well springtime is finally here and i have neglected this blog for way too long. the weird thing about studying abroad, at least for me, is that when i was first considering going there was no question in my mind that it would be berlin for one year. i immediately wanted to read as many "abroad" blogs as i could, glean all the useful how-to information and have the most prepared, knowledgeable, perfect abroad experience ever. when saying goodbyes, i felt so attached to my life at home and the people i was leaving, i insisted to myself that i would do everything differently and magically spent all sorts of free time writing long heartfelt letters, sending (surprisingly expensive!) postcards, and keeping up with group emails.

the ultimate truth that i've discovered about study abroad is that it is an intimate, at times indescribable experience more than anything. a friend of mine from middlebury said that after he and his group of friends all got back from their respective study-abroad countries, they all sort of collectively said "oh my gosh it was amazing" and then went on with their lives. its impossible to sum up a year of your life for someone. when someone emails me asking "how is berlin?" i kind of want to laugh a little ... its similar to asking "how was being five years old?". its almost intangible and difficult to summarize, and i think that generalizing my experience month by month will only cheapen it. i can say, without a doubt, this has been the most amazing six months of my life, but i'm struggling to find a medium between that vague communication, and the tedious daily emails i send my mother about what i ate or whom i saw, etc etc.

i will struggle on, though, for posterity's sake, and for the sake of vanity and my ego as well. my last final paper was turned in on march 9th. the feeling on the tenth was pretty much indescribable. after two intense months of work, it was all over. i felt guilty about being a bad student and taking so long to get everything done until this morning, when i got an email from another girl in the program who is finishing her work NEXT WEEK. how she even got that kind of an extension is beyond me. anyway, on the tenth, jordan was here! and decided after spending 3 days in berlin to stay, um, for a long time. shortly there after, i scooted over to prague again for a weekend, which is always raucous, and then jack came and stayed with me for a week and a half.

when jack came boy oh boy was everything full of hail and snow and awful weather, not to mention residual bitterness over the ubahn strike. yesterday, however, the temperature was about 16 C, which is about 61 F. today is 15, which is about 58. still. wow. wow wow wow. i know i know, dont get my hopes up, its going to rain, go back around 8 or 9, but still. the excitement over this weather is reaching the kind of hysteria levels reserved for middlebury spring, which usually comes about on may 1st, and is elusive and ephemeral until we all leave two weeks later.

i can not wait to experience berlin in springtime and even better - SUMMER. today the daylight officially reached 13 hours. in july, berlin gets about 17 or 18 hours of sunlight, which is insane. i plan on my bacchanalian lifestyle to increase threefold, and my general glee to be doubly as intense as my wintertime gloom. tomorrow night im flying to paris, just to increase the happy. add to that the fact that next year i am most likely (99% on this one) going to be living at 77 main street with three other friends, a living situation that is so much better than anything i imagined last month.

everything is so good that i'm a little afraid to jinx it: travel, new semester, new friends, beautiful weather, old friends, a new bike, a fresh start. i mean, granted, there are tiny lows. a giant melodramatic blow up with a certain ex boyfriend (who has never read this blog anyway, so i can talk about him all i want) hasn't really gotten me down, but really has liberated me even further. the thing is, i still sort of feel sad about it, but very very little and the feeling is continually passing. also i have some weird sort of cold happening, which i blame on the sudden changes in weather. hopefully i can drink a ton of water and juice today and get it under control by tomorrow.

i don't want to complain, or think about the bad stuff though, because i feel that it's something that i need to change about myself ultimately. i need to accept being happy and trust it. it's like, after holding on to bad feelings for so long its really hard to let go of them. it makes me think of the "trust building" leadership exercises we would do at high school retreats, where you would close your eyes and cross your arms and fall backward, and your group of 15 people would have to catch you. you have to trust them. sometimes i feel like i have a hard time closing my eyes and simply letting the universe catch me.

firstly: i just watched the project runway season finale from abroad, and then stumbled upon this gem:



wow. that made my whole life better.


anyway. so ignore that last post about springtime and happy feelings. tuesday it snowed all afternoon. yesterday morning it snowed as well and there was snow all over the city in places where the sun doesn't really hit. today the high was like 3 celsius. it's cold and gross and windy and awful. on top of that, the bvg is striking, which means that more than half of the city's public transportation is out of commission - the u-bahn, buses and trams are done. thank goodness the s-bahn is still running.

