We had a visitor!

My friend from college Joe came to Berlin for a long weekend and Arran and I got to show him Berlin! Unfortunately there were record low temperatures the past few days, so we got to see Berlin while being extremely cold. Well, I take that back. I was extremely cold. The boys seemed to be mostly just cold.

Arran and I have actually done very little sight seeing, so this was an opportunity for us to go around and see things, too.

On Friday Joe and I went to the Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie. Here we are in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Fun fact, Napoleon apparently stole the statue at the top of the gate in 1806 and took it back to Paris. Obviously the Germans got it back.


And Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the wall crossing between East and West Germany.


Oh, look! Another picture! Joe came without a hat, gloves, or scarf, so we hooked him up with some Berlin ones.



On Saturday we went to the Charlottenburg Palace, which was pretty awesome. Here is arran and me standing in front of the palace, which was originally built as a summer home in the late 1600's. Because, who doesn't need a palace as a summer home?


We took a tour and got to see a lot of original furniture and art, and then some that was just from the time period. There was one room which had over 700 pieces of China decorating the room, which was quite neat.

Aside from being awesome inside, there were also grounds outside. During the spring and summer I'm sure it's a lot more beautiful, but everything at least looked pretty with the snow. Here is Joe and me around the back of the palace.


The view looking out from the palace.


The back view of palace with Arran and I.



So, this was just a few of the pictures and things that we did. It was a great weekend and I'm glad I got to see Joe!

It's *really* starting to look like Christmas!

Technically, this isn't the first snow of the year, but it's the first snow of December!


It didn't really stick for very long, but the point was it looked nice and made it feel very holiday-like :)


So in Germany we have two friends- Amanda and Stefan. Amanda is a fellow teaching assistant who happens to be a vegan and Stefan is a German who we met through alternative means. For the past two months Amanda, Arran, and I have been doing weekly dinners. Well, weekly food marathons might be a better description. Basically we pick a theme and then made ridiculous amounts of food in the form of appetizers, main dish, and dessert to go along with it. Then we eat too much over several hours. We've done Thai, Caribbean, Arabic, breakfast for dinner, and Indian- just to name a few.

Amanda and Stefan recently met at our Thanksgiving feast (pictures will no doubt be posted eventually) and he has recently been in attendance at our dinners. This past Saturday our theme was pizza party! We had pop, made pizza, and Amanda made a super awesome salad. And then for dessert- we decorated and baked Christmas cookies!

Proof that we have friends and that we made cookies:


Arran's mom sent us a vegan gingerbread mix (complete with hazelnut flavored agave syrup- yum!!!) and I found a recipe for vegan sugar cookies, which worked out quite well. I mixed all the dough before dinner and then it was chilled and ready to be rolled out!


Then we cut them out with cookie cutters and decorated them with sprinkles, both conveniently provided by Marilee (thank you :) ), and some chocolate that Amanda brought. Arran obviously got in on the decorating as well!

So we had a nice few hours, sitting around, drinking tea and cider, decorating cookies, and then eating the cookies that we just baked. Here is one almost empty plate:


And here is a mixed plate, that also, was also empty shortly there after:


All in all, we had a great night with friends and are getting more and more into the Christmas cheer!

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

I present to you, Linnea and Arran's Christmas nook! Here you can see our tree, which is still alive and can be planted outside when the holidays are over. It is decorated with gingerbread ornaments courtesy of Arran's mom (thanks again, Marilee :)!) some ribbon I braided and then Arran wrapped around the tree, some smaller ornaments that were given to me, and some little things that I made. Under the tree are presents courtesy of Arran's parents (we have presents!). On the window sill you can see our advent calender- Arran let's me open the little windows every day because I get so excited to do it. And then we also have a few smaller decorations. Basically we're all ready for Christmas! We've also been listening to Christmas music and have even gone to a few Christmas markets

To further get in the holiday spirit, I plan on making cookies, complete with red and green sprinkles either today and tomorrow. :D

On a completely different note, I was going through pictures I hadn't posted and came upon these:


Can you see the little hedgehog?


