Little Things

This week was another busy one, surprise! It started off with the realization that I have crossed the halfway threshold in my time here. That was a weird moment. I knew I'd get to that point eventually, but still...

I've decided to write a short update about my week, instead of waiting till after my trip to Weimar tomorrow because I might skip over this week, and this was a good week so far. Simple but fun. This is one of those entries that I'm writing more for me, because due to a little camera trouble I don't have many pictures so I'm not expecting it will be very interesting to most of my wonderful readers. Thanks to those who do stick it out!

Monday I gathered my courage and went to get my hair cut. Nothing fancy, pretty much just a shorter version of the style I walked in with, but I spoke to the hairdresser in German and somehow she understood what I was asking for so I was pleased with the day. The simple things still make me excited.

On Tuesday I helped out with a kids' biathlon. My host family and their neighbors organize a Schülerduathon in the spring for elementary school-age kids (there's also one for middle school to high school age kids, that was last week) and so Tuesday morning I showed up at the sport field at 8am to help give over 450 kids their race numbers, finisher gifts, and rubber bracelets (to show who had completed a lap and who still had one more to run). It was a lot of fun to watch, and my host siblings both had excellent performances--Ella even won her age division! I mostly just loved the fact that I could follow directions and help. This week is about noticing the simple things again. And seeing that I could understand quickly what was being asked of me gave my self confidence a little boost. It's so rewarding to notice my language skills must be improving.

Then Wednesday, after I managed to give a [thankfully] short presentation in my literature class, I went to my host family's for dinner. What was on the menu, I'm sure you're asking? Why, Beelitzer Spargel of course! Spargel is white asparagus, and Germans love it. Beelitzer asparagus is white asparagus grown in the nearby town of Beelitz, just outside Potsdam. One popular way of eating spargel is cooking it then covering it with Hollandaise sauce, but we just ate ours with butter and had ham and potatoes on the side. I don't like green asparagus that much but this was a very good meal. And very German.

Another reason I was so happy with dinner was that Wednesday felt like an on day, with respective to language. I'm sure I didn't sound that much better to my family, because I had plenty of train-wreck sentences still, but something just felt like it clicked.

Yesterday I had more class, then Leah and I bought our train tickets for a hiking adventure we're planning with Hilary in June. Our favorite Eurail aide guy (who deals with international travelers so he speaks English) wasn't there, so we got in the regular Deutsche Bahn line and proceeded to successfully explain our slightly complicated itinerary auf Deutsch. I actually had fun doing that. I'm getting a little bit better at asking for things--it's not something I usually do in English but I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to practice speaking.

And today Maria and I visited the Pergamon Museum! It was fascinating, as per usu, and in our three hours there we only covered a third to a half of the museum. The Pergamon Museum is filled with artifacts from the Pergamon, an area in Turkey. There's actually a little controversy about whether this stuff actually belongs in Berlin, and after seeing how much used to be the private collection of one Pergamon enthusiast it's a little shocking. So much stuff, just taken. I learned a lot, though!

I do have one picture for you: a copy of my certificate of completion for my 10k! This is the online version, but they're mailing me a real copy that will be here in a few weeks. This gives my overall place, age group place, and time. Just to show you I didn't make it all up. ;)