Friday was spent at my program's study center for our final meeting, which involved paperwork to officially note our departure from Berlin, evaluations upon evaluations for the program and my host family, discussions on the highlights, lowlight and advice to future students, and a small "graduation" ceremony.
The ceremony consisted of all twenty-seven of us crammed into one of the classrooms, and each taking turns stepping up and being pinned with the Ampelmann, after stating why we had earned the right to have the little green man.
I don't think I've ever actually explained the Ampelmann, so let me clarify what it is. He is the crossing symbol, so red or green, for East Germany. After reunification, he hit cult status, and now is a popular symbol for Berlin, or East Germany in general. It's quite common to see keychains, bags, and more items with him (or her) in various forms throughout the city.
The logic behind pinning all of us with him was to symbolize our experience of "going" and constantly saying yes to new experiences, memories, people and food while we were here. Some stated that they deserved the pin for reasons such as living alone for the first time, traveling outside of the states for the first time, learning a language, learning that they liked ballet after drunkenly attending the performance in Prague, and more. I stated that I deserved the Ampelmann because I had gone from being an object of curiosity and uncertainty for my younger host brother, to an adopted member of the family who is free to tickle and play with him at all times. So, here is a gratuitous photo of me with my Ampelmann.Afterwards, my friend and I headed out to Charlottenberg where we had lunch with his host parents, hostbrother and the hostbrother's girlfriend at a cafe run by a Vermont woman and her German husband, both of which were extremely kind and friendly. I had a delicious pot pie and mango ice cream, both of which were homemade. Yum.
Once we'd stuffed ourselves full of food, we took a walk around the palace gardens surrounding the Charlottenberg palace. My friend and I had been there already, but had never been in the mausoleum that lies within the garden and is the resting place of two kings and their wives. It's an impressive building and the reclining figures of each of the figures are especially interesting.
My friend and I soon bid everyone else farewell, and headed back into the city center, where we went to KaDeWe, the department store in Berlin, once again. There, we wandered the uppermost level, which was food, and laughed at the various things we found. The "American" section was fairly amusing, and fun fact, you can buy PopTarts there for nearly nine euros. Following that, we went to my program's final Stammtisch in a biergarten in Wedding. It was nice enough, and fairly relaxed, although not everyone showed as some people had already left the city to continue traveling.
Once the garden closed, the group decided to go to a Korean karaoke bar nearby. There was a cover charge to get into the nearly empty place, plus you had to buy a drink on top of it, so I spent nine euros on the wonderful experience of listening to others sing and dodging people bugging me to sing, all with a fairly average rum and coke in hand. Eventually, after about an hour, I left and headed home, as it was after midnight. I headed home and crashed for the night.
Which brings us to yesterday, or Saturday. I spent most of the day writing my final architecture paper and procrastinating on said paper. However, at around five thirty, I finished and emailed it to my professor, officially closing my academic semester abroad. Then, in the evening, my host family had my farewell dinner with myself and a friend. It was really nice, and filled with delicious food. They made shepards pie, salad, cake, and a raspberry sauce, plus one of their friends who I was acquainted with also gave them an appetizer and a cake for the occasion as well.
It was truly lovely, and my younger host brother did not end up crying once during the dinner which was a rare occurrence. He sat on my immediate right and the two of us hit a new level in our relationship as we started swapping food, with him throwing bread he didn't want on my plate, dropping chocolate cake crumbs on the table cloth that he wanted me to eat, and demanding some of my soda to drink. It was pretty amusing.
Afterwards, my friend and I went out probably for our last time together, and grabbed a drink at a nearby bar that we frequent. For the first hour or so we were stuck outside due to the lack of tables and the weather was miserable with constant rain, dark and cool with some wind. However, it was nice to watch the city while my friend and I discussed "senior superlatives" for the people within our program. We decided that I was judged to be "most dependable," and that he was most likely to return to Germany/continue with German. After a few drinks (okay, one), we called it a night and parted ways, as he had to return home and start writing his final paper. Hehe.
Which leads me to where I am today. It's early morning here and the sun through my thin curtain woke me up at seven, which is fine. I'm sitting in bed typing this out and looking around my room which is slowly becoming barer and barer as I'm packing. My suitcase is in the corner along with most of my stuff as I slowly stuff it all in. Right now, my concern is weight not space, so it's fairly annoying, but I'll figure it out.
Today (or in the next coming days), I hope to go to Mauerpark one last time, grab chocolate and Haribo gummies from the grocery store, visit the Berliner Dom and Alexanderplatz one last time, stop by Nordbahnhof (train station) to view their exhibit on ghost train stations, and visit Treptower Park. And, of course, pack and write more blog posts about my experience here.
And finally, I close with the small story that occurred a while ago. One day, a week or so ago, I returned home at the same time as my host mother and my younger host brother. We had walked into the building through separate but opposite doors at the same time. The minute my younger host brother saw me, he stated with an indignant tone, "Was machst du hier!?" which means "What are you doing here?!" I was actually able to understand what he said and replied in just as indignant tone, "Ich wohne hier!" which meant "I live here!" It doesn't sound like much but it was pretty amusing and I'm happy I was able to know what he said.
That's all for now. I can hear my host brother making siren noises in the kitchen. More later as always promised. Tschüss!
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