OH WAIT. they're striking on monday, essentially shutting down the entire city ... ? i'm not sure how it's legal or what i'm expected to do, but it will be another berlin adventure.

speaking of berlin adventures, on monday the adventure involved an ordinary trip from zoologischer garten to thielplatz u-bhf. seemingly mundane, since i do it every day, but today i was in a bad mood and had woken up especially late, and needed to do a lot of work. i plopped myself on the U3, as i do almost every day, with my headphones in my ears, engrossed in my new book. suddenly, at fehrbelliner platz, i realized that NO ONE ELSE WAS IN THE TRAIN. the train was by no means full previously, but the 5 other people in my car had left. when i stood up and pushed the button to open the train doors, they didn't open.

immediately my stomach dropped in panic, i threw my book in my bag (earmarking the page first of course), and pulled out my headphones, as the train slowly began moving forward and then stopped in the middle of underground-nowhere. great. fabulous. as i scanned the train for a notruf (emergency call) button to alert whoever that they were driving me towards some train graveyard, the button lit up on the door, indicating that i could open it again. as i opened the door and gingerly stepped onto a sketchy wooden platform underneath somewhere in west berlin, the driver strolled over, calmly explaining to me that between fehrbelliner platz and breitenbach platz there's construction happening, and that i needed to get onto a bus in between the two stops and then get back on the U3 over there (which is ridiculous, but whatever). he told me to just get back in the car, and he'd be driving back to the platform in a minute to take everyone back the other direction.

i then had the pleasure of being the only asshole who got out of the empty train back on the platform i had just left, two minutes later, unscathed. but it gets better. on the way home i thought to myself - genius that i am - i'll take the bus back to zoo. its direct, 27 minutes (which is shorter than the train), and i won't have to run around from train to bus to train. well while standing and waiting for the bus i was approached by a girl from one of my classes, and when the bus came we hopped on together.

and it was the wrong bus.


yes i was that big of an ass. so i traveled about 15 minutes in the TOTAL WRONG DIRECTION and had to get on some random other train to get back to zoo. after five months i considered myself not only competent but SKILLED at navigating berlin's public transportation system. as a temporary berliner, i took pride in the city's u and s bahn, the buses and trams, all of which are terribly convenient and free for students. monday they proved to get the best of me.

now lets see how the city (and myself) fare without it.

today in berlin, february 24 2008, it is 13 degrees celsius. that is 55.4 degrees fahrenheit. it is the first day that it has felt like spring. and if you were curious, opening all the windows in your apartment smells the same in new jersey, vermont, and berlin, and possibly everywhere.

so a few of you may be wondering where the hell i've been, and more importantly why i havent been blogging. i guess a list is the best idea.

1. finals. they really started kicking my ass. and i know that everyone misjudges and everyone gets extensions and everyone says its the hardest thing ever and then everyone does well. i'm no different. just like my abroad experiences aren't necessarily some outrageously groundbreaking innovative tome-worthy panorama of berlin or of life in general, for that matter. thereby, i have neglected the blog in order to focus on not failing.

2. i had a big finals-induced spazz out where i decided i not only was failing school, but also life. i began to question my choices down to the idea of even going to college, and then slept on it and realized that if i fail (which im almost positive i didnt, but i'm nothing if not melodramatic) i have lots of things to fall back on. my grace and charm, my international collection of friends, my god-given talent for waitressing AND cutting hair AND being cute. im sure i'll land on my feet even if i'm like, the fifth person to ever fail out of middlebury's study abroad program ever.

3. i am a big mess. if you didnt gather that from above. i hate all my clothes and cant bring myself to spend money on new ones. my two favorite boots are both badly in need of repair. my favorite pair of jeans is now unwearable due to overwear (aka something that happens to me every six months). my room is a disaster. ive successfully ignored my last two papers all week and now need to get my ass in gear.

4. my mom visited which totally threw me for a loop. adding to my poor time planning, having people staying in your apartment is always stressful; this last weekend was ten times that. it was so amazing to see my mom but i would actually rather have her here for like 3 weeks so that it could be relaxed and not a race against jet-lag and the clock to see different sights. i would have rather taken my mom to cool museums and galleries, had relaxed evenings at my various haunts, walk around the city which is my personal favorite thing. it was really wonderful to see her (hey mom, aka my only reader) and i only hope she can come back in the next five months.