So, one day back in October I was walking home from school and I saw the little guy, or gal, trying to cross the street. When they made it about half way across, a car started coming, so I ushered them to the other side so they wouldn't get hit. The next problem was that there were curbs on the street and the hedgehog was too small to crawl up onto the side walk, so I picked them up and put them on the side walk, where they scurried away. And that is my story about saving a hedgehog :)

The Festival of Freedom

As many of you know, November 9th was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Conveniently enough we live in Berlin, so we got to see some of the events first hand!

I'm not sure what people heard in other countries, but one of the things that they did to celebrate was build a "domino wall" throughout the city. Different 13th grade classes in the former East and West Germany were invited to create a piece of the wall, including a class from my school.

Here you can see the piece that they made. What was especially cool was their piece was sponsored by the American Embassy here and the class got to meet Hilary Clinton! There are some pictures here from a local newspaper with pictures of them with her.

Anyway, so they put pieces of the walls back to back and this went from the Brandenburg Gate in a few different directions. Linnea, with some other English teaching assistants, went to the Festival of Freedom, as they called in, to see all of the happenings a.k.a. see them knock all the pieces down.


This was Linnea's view of the Brandenburg Gate. As you can see it was packed. If you look close enough you can see the giant screen where they showed all the speeches and musical guests, so that everyone could see what was going on. Unfortunately the weather was quite cold and rainy, but it was certainly manageable.


Proof that Linnea didn't just steal some one else's pictures :) You can see some of the pieces of the wall behind her.


This is what it looked like with all the pieces of the wall lined up.


Some pieces more up close. You can see that they the crowds were separated from the pieces with a gate and then they had people in silver coats (on the right) who were patrolling the in between area.

There were also special guests that came! The leaders of Germany, France, Russia, and Great Britain As mentioned before, Hilary Clinton was in Berlin and above is a very blurry picture of her during her speech.


Obama couldn't make it, for whatever reason (a lot of people found it a bit odd and even disrespectful) but! he recorded a speech and sent it with Clinton.

Beyond just political leaders, they also had celebrities, authors, and musicians come. For example Bon Jovi was there, as well as Muhammed Yunus (above) who is essentially the inventor of microlending.

After many speeches, interviews, and musical performances the time came for all of the wall to be knocked down. It was very dramatic- with a countdown and everything and this:


is the aftermath!

And to end the whole night there were fireworks, of which I only have video. But I'm glad that I got to be there as this was definitely a once in a life time opportunity :)

Unsere neue Wohnung!

Pictures!

I figured I'd give a brief background to our new pad. We now live on Beethovenstraße (Beethoven Street), which is one street over from Mozartstraße (Mozart Street) and down the street from the national music archives. An additional piece of random information is that we also live a short walk from the residence of the Libyan ambassador.

We're renting our apartment from a mathematician, who reminds me very much of my father. He has usually rented it out to doctoral candidates, but there hasn't been money to finance any, so the apartment has been empty for almost a year. It was partially furnished, but he figures he can rent it out as fully furnished once we leave, so he's basically been buying us a bunch of new stuff, like new pots and pans, a new bed, and kitchen utensils. Basically, we found a super awesome deal.


I thought that I would begin this photo tour of our new apartment with the view from our balcony. Because we have a balcony!

As you can see, autumn is is full bloom here and the trees (both outside of our window and lining the streets) look beautiful. I'm sure if it ends up snowing a bunch this winter (though our first snow fall happened earlier this week!) our view will be equally picturesque. I've really enjoyed being able to just sit in the apartment and watch the leaves fall off the trees. It's an amazingly soothing activity and makes me kind of wish I had apple cider (though I suppose I could make that myself...).


