Well it seems that I had like half of a blog written, that I just forgot to finish and didn’t publish it. . . whoops. Well that’s deleted now, because it was rather outdated so...
Lazy Intro: In this blog you will learn about my experiences in Berlin, my time wasting time because I couldn’t find an internship, and whatever else I decide to write. 3...2...1...go
Berlin Berlin
As you were probably aware of, all the CBYXers were together again for a week in what was called the “Berlin Seminar.” Basically from Sunday until Thursday we stayed in a hostel together and attended presentations in the morning/early afternoon about Berlin’s history and the city today, as well as a little bit about the German government and the EU. Late afternoon/evenings we had free time to roam about the city and do whatever we wanted, which was quite fun. I would include pictures but I can’t figure out how to do more than one on this blogging site.
Berlin is a huge and diverse city with tons of life, and stuff to do and see around every corner. It’s not something for country bumpkins, but especially for young people, it’s the most attractive city in the world to live. The cost of living is dirt cheap when compared to the other major cities on the earth. The rent’s cheap, the food’s very affordable and good, and the public transportation is of course fantastic. Because of this it’s an ideal place for young artists and the large fashion scene is apparent once you notice all the well dressed hipsters walking around. And naturally the city is very international. I heard English every day, it was so surprising. All these aspects add up to create a historic, young, and vibrant city that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Like I said, the first half of the day consisted of a series of presentations given to us by a british fellow, who was a good friend of our program director. After the presentations we would go out and see something of the city around noon time, such as the holocaust museum, an old Stasi museum, or the parliament building. We also took a bus tour of the whole city, which was nice, because then I could take note of the things I wanted to go back to on my own time. The weather was generally pretty crappy for such things, but it was still alright. At about two we had free time. I spent a lot of time walking around the city, visiting areas that I wanted to see, and talking with the other people from my program. We visited a few clubs when I was there, which were pretty cool. I have mixed feelings about clubs. They are only fun when you have the right people with you, which means in Göttingen I don’t go clubbing much at all, but in Berlin it was really fun because I’m close with all of the people on the program. It was definitely not good for my ingrown toenail though. . . I don’t know if I mentioned that, but for about a month and a half I’ve had an ingrown toenail that has been quite problematic.
Other than that, there’s not much else to say about Berlin. It’s a fantastic city that I would visit over and over again if I could, and I had a great time. I got to see my dad, too since he had business there, which was fantastic. Oh and he brought me a new pair of jeans and a sweater, which are both really great. Unfortunately the sweater tore in the washer somehow. . . but it will be easily sewn back together. And the jeans. . . I have a funny story about them, but it doesn’t fit in this category.
Oh there is one more thing: Döners. Berlin is the birthplace of my favorite fast food (rivaling the Qdoba burrito even), and it is very apparent by the way they taste there. Not only are they slightly cheaper than the ones in Göttingen or Bonn, but they taste so much better. The ingredients are so fresh and they add feta cheese too it. The most famous place adds grilled potatoes and chili’s as well, creating the best food experience you will ever have for 3 bucks.
The calm after the storm. . .
After this busy, sleep-deprived weekend, it was finals week at my University. Something that I would have taken part in had I been a real student. But since I wouldn’t even ever know what I would get on the tests, I deemed them rather pointless, and didn’t take them. I then started internship hunting, a process that has been very slow. it took me two weeks to finally set up a meeting with a researcher at the University for next week. My area representative had problems because of her kids being sick, and one professor has not even responded yet. It looks like I will be getting an internship in forestry genetics, an interesting subject. The do research on the state of forests, how the ecosystems work, and how they are affected by climate change. Should be enlightening. But until then I will share some stories of what I have been doing in the mean time.
I have been so incredibly bored lately. I’m over it now because I know that next week I have something in place, but for a while there, when it looked like my boredom had no end, I was going to go crazy. I made arroz con gandules for the first time, rather successfully if I may brag. My host dad luckily also had vacation, so we’d sometimes do stuff together, like go to the sauna. . . oh the sauna. . .