5. redux:
life is crazy/messy/hectic AKA SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT
music is good but hard to follow from abroad
justice last night was awesome
my life this week has been 100% hedonism
i need a life-sponsor who happens to want to throw thousands of dollars at me
project runway, antm, and now gntm are the best parts of my week (maybe)


also, i got turned down for the german house ra position, so i need a place to live next year that isn't forest. ew. oh well.

i have officially reached the sixth page (out of twelve) on my first hausarbeit. i felt that this monumentous achievement deserved a momentary internet break and thus i immediately thought of you all - my loyal blog public. the big question in hausarbeit land is whether or not i am going to ask for an extension on these papers. i can easily get one - unlike most people i have a really valid reason - but i honestly don't want one. i want to be done with this semester and these papers and move on to my two month whirlwind berlin extravaganza. for this reason i plan on working my ass off over the next week and a half, and if things are looking dismal i'll ask for one. if not i just want to be done. i think i can do it, and hopefully the next two papers will go more smoothly than this one has.


my birthday was last week and it was really fun. i have an amazing group of friends here and everyone got along splendidly and we had a really nice night. i made dinner - tagliatelle with tomatoes, artichokes, kalamata olives and feta cheese. i also made a caprese salad, bought a baguette to go with it and had some cheese too. laura made me a birthday cake which we all ate for dessert. all in all tyler, laura, deborah and her boyfriend til, luisa and cliff, kathi and kiki and tim were all in attendance. we all fit around my dining room table and had a great night full of food and drinks. tyler's present to me was a bottle of vodka and a bottle of kahlua and some ice, i provided the milk/cream selection and we all had white russians (<3) and there were a few bottles of wine and beer in the mix as well. i got two really nice books, a moleskine planner, some flowers and some very nice cards. i wanted to go to a club afterward but a few of us ended up just going to tylers, dancing around with his roommate, taking shots of cheap tequila, and i took the train home at 5 am. it was a really enjoyable birthday though, and i was genuinely happy to share it with all my friends here.


today is the first day in almost a week that it has not been raining. it is pleasantly brisk and windy and there are even large patches of blue sky peeking through, which is nice to see. this weekend was kind of a depressing weekend, culminating with yesterday, which i heard later is supposedly "blue monday" aka the day that has been calculated to be the most depressing day of the year. i find that kind of ridiculous, but for me it pretty much was. the depression is really a culmination of factors - christmas, new years, prague, ben's visit, my birthday ... they're all gone. all of these things were so enjoyable and i had looked forward to them all for so long that it's a big drop off at this point. all i have for the moment is work work work, and although i'm really looking forward to my mom coming, that seems really far off (even though its less than a month away). on top of this sort of lull in the action, a friend of mine here killed himself on saturday which has really shaken me up. he wasn't a really good friend of mine, but i used to see him pretty frequently around campus and i've gone to parties at his house and gone to concerts with him. it really shocked me and has sort of been lingering in the back of my mind ever since. i also started missing ben pretty bad a few days after he left, and the rain kept me apartment bound all weekend so the feelings sort of multiplied and fermented until i was really bummed out.


last night i went to the gym and went in the sauna and just relaxed, which was really nice and will become a more regular part of my routine i think. today i got a lot of sleep and i'm feeling better and i am halfway through my first hausarbeit, which is a big step forward, and i'm meeting a friend for coffee later. tomorrow i have a lofty goal of actually finishing the whole thing which might not happen, but you never know. maybe in an hour i will really pick up speed and just get it all done. a few big quote chunks, a lot of footnotes ... it could happen.

i have spent the majority of the last week or so trying to write my first hausarbeit and so far ive gotten almost nowhere. now ben and the other boys are here, which is really great, but i can't really go out and party with them simply because i have so much work to do. i have a finalized outline and an introduction to my paper and i know that if i set my mind to it i can get a lot done. seeing ben here has been really interesting, because it is very out of context. he said something yesterday along the lines of how this is my place without him, which is very true. middlebury is inextricably tied up with him for me, but this is my place that is just for me, even if i think about him while i'm here or miss him ... it is my place by myself. it's a way that i have not yet viewed berlin, but it's very true. i'm not sure if it is emancipatory or not, because i can't really see it as an "emancipation" from anything, but i do know that it has both allowed and forced me to mature a lot.


