Multilingual Monopoly

Tuesday, November 25

Courtney and I got up and got ready for another exciting day in Berlin only to notice that it was SNOWING like crazy outside. So naturally we took about a thousand pictures of the snow which delayed our commute slightly. But hey, when am I going to see it snow in Berlin again? probably tomorrow, but that's beside the point! But the snow was so much fun and a group of teenage turkish boys threw a snowball at us. So apparently flirting isn't any different here...

I dropped Courtney off at the Jewish Museum and then made my way to IES. I had two boring classes, in between which I broke down and bought a can of Pringles, and then went back to the Jewish Museum to pick up Courtney.

We hopped on the U1 to Wittenbergplatz where we had a wonderful time looking at the Christmas decorations on the street as well as in Kaufhaus des Westens (or KaDeWe). And since we were there we decided to go to the international food floor and have lunch in the Italian section. Yummy! And after eating we decided to run to the bathroom before leaving, which I realize I wouldn't normally comment on in my blog...however, I wish you could have seen Courtney's face when I told her she needed to pull out some money to go to the bathroom! Hysterical! And I'm still not sure she's over it!!

We then walked a few blocks through the many Christmas decorations to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaenknis Kirche which if you remember from my parents being here is a HUGE church that was bombed during World War 2 but has yet to be renovated. Conveniently located all around the church is ANOTHER Christmas market which we happily walked through. Courtney bought a few things for some friends and then in typical fashion we headed back to KaDeWe for sorbet!!

After a quick ride back on the U-bahn we made a quick stop at Kaisers (for breakfast stuff) and the Turkish Market. Our long but fun day had finally come to an end...or at least we thought it had. until I stepped into a HUGE PILE OF DOG POOP!!!

Let me take this brief moment to discuss Germans and their dogs. They love them! They treat them like people. You think I'm kidding but I'm not. They are allowed any and everywhere. Trains? Without a doubt! Restaurants? You betcha! Kitchens in restaurants? Why not! And, since Germans have to pay a special tax for their dogs they feel as if they have the right to not pick up after their dogs...somebody PLEASE explain the reasoning there! But finally, after 3 months of avoiding the poop I managed to step in the biggest possible pile which made for a very interesting next 30 minutes as Courtney and I cleaned it up. YUCK!! (Take a look at this website. And no, its not a joke!)

Anyway, enough rambling...Aloisia and Max finally made it home and we decided to play a game of Monopoly which ended up being unbelievably fun and educational for everyone. Whenever you rolled you had to say the number and count your spaces in your second language. And Max had to read all of the cards in German and then translate them (with my help) into English. Courtney even learned how to count to ten!! I also learned the word for die/dice which is Wuerfel (for those of you who care) and I also picked up a few fun phrases for the next time you get stuck playing a board game with me...look forward to that!

As the game came to an end and we declared Courtney the loser (haha!), Aloisia gave us the wonderful idea of heating up Nutella and dipping our pineapple in it. Now, I've been dipping pineapple in nutella since I got here. But warm nutella. Heaven. and I'm not even close to joking.

So here we are, freshly showered, curled up with the heater on as high as it will go, ready for another long nights sleep! And Court's excited to sleep in a little bit later tomorrow since I've officially declared the end of my week! I hope you have a great rest of your day!!

Oh yea, and I'm sorry there aren't any pictures today. Courtney has most of the good ones and quite frankly I'm exhausted. Hopefully I'll get some good ones of the castle tomorrow!