Ich liebe Schokolade!

Time for another weekend wrap-up before I finish packing my bags and head out to München and Innsbruck for the holiday and weekend! (June 2nd, the Feast of the Ascension, is a national holiday here. It's called Christhimmelfahrt and there are no classes or anything, so we took advantage of the time off to make the most of our trip south).

First thing first: the chocolate. A friend mentioned to me a couple months ago that there's a place in Berlin where you can make your own Ritter Sport chocolate, and last week I decided to do some Googling and I found it. So on Friday I went into Stadt-Mitte (downtown city center) with Maria, Hilary, and a new Danish friend who's also named Maria to the Ritter Sport museum/store/choco-creation central.

So much variety!

Not only did we find every single Ritter Sport flavor for sale, but we read a little bit about how Ritter Sport is made and some of its history, and then we made our own. There are over 25 options for mix-ins, some typical (fruit bits, the Rice Krispy-like stuff you find in Nestle Crunch) and some not so typical (anise, Jelly Bellys). I chose dark chocolate with cherry bits and Knuspermüsli, which is kind of like granola. It was delicious. Big surprise, right?

Schokolade ist ausgezeichnet.

In the evening Hilary, Maria and I went to a ballet, this time in the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater. The ballet was "Onegin," with music by Tchaikovsky. It was phenomenal. I'm just astounded by how much emotion was conveyed, and how well the choreography seemed to fit with the music. There were three acts with two intermissions, and the time flew by. If I wasn't so far past my prime (in ballerina terms) that show would have made me want to start ballet. Ballets are becoming my favorite "cultural" entertainment, because they are the perfect (for me) balance of music and visual performance. There was a live orchestra for this show, and they were also fantastic.

Tatjana and Onegin, the principal dancers

On Saturday Maria and I had another Long Night, this time at the universities. That's right, it was die Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft, advertised as die Klügste Nacht des Jahres (the cleverest night of the the year)! There was an unbelievable number of demonstations, exhibits and lectures going on, all over the city.

We headed to Charlottenburg to learn about artifical intelligence, computer personalities, language translation apps for injured seniors or for tourists, planes and flying cheap, eating healthy, and alcohol-free beer. It was all very interesting and informative. Our last stop was in the main building of the Technische Universität and felt like a science fair because of the abundance and variety of the exhibits. Afterwards I met up with Hilary and a few friends and we went out dancing till the birds sang.

The main exhibit room in the TU

Yesterday was a big day for Hilary, Emma, Maria and myself. We had been waiting for this day for months. Why? It was GMAT Day. So maybe Maria was the only one who actually took the test, but she studied so diligently that by the time the test came around we all felt we had something invested in the outcome. And, as we expected, she did a terrific job (the GMAT is taken on the computer so she received her unofficial results immediately after finishing). To celebrate we went to happy hour at a local Mexican restaurant for some delightful cocktails and then out to dinner at another restaurant near where we live. We decided to split up the food and drinks to hit up as many local places as possible.

The only picture I took yesterday evening is a not so flattering picture of Maria enjoying her bacon burger, so I think I'll refrain from posting that here. Normally that doesn't stop me, but I'm feeling generous today.

PS re: Title: German lesson time! Normally the Germans don't use the verb lieben ("to love") for objects, it's reserved for people (Ich liebe dich = I love you). But thanks to the influence of English, the use of "lieben" with objects is growing, and because the equivalents of I love chocolate (Ich mag Schokolade, Schokolade gefällt mir) are just a little too weak for how I feel about chocolate, I decided to go ahead with it.