Gastapo headquarters and saw the tiny rooms where people were held prisoner and tortured. People had scratched messages into and drew on the walls-it was really depressing. You could just sense how much suffering their was in that place. It was not like Buchenwald at all. After that we saw the orignial 4711 cologne shop. It smelled so good! but it was a bit expensive so I didn´t get any. Then came the best part, bakery testing! My favorite was this strawberry rubbarb cake. It was delicious.

I only have 2 weeks left here then I go to my permanent house in a small town near Göttingin. Bis netsche wohen!