Berlin (part 2)

Continuing from my previous post:

After Sunday, which basically sucked, we all got settled in and had to go to the IIK (International Institute for Communication, I think? except obviously in German) the next morning.  Everyone else from Eastern just had to go to the information session, but I had to stay and take the placement test for classes.

I'll talk about the class stuff in this post and then the rest of this post and the other posts will just be all the sight-seeing that I did with various people. So I tested into the 6A class, which is level B1,2 (a native speaker is level C, I believe, and after B1,2 there's B2,1 and B2,2) and I was glad about that because from what I'd heard from the people who tested into that class in Düsseldorf, the work was grammar points that I really wanted to work on. ("Ich lasse mir die Haare schneiden" or "Der durch die Stadt rennende Man", for anyone reading this who can speak German).

Unfortunately, we all found out relatively soon that the classes in Düsseldorf didn't go so much by the book and were actually working ahead, so my class was very much reviewing a lot of stuff I'd learned in high school (future tense, subjunctive, which prepositions go with which verbs - though that one was nice to do!).  But anyway, the people in my class were interesting and quite diverse: students from Uzbekistan, Spain, Denmark, Russia, China, Japan, Taiwan, the US, and Macedonia (as in the country, obviously). I had class from 9-1:15 (along with half of the Eastern students), and the other half of us from Eastern (including Matt) had class from 2-6:15.

After my placement test, I went with Matt and another friend to go explore a little bit:

Reichstag, or the government building (I believe I did a tour of this when I was hear with Hannah's class in 2009 - don't remember much from the tour since I couldn't understand German as well then)

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), which used to be the entrance into Brandenburg

Fernsehtum (TV tower) which you could pay like 12€ to go up, but we didn't really want to

Philharmonie, where the Berlin Philharmonic plays! Unfortunately, they were on their summer break when we were there, so no concerts for me :(

The next day, Wednesday, I apparently didn't take any pictures, so I don't think I did anything remarkable - probably went to the store with my roommate and worked on some homework.

Thursday, I went out with Matt and a friend again in the evening to check out a little bit of the city at night. We weren't out super-late since we still had class Friday morning, but I did get some nice pictures.

Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral - to be continued...)

Siege Säule, or the victory column from beating Napoleon

Nighttime scenery!

This one is really pretty to me...kind of nostalgic seeming, somehow.

Friday was a long day, because I meant to get a nap in the afternoon and never got around to it. After class, we went to a Döner place and had to wait in a 45-minute line since someone said they had amazing Döner - it was really good, but I'm not a fan of waiting that long, especially when I can't sit down! But apparnetly this little stand was one of the four original Döner places, or maybe it was just one of the four best - one of the four something. I'm fuzzy with details, sorry. 

After lunch, we went to the Eastside Gallery, which is part of the Berlin wall that is still standing and has been painted all over.  Most of the art was really impressive (some was just not as appealing to me, but you could tell there was some talent on that wall!), though there was graffiti on a lot of it since it's Germany and there's graffiti everywhere.  Apparnetly this might not exist in the near future because a company wants to tear the wall down and build expensive apartments on the river for the rich folk; people are very unhappy about this idea (myself included) since it is such a part of Berlin/Germany's history! Only time will tell, I suppose. Guess it's good that I got to see it!

The sun was juuuust over the wall so I couldn't actually see what was in the picture, otherwise I would've gotten all of "Berlin!"

That evening, I went out with Matt again (and some other friends) to see more buildings at night.

The Reichstag at night

Brandenburger Tor at night

Berliner Dom at night

Coming up in the next post: a tour (that I don't think I actually took pictures on), a couple memorials, and a chocolate store. Stay tuned!

Bis dann!