I can good Danglish speak

Did anyone notice that last sentence of my last post - "Just for now, while everything so new and fresh is..."? Sound a little like Yoda? Welcome to the phenomenon of Danglish. Actually, I might be stretching the meaning of this term - I first learned it as the sort of mixed German and English that Americans learning German often speak with each other when there aren't any Germans or other Americans around. It's basically the language of German-learners. I'd like to also use it to refer to the messed up way that thoughts come into my mind right now, since I hear and speak German all day long but am definitely far from fluent. So when I think, I think in this wierd mixture of German and English, and when I type, apparently I sometimes combine the languages in odd ways. There are also a lot of German expressions that I really want to use in English but they don't really exist. So if I say something that seems weird to you, you can bet it's probably an awkward translation fo something in German. (For example, in German we say "also" all the time, which means something like "that is to say" or "therefore" and other things too...)

Also! (OK!) back to the update...

Day 4: We slept really late... like, till a little bit after noon. When we woke up, Suzy had two new roommates. One was sleeping; the other, Molly, was hungry for some lunch, so the four of us went to the "Berliner" cafe (where I ate on Thursday). After that we wandered around a ritzier part of town where there were lots of expensive windows to look in (Burberry, Gucci, etc.), then headed back to the hostel for naps before everything started at 7. We met Carmen Müller, the director of BCGS, and a professor from Princeton who is here with the program. Basically all we did was introduce ourselves, then we went to dinner together at a local Italian/pizza restaurant. Why pizza, I have no idea!!! We should've had Wienerschnitzel with Spätzle and Sauerkraut or something, at least in my opinion. But of course, no one really asked me.

The other kids in the program are very nice. We all are sort of at varying levels in German - some have taken it only for a few semesters, others since 7th grade. Of course, how long we've taken German doesn't really have that much to do with how good we speak it - one girl has only studied German for a year and she basically kicks all of our butts! She's sooooo nice though. Everyone is. And actually, I thought it would be really weird to speak German with each other, but we're pretty much required to and so everyone does it, and it's actually not so weird. It does get a little annoying after awhile to hear so much not-so-perfect German. I don't mean that in a bad way - my German is also not perfect, so I contribute to the problem! - but what I mean is that I'm used to hearing more correct German (that is, from a teacher/professor) then I hear incorrect German (the other comments in class from us students). But of course here, I hear German everywhere, not just in German class like in the US. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Right now it kind makes my brain hurt, since I am always hearing not so good German or really good but really fast German - I feel like I'm always either annoyed or confused (or at least having to concentrate really hard!).

Okay, back to the recap! After dinner, about 2/3 of us went to a sort of bar/biergarten sort of thing (since, of course, all the people who just got there also wanted to try German beer). It was okay. And it hasn't actually been awkward (at least so far!) not to drink here. It is a little funny though because here, when you order a beer you usually get a pretty big one (normally 1/2 liter, basically a pint) but when you order water, you get 0.2 liter (less than an 8-oz. cup) and they only rarely will give you tap water - it's usually from a bottle, usually carbonated, and you have to pay for it (and thus you can't just get as much as you want). It looks pretty funny when we all raise our glasses, and theirs are all ginormous and mine is super tiny. I always finish first too. But that's really OK with me.

From there, of course, to bed.

Day 5: We all (unfortunately) had to get up early, get our stuff out of the room and put it in a special luggage room, eat breakfast, and then the orientation began. It was really not so much fun. I mean, I shouldn't complain, it wasn't bad, but it was not so easy on a Sunday morning so get up that early to sit there and listen to Dr. Müller speak German really fast about all the things we had to do, especially while I would've much rather gone to church in Pankow! We had lunch in the hostel, then more "orientation" - this time it was all about stuff we needed to know about staying with a host family, which was much better. After that, we went upstairs for "Kaffee und Kuchen" (coffee and cake), where our host families came to meet and greet us and take us home with them.

My family is very nice. It's a couple - Eddie and Ingke - with two kids, one of which is in Peru for a year with something like our Peace Corps, the other is Hannah, 17 years old. They live in a very nice part of Berlin, not far from Wilmersdorf, called Schöneberg. Eddie seems to really enjoy pointing out cool stuff to me. We took a little walk through town and he showed me how some of the apartments are really old - built in the early 1900's - but others are called "Nachkriegswohnungen" ("after-the-war apartments") because they were destroyed by bombs during the war and had to be rebuilt in the 50's. Also, the town used to be a town where a lot of Jewish people lived, so as a memorial to the Jews they these little signs everywhere that have pictures on one side that are symbolic of something and on the other side some sort of text from sometime between 1933 and 1945 (a quote from a law prohibiting Jews from this or that, part of a message saying that one had to report at a certain time and place, a quote from a letter written by a Jew to a friend when they had to leave, etc.). There are at least 100 of them throughout the town. I think it's really a wonderful memorial. (Eddie thinks so too.) Eddie also pointed out to me the place where JFK gave his (in)famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech!

