Sonntag 31.August

Fun Fact: You can't go grocery shopping on Sunday in Germany.

I'm stuck without food now until tomorrow or Tuesday depending on when I get home from work and when the draft is over. The stores all close at 8pm on weekdays and aren't open Sundays. It's like the olden days!

I spent the day with Bryan Auslander yesterday. We saw most of the classic monuments that are must see if you only have one day in Berlin. We spent an extended period of time at the Wall memorial, the Reichstag (we went up into the dom), and the Holocaust memorial (we went in the underground meuseum. Then we went to Pottsdomerplatz to see how much tickets for the Blue Man Group are, and there was a sweet deal for students. Probably because it was an hour before the show. But we got third row seats for 19,90 euro. The Blue Man Group is absolutely ridiculous. They don't talk, but they do have a stuff playing over the loadspeaker at some points. Of course it was in German. I understood almost all of it exactly, and I got the jist of the things I didn't get. The Blue Man Group is a show based on rythum. There's a lot of drumming...and paint. Sitting in the 3rd row, we were given raincoats to wear (because of the paint). Sadly, I didn't get any paint on me. It's got to be interesting to be one of the Blue Men. There's a lot of eating that goes on in the show. And the ending, was ridiculous. Not in a "wow, that's amazing!" sort of way, but in a, "this is really silly" way. It was funny and very entertaining. Good news: I am writing this online in my apartment. However, I'm sitting in the hall because the ethernet cable is really short. So, in theory, the internet is working. I might have to be plugged in all the time though. Either way, it'll work for the draft tomorrow.

Deinstag 26.August

It’s taking forever to get my internet working in my room. Bryan Auslander is coming to visit on Friday till Sunday before his computer science gathering, or whatever it is he’s coming here for. So hopefully he’ll be able to fix it and you will actually be reading this instead of me just keeping it as a word document. The last few days have been uneventful. I have been sleeping a whole lot. I have a bit of a cold/cough still happening or happening again, I’m not sure which. Everyone at InWEnt gGmbH (the german partner company to CDS international [who found me the job]) is on vacation it seems. I have a lot of things they’re supposed to send me to get ready for the job, but I haven’t been able to contact them, a task especially difficult with no internet. I have semi-organized my room. I bought a little rug so the floor’s not entirely bare. I also bought curtains, but they were, of course too small, so I’m going to try to put them up somehow. The windows in my room are gigantic. Paul has been very anti-social and not really up for anything the past couple of days because he just broke up with his girlfriend. But he’s feeling better today, and I’m going to go with him to some seminar about some art type thing tonight. And he’s cooking dinner, so it’s a pretty sweet deal. Tomorrow I’m going on my dry run to try and find the Umweltbundesamt. I also want to scout it out to see if I tell what people are wearing so I know what to wear on Monday.

Day 1: Travel day(s)

So I made it to Berlin with only a few setbacks. I missed my train from Dusseldorf which was dumb on my part. It came to another track besides the one listed on my ticket. I never thought to double check and was oblivious to the fact that it was leaving directly behind me. The plane ride there was amazing. I had an entire row of 4 seats to myself, so I laid down and slept the entire time (when I wasn’t eating). It was pretty marvelous. Paul met me at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in Berlin and carried half of my bags and showed the way via the S and U-bahn to the apartment. My room is as plain as can be. I’m going to go shopping tomorrow to spruce it up a bit. We had tea, ate grapes, and then went out to pizza and to a bar. He’s very nice, not at all creepy and extremely helpful. I’m awfully tired, since it is 1 am here, so I’m off to bed.