Back to School

After a fun weekend today was a complete nose-to-the-grindstone kind of day. Saturday I slept in to relax and recover from Friday's four-hour final exam for the langauge course. We still have our paper to write for that class, which is stressful, but the language course is over. It's hard to believe actually, and with classes starting today it really feels like things are speeding up.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Sunday the weather was going to be nice, so I decided to head into the city. I first went to the service at the Berliner Dom, the Protestant Church in downtown (East) Berlin. (You can see another picture of the Dom here.) The inside of the church is also beautiful, and because I went to a service I could enjoy the beauty of the church without paying an entrance fee. I felt like that service was the easiest to follow yet, including the Catholic service I went to Sunday evening at the Catholic Church that's about a minute's walk away from my new home.

The inside of the Dom.
There is also a huge organ on the left, outside of the picture, that is quite impressive.

Then I meandered through the city till I arrived at Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie was an Allied checkpoint into East Berlin during the time of the wall. I didn't spend much time there but I wanted to see the famous signs for myself. Afterwards I spent an hour in a cafe reading a German novel and enjoying some quiet time in the city.

You are leaving the American sector.
But please come back soon!

Monday was a productive day, and included registering with the police and getting a card to the public library. Pretty exciting stuff. And then today, classes started! I ended up attending eight hours of class today, so I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home. The first class was the toughest, and then they got better from there. I am trying out another language course right now, which is four hours once a week on Tuesday. Registration for language courses was today only so I didn't know until noon that I'd be taking a third class today. I tested high enough that I am not required to take a langauge course this semester, and I won't get any credit for it, but I've decided that since I am here to learn German after all I might as well start it, and if it's too much to handle I'll drop it. The professor seems fun, and I'm looking forward to getting to know more exchange students, because it's always interesting to learn about another culture.

I was going to write more about the first day of school, but because the internet is moving unbelievable slow (I know, I know, it's going to SPACE, give it a second!) and my head is full from a long day of class, I'm going to leave it at this. Tomorrow I choose my classes for Notre Dame, which is pretty crazy since I haven't even finalized my classes here yet!

Oh, and one last bit of good news to end on: I have an advisor for my senior thesis! Now I just need to decide what to write about...feel free to leave me ideas.