HA-HO-HE HERTHA BSC!

Patricia, a friend from home, came and visited this past weekend on the second-to-last stop of her tour of Poland, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany (how jealous am I?!). We did lots of typical touristy things, and also enjoyed taking part in some Christmas traditions, like going to the Weihnachtsmarkt at Gendarmenmarkt, but by far the best thing we did was go to THE HERTHA BSC-FC BAYERN MUENCHEN GAME! It totally fell into our laps, and we were so lucky because the game was sold out, even though the stadium holds over 72,400 people. We went through the New Berlin walking tour, and so we had a “guide” (Patricia would have married him on the spot if possible and I assured her that most German guys really are this attractive), plus his friends and some Australian guys on the tour. I’d never been to the Jesse Owens Olympic Stadion (from the 1936 Olympics), so that was neat in itself, but being at the game was awesome! FC Bayern Muenchen is the best team in the league, so we (haha, how quickly I consider myself a Berliner—I even have my own Hertha scarf now) were supposed to get our butts kicked, but the score was just 0-0. I would have liked for there to be a goal, just so that I could see how the rowdies celebrate, but I had enough fun chanting “HA-HO-HE HERTHA BSC!” with all the other fans. I also enjoyed the men behind us—thanks to them, Patricia learned such words as “Nein!,” “Lauf! Lauf! Lauf!,” “Mann!,” and, the most used of all, “Scheisse!”

We started off the weekend with a trip to my favorite German-food restaurant


















We also waited in line for an hour at the Reichstag

And enjoyed the Hertha game!

I took more touristy photos than Patricia, despite living here for four months already!

And of course I had to take another food shot at Cafe November in Prenzlauer Berg. The food was amazing!

Patricia's loot at Aldi. Gotta love Haribo!

I went to see Der Nussknacker last night! I had been looking forward to this since I bought the tickets in November, and the music definitely did not disappoint. The choreography and story were a little different (the girl’s name was Marie, not Clara, and there were no mice, in addition to some funky changes here and there), but the second act made it so worth it. I love the scenes with all the different countries’ dances. And it reminded me a little of my yearly treks to the Boston Pops (and to the Nutcracker one year)—was great to keep the tradition going.

A guy from my freshman dorm was randomly in Berlin for two days, and because my schedule has been so packed, we met at 10:45 last night for a drink. It was nice to see a familiar face and speak English without worrying about the other person understanding all the nuances. And because of his job, he’ll probably be coming back again soon, can’t wait!

Oh yeah, I made a gingerbread house, from REAL gingerbread! That was a lot of fun, but my team did not win the competition. And we (by we I mean I) set our treats on fire and didn’t notice until the other tables started yelling. Oops. Let’s see, other Christmas-y things I have done. I went to the Berlin pro-life Christmas dinner last week, and it was nice to see that the pro-life movement is alive in Berlin! And not everyone is over 70. We met above a Catholic church in PBerg, and incidentally Patricia went to mass here on Sunday, and when I picked her up I was amazed at how packed the church was and how many children were running around. A major magazine here just published a cover article called something like “God is alive in Prenzlauer Berg,” and I could really see that the church there had a vibrant community. Anyway, I also went to the Poznan Boys Choir Christmas concert at the Berliner Dom last week. So good that I bought the CD. It’s amazing when boys have such high voices! I also went to the Humboldt Universitaet Christmas concert because two friends were in it. They were also really good—but it was funny to hear them sing an African-American spiritual. I’d leave it to Kuumba.

These past two weeks I’ve been teaching my students about Christmas in America, which has given me insight into how little many of them know about Christmas in general. Most are Muslim, and most don’t celebrate Christmas the way atheists and Jewish people in America, for example, would. Not even with a token Christmas tree or lights. Germans open presents on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day, so I’ve been seeing lots of gift bags that say 24.12 on them. A teacher at my school was telling me you can hire “Father Christmas” to come to your house on Christmas Eve and deliver the presents to your kids. Her daughter never caught on that the first few years, Santa had her grandfather’s voice, then the next few years it was always a different person, and then recently he barely could speak German. They told her that the German Santa was sick, so the Finnish Santa stepped in and took his place. I think this tradition should be brought to the U.S.—it’s better than sitting on Santa’s lap, which children here do not do. What I’ve found really interesting is that Germans are really open about saying Merry Christmas. Even my professors at university have said it. Maybe they also did at Harvard, but if I remember correctly, they were much more conscious of not offending anyone and therefore said “Happy Holidays,” if anything at all. But yeah, despite the fact that most of my students do not celebrate Christmas, they and the teachers wish each other a merry Christmas.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I know I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’d like to take a little nap before it’s time to celebrate Christmas with my tandem partner, roommate, and our extended family in our house before we all head off to our respective homes for the holidays. Thursday night I should be back sleeping in my own bed! (Although after less than two cumulative months home since the beginning of college, I don’t know what “my own bed” means anymore . . . )

