Greetings and salutations, friends, family and loved ones. In five days I will be boarding my trans-atlantic fight to Chicago. This is quite strange to think about, in addition to the fact that my blogging about my time here will soon becoming to a close, but we'll go out with a bang (or at least a slightly loud thump), so here we go.
Sunday wasn't the best day in terms of weather, but myself and a friend went to Mauerpark anyway, which was probably my fifth time in the last sixth weeks. I need help. However, in my defense, it was more for him than for me, as he still needed to do his shopping, and I was, for the most part done. Ha.
So, we met up and wandered the market. I bought a shirt with my U-Bahn line logo on it, (repping the U8, yeah!), a postcard, a magnet, a small sign that says "valve closed" in German and an old DDR Mark (which is made of aluminium, it's so light!). My friend found some presents for friends, an old license place and a sign that says "Smoking Prohibited," also in German. This is hysterical because he smokes. Regularly. So I had a nearly hysterical fit of laughter in the middle of the junk stall because the irony was too much for me to handle.
After our market adventure, we grabbed döner kebabs for lunch and went to my house to study for our oncoming history final. I also finished another paper and studied for my German final which was the next day as well. Early in the evening, he returned home and I had dinner with my host family. The entire day I was trying to forget what was occurring at home, as it was Mother's Day and commencement at my home school.
Monday, I took two exams and with those over, I was (still am) done with four of my five classes. Afterwards, I met up with my local friend who took me to Potsdamer Platz, where we both ate a massive ice cream sundae, topped off with some shopping, and lemonade on a grassy hill in the middle of the city. It was a lovely afternoon, and I returned home to watch the newest Game of Thrones episode. I also began reading Code Name Verity, which has been fantastic so far and I've been unable to put it down.
Tuesday, I spent my last day at the partner college, which was fairly boring. I turned in two papers, listened to a lecture and watched a comedy movie about a Muslim man who finds out he was born Jewish (The Infidel in English, Alles Koscher in German). Afterwards, I returned home and had a simple evening with my host family, playing board games with my host brother and mom. The former cheats although I'm not sure how much of that is him not knowing how to count properly and him actually manipulating the game (I'm suspect that the latter is more true than the former).
The next day, I spent the morning going through my things and sorting out what I would need to take home and what I would be leaving, which was fairly depressing. However, I then met up with two friends and we went to the aquarium, which was good fun. We saw all sorts of fish, reptiles, amphibian, and insects. The jellyfish were especially neat, and they had several tanks full of them.
Afterwards, I wandered through the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. I had been there many times before but always right at closing or later at night. The interior of the modern church is gorgeous, with huge stained glass windows being the main focal point. It's also interesting, as the church also had a cross of nails, a tie to my father's hometown of Coventry, England. That evening, I went to my programs farewell dinner at a local restaurant in a ballroom, which was quite fun. I also got to peek into the main ballroom on the upper level, which was quite stunning in a derelict light. Afterwards, I headed home and had an early night.
Today, I had class, despite the fact that it is a holiday in Germany. (Fun fact: It's Ascension day, and Father's Day and Men's Day - yes, you read that correctly, Men's Day, because men have been so cruelly oppressed throughout history. Apparently, most celebrate by going out and buying lots of beer and getting quite drunk. I saw two men this morning on the S-Bahn with a giant case of large bottles of beer, which got its own seat on the train. I kid you not.)
Anyway, I had class. My last German class was held in which we got back our final tests and had breakfast together. I got a 93% on my test and an A- in the class, whoohoo. Afterwards, I worked on my final paper for architecture during my break, and then went to said class, which consisted of a walk around Prenzlauerberg looking at architecture, including old hospital/TB ward compounds, a mortuary, the planetarium, and several housing complexes on the site of former gas and oil works. It was pretty interesting, with the highlight being a massive bronze memorial statue to a early communist leader, Ernst Thälmann, during the Weimar Republic who was murdered by the National Socialists at Buchenwald after eleven years in solitary confinement.
The statue is his upper body with a flying flag behind him topped with the hammer and sickle. It is fourteen meters high and fifteen meters wide and weighs fifty tons. It took up all of the bronze production for 1986 in East Germany to make, especially at a time when there was a high demand for superconductors. After the fall of the wall, many people wished to have it removed, but it stayed and is now a listed monument, that is regularly covered in graffiti. It was quite interesting, and there was a group at the base grilling on their day off. One of them was kicking around a soccer ball at and around the statue. My architecture professor also stated that recently someone had graffitied a gold bracelet on the statue's wrist with the word "fancy," which must have been hysterical to see.
Currently, I'm sitting in my program's study center, with many of of the other people in my program watching Inglourious Basterds as the film class's final movie. We're also getting pizza later, hurrah.
All caught up for now. Tschüss!
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