Exciting German progress report:



Last night I went (by myself) to go see Watchmen and rather than see it at Sony Center like I originally intended I ended up in a completely different theater a couple of blocks away. I figured it would be the same thing so I just walked in because it was an earlier showing and I had no desire to wait. Turns out this theater doesn't play it's big American hits in English.


Anyway it turned out not to be a problem.





Schmeet.

My Friday night might be boring, but at least I am eating well.


That is a Berliner Kindl Helles Bock. It is very high in alcohol at 7,8% abv however unlike it's dunkel (not an actual dunkel) counterpart it is light and refreshing rather than overbearing. Though it should be noted that I've only ever had the dunkel warm and only after it exploded on me.


I plan on seeing Watchmen tonight at Sony Center. I do not want to stay out too late as I am touring the Reichstag for free tomorrow at 8:45 in the morning. I am excited and as soon as I have the time to sift through all of my pictures I will upload some nice ones here, as well as other places yet to be determined.


Today I tried, and failed, to find the Turkish Markt in Kreuzburg. I was only going to sightsee/buy cheap socks. I never ended up finding the market because the streets around Kottbusser Tor are not all labeled but I did end up buying four pairs of women's socks for 2 Euro. I did not realize when I bought them that they were lady's socks, however they are comfortable and my feet have always been open about their cross dressing. At the very least I can stop wearing a pair of socks after 2 days instead of four or however long it has been since I changed the last pair.


I do not reccomend the German National History Museum. It is too new and too American to really be very interesting. I do reccomend going to the Pergamon however, it is too spectacular for words. The Altnationalgalerie is very meh but is at least worth the trip for the architecture and some of the sculptures.




I am slowly but surely making friends. There is a girl here named Rose who shares many similar traits and is brazen enough to adress me by name in public. I think the two of us will get along well. She plans on coming with me to see the Polkaholix. I am also hanging out with a fellow Grinnellian named Imran as well as a small group of other people I see regularly. My opinions about my fellow students at IES have improved considerably as I have gotten to know them and for the first time in weeks I am genuinely happy to be in Berlin.



Tschüs!

I got the internet now guys, you can start reading again.





I'll post pictures later.





I got loads

At my mother's insistence I have begun to pack, this is as far as I have gotten at the moment.

One week from now I am sure that I will be frantically packing and wavering back and forth between taking the banjo or leaving the damn thing here.



I really wished I had the discipline to practice more and it would be fun to have, but mostly it'll just be another thing to carry around.




In other news I can't sleep!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to come back from Germany acting like this

Big News

IES finally emailed me where I'm living, though they say it won't be final until I arrive in Germany.


I'm living in Neukölln which is one of Berlin's boroughs, and apparently has a high percentage of immigrants, which I think is cool.


Here's the wiki entry



Anyway I'm living with a woman in her 50's named Frau Hilde. I am looking forward to addressing her as Frau Hilde ALL THE TIME.