Oh yeah, how could I forget—I got into Harvard Law last week! And Georgetown. I definitely did not expect the Harvard acceptance, and certainly not this early in the game. I am seriously flabbergasted. My acceptance was almost four years to the day that I got my Harvard College acceptance. How funny. And how truly blessed I continue to be!

Old photo of me and my tandem partner.

Weihnachtszeit in Berlin

An extensive photo essay on Christmastime in Berlin (When is Blogger going to stop me from posting so many pictures? The amount of space they give is awesome!):

A store by my apartment. Still not sure what they sell, but it looks like a disco from the outside.











The Swarovski Christmas tree in the main train station


















A ton of angels walking down the street. If Germans had sororities, I would imagine their members to do stuff like this.









A nativity scene at the Gendarmenmarkt Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market)












This is why I love Germany!













I don't blame them for dressing like this, it was FREEZING!












At the entrance to the Gendarmenmarkt Christmas market. Ignore the crazy hair--this weather has given me lots of hat head and other unflattering photo hair.











An Advent windmill-thing at the Finnish Christmas market in the Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg. Advent is big here--you wish people a happy 1st/2nd/3rd/4th Advent depending on what Sunday it is.















An over-zealous Christmas gnome fan lives in this apartment in Prenzlauer Berg.












The Christmas market at Potsdamer Platz, complete with sledding hill!













The gorgeous Christmas tree in front of the Brandenburg Gate. If you can't already tell, Berlin has no qualms about having Christmas decorations everywhere. I never once saw anything related to Hanukkah or the upcoming Muslim holiday on Thursday (I believe it's Eid in Arabic, something like Bayram in Turkish)












My team and our hastily built gingerbread house at the Humboldt Christmas Stammtisch. With me are a Hungarian and a French Belgian, plus two Americans (another Fulbright teacher and a guy who studied ling with me at Harvard).









A toy soldier on Kudamm


















This is closer to the German idea of what St. Nicholas would look like (not a fatso like in the U.S.).
















A huge Advent calendar at the Marriott. Germans love Advent calendars. I just wish there were huge amounts of chocolate in those bags!















Santa and a Christmas tree, made completely out of Legos, at the Sony Center.












The Christmas market in the Schlossplatz, along Unter den Linden across from Humboldt. I assume this is the biggest.











A sign on the Staatsoper for Der Nussknacker (the Nutcracker), which I had the fortune of seeing!


















An ice skating rink on Unter den Linden, just outside the building where my classes meet.












All the trees are decorated down Unter den Linden!

Adorable people who make shit

Funny English-related things:

My students’ English abilities vary widely, with some of them barely understanding a word of instructions and others reading Shakespeare (with a little help, since when’s the last time one of you could read Shakespeare and understand everything?). But I realized that even the most “clever” of classes (I HATE how the German teachers always use “clever” when they mean “smart” or “high-achieving”) don’t quite get the nuances of English. My favorite lesson so far is when I gave one class 10 articles from the Onion and asked them to read them and tell me if anything seemed strange. One article was about the Treasury Department desperately needing ones and fives. Another was about children getting all their vitamins from McDonald’s hamburgers. There was one about a Barnes and Noble in Cambodia that was really popular—people were using the bathrooms to sponge-bathe and the books to build shelter. Another was about JFK being shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, LBJ, Malcolm X, and like ten other people at about 158 different angles. My absolute favorite was about the Berlin Wall being torn down as a part of a Doritos-sponsored Super Bowl halftime show. You would think that the students (from Berlin!) would figure out this was a hoax. You would think! The only ones who caught on were the girls who had the JFK story. They all just assumed that whatever’s in a newspaper must be true. It was funny to see their embarrassment when I explained the stories to them.

A few funny instances. One student kept repeatedly telling me I was adorable. After awkward thanks on my part, I finally asked him what exactly he meant, and when he told me “nice” and I told him what “adorable” generally means, he blushed deeply. This is my teacher’s pet sorta student—he has never missed any of my after-school sessions and he constantly expresses his gratitude for the chance to speak with a real American. And then he gets so excited that he forgets what he’s saying. But he watches so many movies that he knows all these sophisticated words that none of the other students has picked up on. Problem is, he uses them in all the wrong places. Cf. “adorable” above.