so far ben's visit has been a success, my sickness is pretty much all cleared up, we're getting a new washing machine tomorrow ... things are already looking up. it's just sort of shocking because i knew that ben was going to visit, but it seemed endlessly far off - january. my birthday is in three days now, and its a milestone. a week after my birthday will be my 4 month-anniversary of coming here (that was grammatically incorrect, but it's the easiest way to put it). as could be expected, things have started to move very quickly on this side of the atlantic and it's kind of unsettling but also exciting. im having my closest friends come to my house on my birthday for dinner and then afterward we are going to go out for drinks and dancing. this means i'll be spending most of my birthday on thursday in the library writing in order to spend friday sleeping. on top of all of the craziness, i also got a babysitting job with a very nice family. they live in a very nice/expensive part of the city and have a 3 year old daughter and a baby son on the way in a few weeks. the prospect of a little extra pocket money is really nice, and it will be good to have order in my life, even though it might cut into my travel plans a little ... that might be a good thing. i have to keep reminding myself that as tempting as it is to jetset all over europe (and as cheap as it is since i'm already here), there is still so much of berlin that i have yet to explore and despite the fact that i still have SO much time, i need to take advantage of all of it and really run around more and more every week.

i am now eight days into 2008 in berlin. i have already visited prague, spent the majority of the new years hungover and sleep deprived, and have yet to break any of my new years resolutions! a friend of mine and i were talking about whether writing a blog about your time abroad is really worth it. she says she reads this occasionally and that she's had friends who wrote blogs about their experiences which were pointless. i think that you have to be somewhat of an egotist to write a blog, especially one like this that only receives feedback from my mother. granted i find that people's study-abroad blogs are always interesting, i will admit that the ones from china or ghana are a touch more thrilling than mine. the fact that i'm not good at putting pictures on this one doesn't help. honestly, though, i think that the #1 reason you should write a blog is for yourself. i will be able to look back on this blog and remember my trip, and things can linger on the internet for a very long time. who knows, maybe i'll continue this blog once i'm back in the states. maybe after i graduate i'll come back to berlin and continue the blog even further. i know that almost no one reads it, but i write this blog for myself, to document my growth and my trip and i think its fun and useful to reflect on what's going on.


the wake-up call came in terms of my semesterarbeiten. im going to have to write roughly 36 pages in german in the next five weeks. that includes researching/reading and writing about three different topics. that is insane. things have gotten pretty rough in camp rachael, what with a fun bout of being sick, my washing machine breaking, finals stress, visitors stress and a general sense of being overwhelmed. then again, feeling overwhelmed is nothing new to me. in five weeks this will be over. i've written 20 page papers in english in 3 days. i know that i can do this, i just need to focus and stop procrastinating. ben is coming to visit in five days. my mom is coming in 5 weeks. i may have gotten a babysitting job. i got my ipod back (which has made my life better than i'd like to admit). things are good, but this is definitely a rough patch. the worst part is that tyler is leaving after we finish our final papers and i'm 100% sure we will barely see each other this month as it is. i'm hoping to get through this month of work and avoid any all-nighters/migraines. it seems ridiculous when i think of the amount of work i do regularly at middlebury. why am i freaking out about three papers?


recently i've given in and started buying junk food while living here. i think that this needs to stop. i'll remind myself in the supermarket that it's a budgeting issue (which it kind of is i guess). i have formed a newfound addiction to the "lite" paprika chips, erdnuss flips and "american style" chocolate chip cookies that they sell in plus. i bought myself a gym membership for xmas, however, and subscribed to a "gym mix" podcast, which is kind of awesome, so i'm sure i'll work off the junk food that i've indulged in in the last two weeks. i have to remember to enjoy the upcoming month instead of dreading it and complaining, and to keep my chin up, or as they say auf deutsch, halt die ohren steif!! (aka keep my ears stiff!!) (aka i love german idioms!!!)

