Aching Feet and Ping Pong

If every post begins with a statement of how utterly exhausted I am, I apologize. In the past two days, I have walked over 34,000 steps, or about 16 miles. Not my personal best, but close. I'm sure that record will be broken soon.

Today consisted of another ordinary commute, another orientation meeting, and more wandering through the city. And if you think I'm complaining, you're absolutely crazy. The meeting wasn't particularly exciting, but we toured the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Straße afterwards. Yes, it was cold, but still fascinating, as we learned about the death strip, the watch towers, escape attempts, and life during the wall's existence.

Once the tour concluded, I wandered around the memorial some more and then killed the few hours I had until our welcome dinner by walking around Alexanderplatz. That sounds fairly simple, except bear in mind that I had no idea where I was going on an empty stomach, while also tired and cold. However, it was nice. I found a couple neat buildings, stumbled upon the TV tower, and acquired another chai tea latte (I'm going to become an addict).

I then met up with everyone else at the welcome dinner and enjoyed my first full beer in Berlin, complimented by potatoes, cabbage, some kind of meat and apple-strudel. It was quite delicious, and I'm honestly just happy that I enjoyed the beer, as I'm trying to acquire a taste for it seeing as I am in Germany. My tolerance is a little low at the moment due to the infrequency of my alcohol consumption, so I may have gotten a little tipsy and talked about planes and cars with one of my peers for a good half hour or forty five minutes (to be fair, friends at home who are rolling their eyes at me, he asked me).

Afterwards, a group of us walked to a bar called Dr. Pong, which seemed kind of sketchy, but turned out to be really chill. Just some bare rooms with a bar, a ping-pong table, some chairs and graffiti. Ping-pong is one of the sports in Berlin and it was neat to see it in play. I definitely would like to go back there, as I left early and headed home due to aching feet and a desire to curl up in bed. My host-mother and host-brother (the seventeen year-old) were up when I returned so I finally got to talk to the latter a little more, but not much. His English is very good and he seems nice. I think we'll get along.

Tomorrow, my day off before classes, I will be going to Potsdam with my host family and then to a play that my host brother is in. For now, I sleep. After a couple episodes of House of Cards, of course. Tschüss!