A friend of Ingke's invited us over for dinner, so that's where we went after the walk. It was pretty cool. Ingke's friend is Turkish, which was really cool for me. (Ingke told me later that her friend's father came to Germany as a guest worker. She moved here when she was 10. It's so cool to study something and then actually see - in this case meet! - it!) It was a total of seven people - me and my hostparents (Hannah stayed at home because she was really tired and had to go to school today), Ingke's friend and her husband, and another couple. They cooked an amazing 4 course meal!!! I felt so spoiled!!! It was fun. It was a very lively bunch. I didn't understand all of the conversation, but that was okay with me because I was really tired. After that we went home and it was time for bed.

Speaking of "home," I guess I should describe where I'm living! My host family has a beautiful apartment - one of the super old ones, which are normally much nicer - and my room here is bigger than my room at home! The apartment isn't huge, but the rooms are pretty big. I'm staying in their son's room, Hannah has a room about the same size (with her own little porch!), they have a big room that is sort of a living room but with a computer, piano, etc., a kitchen with a nice big table, a bathroom with a shower, and then the master bedroom, which has it's own bathroom with a bath tub (but no shower). It's actually kinda interesting how some things - the fridge, washing machine, oven, bathroom, etc - are a lot smaller than in the US, but the rooms are bigger! My room and Hannah's also onl have twin beds, so there's really a ton of space. Hannah has a couch in her room too. Oh yeah, I almost forgot - there are books everywhere in this place. My room, the hallway, the master bedroom, and the living room all have tons of shelves which are completely full of books. For the next month, I really don't need to go to the library!

I also forgot to mention that on the way to the friend's apartment for dinner, Eddie chose a route that took us right through the middle of the city and pointed out sooooooooooooooooooo much stuff to me. I felt like a kid in a candy store! In less than 10 minutes I saw the Brandenburg Gate, bricks in the street that indicate where the Berlin wall was, Alexanderplatz, tons of important government buildings, two of the opera houses here in Berlin, the famous radio tower that you always see in pictures of Berlin... I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff too. It was so exciting!

Day 6: Today was Day 6, although I should actually that was yesterday since it's now already Day 7. Not too much to say about today - I spent most of the day at the university doing more orientation-ish stuff and taking care of logistical things. The campus is absolutely beautiful, but not in the same way that I would say a lot of American universities are beautiful... that is, in America, at least half the time, universities are pretty because the buildings are pretty. The Free University of Berlin (or as we call it, the Freie Uni or simply the FU, pronounced "eff-ooh", not the way that an American might find offensive!) was founded in 1948 and thus most buildings were built in the 50's or 60's, and you can tell. (That is, they're not exactly pretty!) But the campus is so green - there are so many trees, and it's all so thick... like, the buildings are still close together, so all the green stuff is rather dense, instead of being spread out over huge frequently-mowed lawns like in the US. It's also relatively far from the center of Berlin, so there aren't any tall buildings or anything - it's sort of its own pretty little town.

One of the guys in the program turned 21 today, so most of us went out for Kaffee und Kuchen after we were done with all our orientation stuff. After that I went home, and I had dinner with Ingke. We ate these wonderful roasted potatoes that came from their own garden at their house out in the countryside, some kind of ginormous mushrooms that are supposed to be quite a delicacy which they also picked themselves (she cooked them with some sort of seasoning or something), sliced cucumber, and baked apples (almost like fresh apple sauce, but with huge apple chunks!). We had good conversation over dinner. Eddie wasn't there because he had to go back out for something - I don't know what - and Hannah was at gymnastics. Ingke said Hannah has done gymnastics for 10-12 years and now she actually teaches gymnastics for little kids! I spent the rest of the evening on the internet, mostly searching through ads for apartments.

As soon as possible, I will post pictures, since they're probably more exciting than my rambling. :) Now I really need to go to bed though because tomorrow I have take a test to see which level I will be in for the language practicum!

I miss you all!