christmastime in berlin and a different view of the wall

in about three days it will be the beginning of 2008, which is an absurd thing to think about. spending christmas in berlin was actually very nice, but i missed my mother and friends. there is something very cathartic for me about the drive from vermont to new jersey and all that i associate with it. it's the end of a stressful semester, the beginning of a new year and a fresh start. its the hope that being home will be really fun (which it usually isn't, but that's okay). its the anticipation of christmas eve and new years and seeing everyone that i've missed. christmas here lacked a lot of christmas "spirit" for me, despite the fact that i tried very hard to be imbued with holiday cheer by way of weihnachstmarkten and glühwein and christmas songs.

christmas in germany is a three day calorie-binge affair, as i very much expected. much sekt was imbibed, much meat was consumed, and i even got some presents, which was really nice! it was a little saddening to see that people who barely knew me bought me more thoughtful presents than most of the members of my family could come up with, but i try to be thankful for everything that i get every year because it's really not the point. i gave my roommate and her sister homemade mittens, and gave her parents vouchers for homemade socks. i'm also going to surprise kathi's in-laws with homemade socks because they were also very kind to me this week and had me over for coffee a few times and gave me a brand new english novel as a gift, which was incredibly thoughtful of them.

the 24th, or heiligabend (holy night) consisted of meeting up with the in-laws (from now on gina and fred (hard g, not soft like in the states)) and taking the dogs on a long spaziergang (walk). kathi's parents and her in-laws live in the far north part of the city, practically on the border. we walked the dogs all of the three days, taking ditte (kathi and my dog) and gina and fred's two dogs (one of which is a 10 week old puppy!!!) all around the area that used to be the no-man's land of the berlin wall. it was amazing to see what it has turned into now. vast stretches of open land surrounded by forest which is now overpopulated with dogs and their owners and families going for long walks. it's a little surreal to walk through a wooded area and come out upon a large sandy tract, knowing that people may have been shot there trying to get into west berlin from the brandenburg area, which was technically part of the DDR (GDR). then we went back to kathi's parents apartment and opened presents!! as i said, i got everyone hand knit gifts. i received really beautiful yarn from kathi's parents - fall colors, which are my absolute favorite, sort of chunky weight and enough for a sweater. they also included needles, which is so sweet!! kathi and kiki got me a shirt that says "haupstadtrocker" which is cheesy, but i'll wear it when i get home. they also got me a little bookmark calendar. since i didn't expect anything, it was really sweet of them. then we got to the important part - food.

germans traditionally eat fondue at christmas and/or new years, but this is a different fondue than i've experienced via flea-market sets and the movie anchorman. kiki and i sat in the kitchen cutting raw lamb, beef, pork and chicken into thin thin strips. then we set up two fondue pots full of boiling water and set out the raw meat, raw shrimp, and about 7 different sauces. we also had broccoli, but the meat was the focus (duh). every person got two fondue forks and we proceeded to dig in. the gist of it is that each person puts some meat on the end of both of their forks, puts it in the fondue pot, and then when it's cooked you put another piece on, return it to the pot, and eat what you cooked with one of the sauces. it allows for you to eat very leisurely and talk and enjoy the meal. i have never eaten so much in my life. at the end of the meal, when all the meat is gone you drink the broth which is incredibly rich and delicious.

on the twenty fifth we came back for roasted lamb which was marinated for 3 days in red wine and apfelschörle, which is a sparkling apple juice. on the twenty sixth we had something called raklette, which i had never heard of before. apparently it's swiss, but its another german holiday-time tradition. we put out bowls of all sorts of vegetables and things - corn, tiny mushrooms, chopped peppers, chopped zucchini, mild goat cheese, chopped ham, pickles, and once again shrimp. a grill was set up in the middle of the table which had a grill surface on top, but also had space underneath for a bunch of tiny shallow pans with handles. we also had plates of cheese slices. basically we put some herbed butter on the grill and proceeded to grill the shrimp and also some potatoes, and filled the pan with an assortment of the aforementioned ingredients, covered it with a slice or two of cheese, set it in its slot under the grill and waited until the cheese melted. once the cheese melts you pull the pan out and consume the cheesy melty deliciousness.


