Herzlich Wilkommen Oktober!

Wednesday, OCTOBER 1

WOW!! I can hardly believe that its already Oktober! It seems like I got on the plan just a handful of days ago but at the same time like I've been here a lifetime.

I ended up going to small group yesterday which was excellent! We talked about Romans 15:1-13 which was really really good and for the most part I understand everything that was going on. They are so kind to me, always explaining things a second time or talking slowly enough. But it was so great to see them all again and fun to speak only in German. Sandra (the pastor's sister) drove me to an U-bahn station so that I wouldn't have to walk as long in the cold rain. And when she dropped me off I got to see Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) which is the famous shopping mall and the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedaenkniskirche which is the church with only half of its steeple after it was detroyed in WWII. They decided not to rebuild it as a way of remembering the mass destruciton of that time period. Those were two BIG things I hadn't seen in Belrin yet and it was so fun to happen upon them. (It was also REALLY nice to be in a warm car...its the first time since I got here!)

Anyways, Wednesday was a pretty stressful day. I had Portable Roots in the morning which was good as expected but it then I had to retake the German Placement Test so that I could move up to the highest class. It was so nervracking and ANNOYING but I took it and did SO MUCH BETTER than I did the last time. So, now I'm in the highest German class (the worst person in it but I'm there regardless). Which would explain the mass stress of yesterday. Perry and I decided to make a Kaufland run which was much needed but we got caught in a small hurricane which slowed us down. When I got home I had an email with all of the work I needed to have done before the next German class (Thursday at 8am, natuarlly). And, I had to be back at IES for theater class and to make it worse, we went to the Berlin Ensemble last night with my theater class to see Die Dreigroschenoper (The threepenny opera). So it was a late night but the play was so good. Because it so often done, the BE did an extremely modern interpretation of the play which made it really interesting. It was also really fun to know exactly what was happening. I felt so cool laughing with along with Germans at the jokes. I mean haven't you always heard, the point of education is to get the jokes. :)

Anyways, I finally made it to bed around 1am and with some anxiety about today went to sleep... more to come later!