Another of my students was telling me how her mom is a lawyer, and when I asked what kind, she said that she works with “the people who made shit.” I found that hilarious, but apparently there is a German phrase “Scheisse bauen,” which means to cause trouble. I took that to mean she is a defense attorney. We both had a good laugh over this one. (Speaking of “Scheisse,” it really does not have the strength that “shit” in English has, and thus teachers and students constantly say “shit” where I would have used “crap” or “poop.”)

I am glad that the students at my school seem to be genuinely happy that I am there, always greeting me (more like shouting across the hall) and asking me how I’m doing. The funny thing is they freak out when I ask them something in return (How are you?). They don’t expect that and then just stare at me until I say “you’re doing well?” One student was being particularly helpful while I was looking for a class last week and his friend told me, “I just want to say that he is single.” Thanks for the head’s up, next time I find a 16-year-old German girl looking for a boyfriend, I will let her know that there is a single boy roaming the halls (he’s never in class!). Anyway, it’s cool to walk into a classroom and get shout-outs. Some of my students also think that my name is “Meggy,” which I have always hated, but for some reason it’s not so bad coming from them. Also, standing in front of a classroom, you realize how obvious that whole “if I don’t look at the teacher she won’t call on me” shtick is. I have to admit that sometimes I am evil and call on the one who looks the most scared.

Another thing. I catch the teachers at my school making mistakes in English all the time. Sometimes it takes everything in my power not to correct a teacher, because when I do, the students go “oooooh” and then discredit the teacher’s English ability. Several students have tried to get me to tell them that their teacher’s English is not that good, but they really are fluent. Anyway, the mistakes are not that egregious, and they generally have to do with pronunciation (because English is whack in that respect!). For example, I have heard several people pronounce “accompany” as if it ended with the sound “eye.” And a fun game—try to get a German to say “twentieth.” I think it’s an impossible feat. But one thing I have noticed is that no matter the time of the day, the teachers address the students with “Good morning,” and thus whenever I see a student, he tells me the same.

One thing I love about hearing Germans make mistakes when they speak English is that it gives me insight into German. When they make a mistake, it’s usually because they say it that way in German. My tandem partner has also found this to be the case with my mistakes in German.

Being so entrenched in German, I actually have difficulty speaking English sometimes. It usually has to do with vocabulary—I have either completely forgotten the English word, or the German word is so much more efficient that I use it instead. I wish I could think of examples . . . Also, when my students ask me to translate a word from German into English, I realize just how much more efficient German is. The vocabulary is just so darn precise—you know exactly what a word means by its parts. English, not so much. I then translate it literally—for example, “rolling/moving stairs” for “Rolltreppe”—and then can’t figure out what the heck the real English word is (in this case, “escalator”). I suppose “escalator” is also somewhat literal, but I would argue that “Rolltreppe” is even more so.

Also, a question for you all: What do you take “run amok” to mean? In German, “Amok laufen” is to go on a shooting rampage, like at a school or a mall. I was convinced that “to run amok” in English really just means to cause trouble, but my teacher insists that it indicates an extreme amount of violence. What is your take? This is one of those cases where I have to remind them that I am just one person, and my knowledge of English is just that, mine, not an authoritative look at the language. This goes especially with pronunciation, vowels in particular. I’ve got the whole California collapse of vowels thing going on.

Alright, that was a little look at my “Engrish”-like experiences. I have been in some really funny situations, and I can’t seem to remember many of them, but I will try to do a better job of writing them down in the future. I also need to talk about what I actually do as an English teacher. I’ve also got a post about my classes at Humboldt in mind. Stay tuned!

Erkaeltet und muede

I am lying here sick and waiting for an important phone call. A certain Cantabrigian law school is supposed to be calling me at some point this week, and until the dean calls, I will be glued to my phones. Yes, phones. Don’t know if he’s calling my handy or my cell. Handy=German cell phone.

