Ich bin auf Deutschland

I am mostly recovered from jet-lag at this point, although the weather has been miserable ever since I arrived! Two weeks of rain and cold... This is the reason I thought I'd begin with this picture of a girl who was playing in the fireman fountain. It's wet. =) I took the photo last week. I seized a moment when the clouds had briefly cleared up to explore my neighborhood. I'm living in Kreuzberg, which is a fascinating multicultural area of Berlin. It has a large Turkish population and I've esp. enjoyed seeing the kiosks for doner kebaps, baklava in the little bakeries, and other Mediterranean fare in the local Turkish market - all of these familiar reminders of my trip to Istanbul last summer.

I'm staying with a German host through the Goethe-Institute language program; above is a view of my little Schlafzimmer. It's a good living situation, even more so than some of my other classmates, it seems. Simone is friendly and I've had some great opportunities to work on my conversational skills nach Hause. In general, my spoken German is rather poor! The point of this program is to build my basic vocabulary and grammar skills... I've encountered much more German than I've been able to deal with in my research already. Doing my reading lists for dept. exams this past year was just one more reminder of how much competency I don't have!

We have language classes every morning at the Institute, aber nicht zu viele Hausaufgabe (not too much homework)... Classes are just 10 min. away on the U-Bahn. It's very convenient, although I am not doing very well at leaving the house on time. =) The schedule also allows some time to explore the city, and there is a ton to see! I've done a few tours with the Kulture Program at the Institute so far. They've been super informative, and useful for orienting myself at the beginning of the summer.

It will be fun to update my blog regularly while I'm abroad this time around!


Bis bald!