I am delighted to announce that I am moved in. Not only have I finally gotten to unpack, I even did it in the correct family's house! (Part of my new room is pictured to the left.)On top of that, no one has swine flu anymore! So much has happened since my last post, partially because I have involuntarily stopped sleeping and partially because adapting to new city and a new language seems to require every fiber of one's mind, every minute of the day. I'll give the highlights of the past few days before I tell today's story properly:
The most important event of the past week was church on Sunday. It's called the International Baptist Church of Berlin. My mom had found it online before I left, but going once leads me to believe that it will be a place to be refreshed, grounded, and encouraged this year. Oddly enough, service starts at 12:15 on Sundays, but I still managed to be late as I navigated my way around a new area of the city. As I walked- somewhat breathlessly- down Rothbergerstrasse, I was directed by the sound of singing from halfway down the block, as though the building couldn't even contain all the praises! The congregation meets in a legitimate, but small church, and it was singing Isaiah 43, a beautiful promise that God is always with us. The pastor preached in English (helpful now but I think I may regret it as time goes on and I get more comfortable in German ), and his sermon fit the theme of Isaiah 43; he spoke from 1 Kings 19 on Elijah and, doctrinally, he was "spot on." One of the most tangible blessings of the service was meeting a stunningly beautiful girl from Tobago named Ayanna. We prayed together at a designated point in the service, then briefly introduced ourselves before turning back around to listen (she sat in front of me). I wanted to talk to her more before I left afterwards, since she looked about my age, but she was already engrossed in conversation with someone else. As Providence would have it (to use a term harkening back to 1900), however, we found ourselves on the same subway 20 minutes later! I learned that she only just arrived in Berlin and started attending the church, but will be here for two years studying German and Econ through an external London School of Economics program, and we exchanged cell phone numbers : )
Having completed my only planned Sunday activity, and realizing that half of Germany shuts down on Sundays, I picked the only destination I knew would be open: the Berliner Zoo. After being surrounded by people- largely German speakers- 24/7 for several days, I quite enjoyed meandering through the zoo at my own leisure, either bonding silently with Okapis and Giraffes, or watching Sea Lions and primates in the happy knowledge that, for the first time in a few days, I wasn't actually supposed to understand any of the foreign sounds I heard.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the city, learning the U-bahn (subway) system, largely through missing my stop and finding my way back to the right station. It must have been effective, as I haven't gotten lost since! Sunday ended beautifully; I went back to my pseudo-hostfamily's house and had a leisurely dinner with Maria and Manfred. German-style, it lasted a few hours, with lots of coffee and chocolate afterwards. The best discovery there was realizing that I was laughing at all their jokes because I actually had understood them, not simply because they were laughing.
Monday brought the first day of classes. It didn't take long before I was totally overwhelmed by the number of forms it was imperative for me to get signed or stamped or processed within a week, by the amount of German homework I was given, by the law school applications I had been hoping to give all my attention to in all that free time I was supposed to have abroad, and by the fact that it takes a half an hour to get from one class to another! After drowning these sorrows in bad Vietnamese food with Joana, a student from Swarthmore on the program, we realized it was just the inevitable first day of classes abroad feeling and that it would all get better once we had consistent schedules, knew our way around, found the time and place to work out (the problem being that we've been leaving for school so early and come home in the dark, when it's no longer safe to run through our neighborhoods), and had gotten ice cream. We duly got ice cream, and I promptly signed up for a modern dance and a pilates class at Humboldt University with Jenn (another Duke student), which- in the absence of real endorphines- made me feel slightly better. Day 2 did prove much more rhythmic and manageable. I really do enjoy my classes so I'll give them a blog entirely to themselves later.
For the first few days of class, Jochen called me "die verlorene Kind," meaning the lost child, but I am lost no longer! My real host mom, Barbara, rescued me from my pseudo-host family to whom I was rapidly getting attached this afternoon. Fortunately, the families are good friends and I have obtained an invitation to come over whenever I please, so I'm sure I'll see them frequently. After taking a quick detour because Barbara needed to appear at an unexpected press conference with the mayor of Berlin at the opening of a neighborhood theater (she's an elected official belonging to the SPD German party, and elections are coming up), we arrived at the Loth family house. While her description of a "large house with a large garden on a lake" is, strictly speaking, accurate, it was not at all what I expected! It is, however, equally pleasant. Their house is a huge, ancient house with beautiful high ceilings, old tile bathrooms, and three large floors. Apparently, Barbara inherited it from her grandmother and it is still a family house: her brother lives in the basement apartment, a couple with small children rents the uppermost floor, and Barbara, her son Nico, and Nico's stepfather (meaning Barbara's husband), Klaus, live on the main floor- plus me and Katrin, a family friend who also rents a room (I have only met her briefly, but she is blond and cheery and I liked her instantly). There's more than enough room to go around, however; I already lost the kitchen once today. (Klaus kindly helped me find it again- it's apparently next to my room.)
Barbara and Klaus frequently work in the evenings, so she rushed off again, leaving Nico and I to make friends. He, again, was not what I expected. He presented himself immediately upon our arrival and greeted me with the announcement that he is swine flu free. For 14, Nico seems to be navigating puberty with an extraordinarily low level of awkwardness. Coincidentally, he has the duck-footedness-plus-coordination that runs on the Kennedy side of my family, starting with Bompa and trickling through some of the male cousins, and the fact that he talked cheerily with me in German for the better part of our excursion to the lake and to get dinner, despite the fact that his voice still cracks, made a charming impression. I think we will be "Gastgeschwister" (host family brother and sister) on the best of terms. For those of you who caught the brief mention of the lake, there is a small lake about two blocks from my front door. Not only can one swim in it, there is a running path around it that is exactly four miles long. Starting this weekend, I am going to be in heaven! (That is when I plan to reclaim my running time.)
Given that it's 1am here, I will curtail what are sure to be ever-more-rambling remarks, but hopefully they give you a rough picture of my surroundings at this point in my German adventure.
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