FKK at the Sauna
I didn’t let him know, but when I went to the sauna with him, I kinda expected people wearing towels around the place, and totally forgot that I was indeed in Europe, where they make fun of Americans for their timidness. We went to take a shower before entering the sauna area, and as is pretty normal for a shower, everyone is naked in there, but when I entered the place, I soon realized everyone is naked. . . everywhere. And they are all “over the hill”. I soon felt awkward not being naked, which just does not happen very often in every day life. I felt like I had no choice but to submit, else I be stared at even more, even though the youngest person there was 20 years older than me, and I eventually got used to sitting in the sauna or dipping in to the cold pool without a scrap on me. I still used the towel when walking around though, because walking around naked is something very different than sitting in the sauna naked.
With that said, I did enjoy the sauna experience very much. It helped that I didn’t wear my glasses or contacts. Sometimes not seeing things in detail is a good thing. I had never really had the full sauna experience until then, and it was definitely something new. There were about 5 different saunas of different temperatures and even different smells. We went in the 90 degrees Celsius one, which I think was the hottest. And we timed it so that when we went in the employee came in shortly after and poured the scented water on the rocks, creating a huge swell of heat in the room which I could only stand for a minute or two before going out. Afterwards we dipped quickly in the ice cold pool three times, which shocked the system, closing the pores as rapidly as they were opened. Then we chilled for about 15 min to a half hour before repeating the process again. We did it two and a half times, because the first time did not have the guy pouring water on the rocks, so it was not as intensive. What was interesting was that after dipping in the cold water three times, we sat outside in the lounge chairs before going in again. It is definitely still winter here, so it was pretty cold outside, but oddly I didn’t feel like it was cold at all. The weather seemed rather quite ideal. Overall a new and relaxing experience. My skin and muscles did indeed feel good afterwards, so I can understand why people do it. It gets the heart rate up actually too.
After the sauna I we with to the swimming pool part of the place, in which we were luckily permitted to wear swim shorts, haha (actually you had to, although one day in the month you can go skinny dipping there). That was also a really nice place. There was a lap pool, a regular kind of swimming around pool, where the kids played as well, and then there was a heated salt pool that was outside. That was really nice since it was cold outside, and the pool was really warm. Plus it had jets like in a spa. And it felt really good for my toe. Oh and there was a super awesome water slide.
Smuggling Pants
So, as I mentioned before, I hung out with my dad a couple of times in Berlin, and one of the times he gave me a bag with jeans and a sweater in it. Well, while walking around we walked through an electronics store to get on to the main street. As I was exiting the sensor went off at the doors and a guy came and checked to make sure I wasn’t stealing anything. We figured out that something in the bag was making it beep, and then the guy looked in the bag, saw that there was only jeans and a sweater in it, and let us go. I totally forgot about the incident until this past week, the first week that I wore the jeans.
On Thursday I went to a large grocery store with my host dad to pick up a few things. It’s kind of like a Walmart Super-center in that it sells clothes, electronics, and everything else under the sun along with food. As I was exiting the sensor beeped on me again, except this time I really only had my jacket on me and it wasn’t that which was causing the sensor to go off. Nor was it my shoes. Nor my belt. That meant it had to be my shirt or my pants, and I didn’t really want to take any of those things off in the grocery store. So I got taken to a back area, where the guy used a scanner like in the airport and it turned out that there was a tag in my pants that I didn’t know about, which had a magnetic strip in it. It says on the thing “remove before purchase” but I guess the people at Gap never took it out, so I ended up having to go through these big shenanigans to try and cut the tag off while keeping my pants on (it was on the inside of the pant let). It was all quite comical. The guy was really pleasant about it though, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I should have kept the tag and slipped it into someone’s purse without them knowing. . . oh well. Hindsight is 20/20
Skez