needless to say i signed up for a gym membership in 2008 haha. it was a really gemütlich christmas, however. kathi's family is incredibly nice and welcoming and i felt right at home with them, playing with the dog and knitting a swatch for my sweater. i would love to start on it right away, but i need to work on some socks first and then finish the scarf i'm in the middle of. crunch time at FU has finally begun and i've been working all day on reading for my final paper, which is seeming to be impossible at this point. i know that once i start writing my ideas will easily fill 12 pages, but starting off is the hardest part. i need to really summarize all the readings in an outline and then i have a feeling i'll be able to get started. january will be a month full of work, but i think it will be enjoyable. my goal is to have one paper finished by the time ben gets here on january 13th. i think that is totally feasible, and leaves me a month for the other two.

celebrating new years in berlin should be really enjoyable and i'm leaving everything up in the air. i'm trying to keep my expectations low and stay low key with my celebration because too many plans always ends in disaster. i have plans to have dinner with my friend laura and some of her friends, then we're heading to a high point near where she lives to see fireworks. after that it's all up in the air - there are a few parties/clubs that i could choose and we'll just have to see. my only worry is paying 20 or 30 euros to get into a club and then want to leave. i have faith that it will be a good night, however, because it takes very little other than alcohol to make me happy :)

my new years resolutions this year are as follows:
1. absolutely no more drunk dialing in 2008. this is a good resolution because it will save money and dignity simultaneously.
2. to make my gym membership worth it and go at least once or twice a week.
3. to stick to my budget for the next seven months.
4. to clean the kitchen/bathroom or run the vacuum once a week, because my apartment gets dirtyyyy.
5. to make a list of museums/exhibits to visit and cross the names off once i go to them all :)
6. as with every year, to make every day memorable in some way.

to my massive readership - ich wünsche ihnen einen guten rutsch ins neue jahr!!! happy new year, see you in 2008 with a review of NYE and inevitably stress due to finals!!

i feel as if i begin every blog post by exclaiming at how fast the time has flown by. i find this to be a bit cliche, and so i think i should stop. today has been one of many lazy days that i've had lately and it's convenient to blame the weather, so i'll go in that direction. things in deutschland are rolling along as usual ... i only have this upcoming week of classes and then winter break until january something, which is kind of nice. i have a lot of work to do in the meantime, but its more fun to pretend that it doesn't exist. i'm also busy pretending that the dishes in the kitchen, laundry in the washer, and pile of reading on my desk also do not exist. i've started a disturbing new trend now that the weather has turned and have spent many a full day in my apartment. this is something i need to alter in the future. there is still so much of this city that i have yet to experience, i can't let myself get so comfortable that i stop exploring. i still want to see two remaining weihnachstmarkten and i also want to see the nutcracker with my friend jorunn. i'll update again after my doctor's visit on thursday, because i'm sure it will be thrilling.

clothes dryers, cranberries, credit cards and tampons

it's hard to believe that it is not only december, but one week into december, and thus i decided to post another update here. my mother, who by the way, is the only person who reads this blog, told me that this is the only one she reads anymore, and clearly thats because i'm her daughter but also because no one else seems to be updating that regularly. i think that part of this is because blogging is something that one has to do for oneself. it's exactly the same as keeping a journal, only its public and on the internet, which makes it slightly more gratifying in a creepily post-modern way because you can get feedback on it. the truth is, i write this blog for myself. when my mom gave the address out in september i was a little nervous because i no longer knew who was reading it and how it would reflect back on her, but now that i'm positive that no one reads this but us i feel that i can pretty safely lift the censor.

christmas has been feeling rather unchristmas-y here in deutschland, despite the prevalence of weinachstmarkten and the decorations in my apartment. it was unseasonably warm today, it has only snowed once when i was lucky enough to see it - drunk at 6 am when kathi and i decided to have a snowball fight outside of the apartment. other than that it has been rainy and overcast pretty much without end. the german aesthetic is completely different in terms of advertisements and media, and i think that in a big way that makes christmas feel different as well because the commercial aspect is pretty much most of what's left of the holiday in the united states, in my mind at least. i mean, i remember putting up the tree in my old house and my parents bickering comically over the entire process, i remember caroling with my girl scout troop, the smell of my cousin's basements on christmas eve when i would eat pepperoni and cheddar and have no room for dinner. i remember the excitement of walking to their houses in the cold, wearing most likely a homemade velvet dress, shiny shoes, seeing the monstrous teal and white of their prefab houses as we turned the corner on their street. i remember getting excited seeing my mom wearing lipstick and a festive outfit. i remember my giant pink stocking and staring at my ceiling listening really closely for elves or reindeer. and lets not forget putting out milk, cookies, carrots and a note for santa and the reindeer, and having them be eaten and responded to accordingly the next day. but christmas is also tied in with charlie brown on tv, peppermint drinks and holiday tea at starbucks, ripping apart presents and then groggily sitting around the house the whole day watching the movies you got and being overwhelmed by what to play with first, until it all sits piled by the tree waiting to be schlepped upstairs.