Here you can see our desk and bookshelf. Conveniently situated right be the window allowing for optimal out-of-the-window staring. You can also see our two plants! The one on the right is a basil plant that started dying as soon as I brought it home (sigh), but on the left in the yellow pot is a succulent given to us by Amanda, another English teaching assistant, as a house warming present! Amanda is super awesome and will do doubt be a common character in this blog :)


The apartment is one bedroom with a separate hallway, bathroom, and kitchen and thus our bedroom is also our living and dining room. Here we have our kitchen table, conveniently purchased previously at Ikea. While Ikea (pronounced Ee-kay-uh since we're in Germany) is pretty awesome and the stuff looks cool, the product quality is sometimes... lacking. So, I demonstrated my handy-woman skills this week with wood glue after several of the pieces of the chair broke/ decided to not stay in their designated holes. The high quality German wood glue was provided by Stefan, another individual who will no doubt pop up on here from time to time.

Our tour will end for today with the kitchen (we do have a bed, I promise!).



Our kitchen is small, but sweet. Here you can see some of our new pots and pans and our oven. Also the largest cabinet on the left is actually our super camouflaged refrigerator.

Now at this point, I wanted to add more pictures, but blogger isn't letting me. Perhaps there's a picture limit? Perhaps I've uploaded too big of files? I suppose I will just have to make another post in the very near future with more pictures and such.

All the same, we love our new apartment, are super excited to be settled in and are very happy with life right now :)

We're all moved!

As I think any one who is reading this knows, we found our own apartment and are all moved in. This post won't have any pictures from our new place, mostly because our internet situation is a bit precarious at the moment, but! hopefully I'll be able to take and put up some tonight.

Our new place is in Lankwitz, which means that we now officially live in Berlin. The town is quiet and very neighborhood-like with lots of trees and cobble stone streets. The man we are renting from found it a bit odd that two student aged individuals would want to live in a relatively boring and non-"trendy" part of Berlin, but Arran and I love it. My commute time has increased significantly, but I think that is the only downside and it is something I'm more than willing to work through.

I'll wait to talk more about specifics when I actually have pictures to post, but I can put up a few pictures from the last (almost!) two months that my teacher took.

Shuffling cards at a birthday party, which everyone was very impressed with.

My teacher and I at the Oranienburg Garden Show.

Arran and I eating like knights the first weekend we got to Germany.

Lära Bars and deodorant and peanut butter, oh my!

A little more than a week ago, Arran and I got a package in the mail from his mom!


And long story short. It was amazingly awesome, with super great stuff inside! Peanut butter crackers, peanut butter, Lära Bars, Cliff Bars, wash clothes, toothpaste (! for some reason not only is a tube of toothpaste smaller here, but that smaller tube is more expensive than in the States), deodorant for both of us, tooth brushes, colored contact cases, contacts for Arran, a card, and more!

Interestingly, I needed to buy contact solution last week and was having a lot of trouble finding it at the drug store. While I was looking for it kind of in the general area with the other personal care (teeth, face, skin, hair, etc.) items, I ended up finding it with the vitamins, nutritional supplements, and a small selection of organic food items. I'm still trying to figure that one out.


Look at those happy faces :)

In der Schule

This week I did my first official lesson! I taught the 13th graders about how to write a CV and the difference between a CV and a resume. It went over well and the teacher that I work with said that she told the other teachers that I did a good job, so I might be teaching even more Germans about the joys of applications!


Here's a few shots of the main class room that I work in. The chalk board in the picture below is pretty neat in that it moves up and down and also those two panels open up, so there's 4 panels in total that can be written on. On the black board is an assignment that I wrote out for the 13th graders.


One of the questions that they are supposed to answer and that is written on the board is what is the race of the author of the article that they had to read. One of the girls asked me if race meant "skin color". There was a huge part of me that wanted to go off into an explanation of how "skin color" is a hugely inept definition and that race is and has been socially and historically constructed. Plus, race would be more accurately described as a description of phenotype rather than just skin color, but I held myself back and said, "Yes, basically." Some times being a social science and humanities major makes life a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

This week I also got to visit a few 7th grade classes, which was a lot of fun. The kids are at the point in learning English that they have a very basic vocabulary and understanding of grammar, they're excited to use what they know and they're not yet embarrassed by making mistakes. In both classes the kids asked me questions for the whole 45 minutes, which is about 30 minutes longer than it usually lasts with the older kids. I made a particularly favorable impact in one of the classes when I disclosed that I own a Nintendo DS, which I think made up for the let down that happened when I informed the kids that I was in fact not from England and that I don't remember the last time I ate at McDonalds.