Haven’t updated what I’ve been up to, and because I’m tired, I won’t go into much detail. I have had a lot of fun these past couple weeks. Last week was insane—every night something was going on. I went to a jazz concert that was pretty good, but the singer was so odd. She looked like the Little Mermaid because she had long reddish hair and was wearing a green sequined jumpsuit that made her look like she had a tail/fins/what is the mermaid’s bottom half called? I also went to a birthday party on a school night—bad idea if you want the requisite eight hours! And I did go to that punk concert. I kinda tried to get out of it because I had 10 Euro in my bank account and thought I wouldn’t enjoy it at all, but it turns out that I had a lot of fun. The guy I (now) know was in the first act, but we stayed around until the end, and then everyone of course wanted to have Doener and then I had to wait alone for 30 minutes in the freezing cold on an eerily deserted street for the bus, which means that I didn’t go to bed until 4:30 and I had to be at school at 9:45. Woke up at 9:22 or something. Somehow made it! Oh yeah, the music was really odd. Especially the second band—Google Robotron Berlin to get their MySpace and check it out. Hilarious. I’ve realized punk concerts are appropriate for you if you do not like to actually move while dancing. Actually, no one really cares what the heck you do, maybe that’s why it’s so appealing? My roommate and I finally did something together—ate at an American diner! The hamburgers and fries were actually pretty authentic. (Side note: first place I am stopping on the way home from the airport is In-N-Out.) Went to a bar near Kottbusser Tor—drug dealer central, no joke, you see like 10 deals going on right in the open at any given time. I also went to a housewarming party at the punk guy’s apartment (the guy from the concert, “housewarming” is misleading when you have lived somewhere for six months). Berlin student parties are so different than in America (well, at Harvard, at least) since they don’t live on campus. Everyone is really interested in meeting new people and no one cares who walks through the door, as long as he brings his own beer. The host isn’t necessarily expected to provide refreshments, which I think is a good idea (especially since I plan to host my own party sometime in the near future). Oh, there were definitely some passed out people and people hopped up on something. One dude was walking around in his bathrobe and underwear and wondering why everyone wanted to take his picture. And the partying goes on well into the night—I don’t know when it ended, but I went to bed at 5. Despite the few drunk people and the lateness of the parties, the purpose is really not to drink a lot. It seems to me that the Germans just want to have good conversations. You can see why I like them a lot! I also went to a colleague’s (SUCH a German word) house for a traditional “raclette” dinner with him, his wife and son, and a guy studying Amerikanistik at Humboldt. It was SO tasty—it’s sort of like fondue, which admittedly I’ve never tried. You take potatoes, meat, fruit, whatever and put raclette cheese on top and then put it in a little electric stove thing on the table and then eat it when it’s done. You have to pay attention or else it gets a little burned! It was so nice of him to have me over and I loved being in an actual house in an actual suburban neighborhood with houses with Christmas lights and such. A bit of a different side of Berlin! Let’s see, what else—my mom was here Sunday and Monday but because I was so busy I didn’t get to spend that much time with her, unfortunately. But it is always good to stay with her—and to be able to take a real bath in a nice hotel!

Finally, and I guess I’ll use a new paragraph for this for no real reason, last night and today I participated in a conference hosted by the U.S. Embassy and the region of Thuringia (German: Thueringen) for American and German teenagers. We had a getting-to-know-you kind of thing at the Hard Rock Café last night. (Who knew Berlin had one? And did you know the Seminole tribe recently bought them? Two tribe members came all the way to Berlin just for the conference—they have SO much money to spend on trips everywhere!) Today was the actual conference, and my role was leading the breakout session on public perception wrt youth. The students’ English abilities were so amazing—way better than my own students’, to be honest—but they weren’t all that good at participating in the session and I actually had to be a good facilitator who paid lots of attention. And for one hour’s work I am getting paid $200! Pretty sweet deal, eh? I even got to meet the Ambassador (of course, thanks to him, I had to get every item in my purse scrutinized before coming and the Secret Service agent sat right behind me).

Alright, that’s it for now. I am so exhausted and sick of being sick. So I think I’ll go to bed and pray that the phone call doesn’t come tonight! Oh yeah, no pictures for now because I am too tired, and also I don’t think I’ll be showing the one I have with the guy in his underwear. :-p

Verliebt!

I am totally in love with Berlin. I have always liked Berlin, but something clicked as I was walking along Unter den Linden to Alexanderplatz on Thursday evening, and I realized I have totally fallen for this city. Maybe it was all the Weihnachtsmaerkte (Christmas markets), maybe it was the Fernsehturm standing before me, maybe it was the sense of belonging that has taken me three months to get . . .

I really need to update what's gone on in the past week, because it has been an eventful and FUN week, but because of all that fun, I'm really tired and want to hit the hay early tonight. Expect something within the next week. :-)