this year i cant really afford very many presents, and i don't think i'll be giving very many out. i have a few close friend here, but we havent really discussed gift giving. i'm spending christmas with my roommate and her family, which is really nice of them, but it'll be my first christmas outside of the US and while that is kind of relieving, it is also really bizarre. it all comes back to the fact that there are some things in this country that are just so different, and at times are incredibly frustrating. for one, the complete lack of clothes dryers and laundromats is astounding, and to remedy my stiff clothes i bought fabric softener which i am pretty sure has led to me getting a nasty reaction on my legs and back. also, foods that you wouldn't think of are just mysteriously absent from supermarkets. cranberries? creamed corn? dr. pepper? not to mention the fact that all of the cans are different sizes, and ingredients are measured in grams even if they are liquid, which makes recipe conversion difficult.

something that i find really hard to grasp as an american is the fact that all over the city, you can't use a credit card. the other night i had quite an embarassing supermarket trip in which i tried to use my new EC karte, which required a pin # that i didnt choose and therefore couldn't remember, and i had to walk all the way home to find it. the fact that a major grocery store chain, as well as THE APPLE STORE don't take credit cards astounds me. absolutely astounds me. as a full-bred american, from new jersey, one of the most consumer-saturated states in the union, DONT THEY WANT TO TAKE MY MONEY?? WHY ARE THEY MAKING IT SO DAMN DIFFICULT?? HOW DO GERMAN BUSINESSES SURVIVE?? does it have to do with the cold war? world war 2? is there a cultural reason why credit cards might as well not exist here? and the final thing that doesnt exist here, which equally blows my mind, is tampons with applicators. explain to me how they arent sold in two major drug stores. i dont even know if there are any other drug store chains in this city. applicator-free tampons ... IS THIS 1973? i mean, granted, they are better for the environment, less waste, cost efficient, etc., and after i had my little hissy fit over it, i felt kind of high school. i mean it's a 100% cliche sentiment to try to say, "oh when you're abroad everything is so different, even the little things, blahblahblah" and it sounds really condescending, but i really do realize the things i've taken for granted as being part of western first world countries, and i guess that's part of what europeans mean when they scoff at americans for wanting to "americanize" the rest of the world. but what's a world without credit cards and user-friendly tampons?

... i digress. outside of the occasional bouts of xenophobia, everything here is getting better and better. i really do feel more at home here every day, and i explore new parts of the city every day. school has been going well as far as i can tell, but it's so different from middlebury that it's hard to track your progress because you're entire grade hinges upon your final paper. i just got through week 8 of the semester, which is composed of 16 weeks so i'm offically half-way through this semester, which is crazy. it's even crazier to think about my friends who are at middlebury and are done with classes, starting finals, getting ready to go home and prepping for j-term, or time abroad, or graduation. thinking about that makes 8 weeks seem endless. everything else is business as usual - my room is a mess, i tend to have one or two freakouts every day, i'm coming to terms with being broke for the next 8 months of my life, and i'm trying to cover ground in the city and accomplish some things. tuesday night i went to the symphony with tim and saw charles dutoit conducting and a really famous pianist, which was really enjoyable (and my first time at a symphony!!). this week i started work on my final paper for my class on global justice, which is going to be about john rawls and charles beitz (thrilling stuff). last night kathi and i had some friends over to watch the season final of "popstars" which is a german version of american idol mixed with making the band. then i went with luisa to a bar in prenzlauerberg that was playing slavic music (mixed with some salsa, which was nice), and ended up hanging out with this guy who is a religion major at FU and lived in east germany before the fall of the wall and we talked about really bizarre cold war things. i've also been looking around for places to take ben when he visits, and also to take my mom and mrs. lide when they come in february. it's hard to entertain someone in this city for 4 days when they arent really interested in loud smokey nightclubs or 85 museums, but i'll see what i can come up with.