Better not let them see me walking around with wet hair...

I may be divulging a little TMI, but I do so in the spirit of cultural exchange and understanding :)

So, I got a bladder infection. Everything is fine- I went to the doctor and got antibiotics that I'll start tonight. That isn't particularly blog worthy. What is, is the response that my liason teacher and her husband had to me getting sick.

They are both convinced that me walking around the house in socks, but no shoes or slippers, is responsible for my infection. So much so, that Klaus lectured me today on the drive back from the doctors about how, "I want to be treated like an adult, but I insist on acting like a child, running around barefoot and without shoes." And that I needed to tell Arran to make sure he's always wearing slippers or he'll be the next one they'll have to drive to the doctors. And he said something about me wanting him to act like a father to me. I accidentally started to laugh, because I thought maybe he was being a wee-bit sarcastic... but he wasn't. There was a little part of me that wanted to ask if he had a studies to back up his claims, but I didn't think that that was an appropriate time to do so.

As soon as I got home they found me a pair of slippers to put on (keep in mind they're open toed and heels) and they told me that I needed to rest and make sure that I keep my stomach warm. Because they think that keeping my bladder warm will help it to heal.

I want to emphasize that I really appreciate that they are worried about me. They have been super awesome great, and are very much concerned about both Arran and my well being. I just think that in this case, their worry is a bit misguided.

Nonetheless, below is a picture of my socked and slippered feet :)

Food!

Back in the States we were a bit worried about our vegan options in Germany. Well, that worry was unneeded! This week we bought soy butter, soy milk, and soy yogurt at the store, which are beautifully displayed below on our three shelves in the refrigerator :)


On Friday we went into Berlin where we found an Arabic and an Asian market, which Linnea got super excited about. Among our purchases were dates (seen above), some noodles, and a bunch of spices (like fresh ginger!). And! a Russian Coke light :)


Oh, look! Arran washing the pots and pans I used to make lunch!

With our newly purchases spices, Linnea made Chana Masala, which word has it, was pretty tasty.

Home, sweet home!

This is our first full week in Oranienburg and this things are going well! These are pictures of our current living arrangements. The stairs on the left lead up to the loft where we sleep and the couch is where we have been sitting to watch The West Wing, which we just started stealing from the internet.

The room, as you can see, is very red- even the basket for our dirty clothes and our memo board (which you can't see) are in red. If you look closely, you can see tissues on the desk, which don't really match, since their orange. That is because we took them from the bathroom, which the box matches perfectly in. The bathroom is completely decorate in orange- from the bath mat to the hand towels to the toilet paper (yes, we have colored toilet paper!). Though it may seem a bit silly, the color coordination definitely makes it feel a bit more cozy :)

Wilkommen in Oranienburg!

As of last night, Arran and I have settled into our first German home in Oranienburg, Brandenburg!

My Betreungslehrerin (the teacher at my school that I will work with), Petra, and her husband, Klaus, picked Arran and I up from the Berlin main trainstation and brought us back to their home, where we will be staying until we find our own apartment. We have our own bedroom and living room area, which is beautifully decorated with Ikea products (how German!), and which is very cozy and comfortable. Last night we had dinner (peppers stuffed with ground beef, sauteed vegetables, and potatoes) and dessert ( fruit and ice cream) and then sat around and talked. Petra and Klaus are extremely nice and we both enjoyed talking to them about things ranging from the teaching assistant orientation we just came from, dialects through out the country, and the kind of work Arran and I will be doing during our time in Germany. This morning we both were able to sleep in (for the first time since we got here!) and later in the afternoon Petra is going to take us on a walk to show us Oranienburg and do some errands (like set up a bank account!).

So all in all, we've been having a great time :)