The rest of April in Berlin

So, you have probably been wondering what I have been up to since my wonderful trips to Hamburg and Copenhagen…

April 6th, the day after returning from Copenhagen, I ran the Berliner Halb-Marathon! Here is the website where you can see my finishing time!
http://www.scc-events.com/events/berliner_halbmarathon/2008/ergebnisse.php Click on Durchsuchen under “28. Vattenfall Berliner Halbmarathon“ and then you can type in Dromgold under Name. I was thrilled to finish in just under 2 hours and 6 minutes, beating my goal for a finishing time by more than 4 minutes! It was not only exciting to run my first half-marathon and to finish with a good time, but also to take part in a huge part of Berlin culture!

Outside of classes during the week of the 7th, our group took our final excursion on Friday the 11th to Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg, just a half an hour or so outside of Berlin. There, we toured Schloss Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great in the morning. I had been to the palace earlier with Liz and Dan, but enjoyed the chance to see the inside rooms again and learn a bit more about the building through our guided tour. In the afternoon we went to Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, but more famously known as the meeting point of the Potsdam Conference. The Potsdam Conference was the meeting of the Soviet Union, United States and Great Britain in the summer of 1945, at which it was decided how to deal with the defeated Nazi Germany. The tour there was not very long, as there was not too much to see, but it was cool to see the meeting room where Stalin, Churchill and Truman had met, as well as see their private rooms at Cecilienhof. It was entertaining, as our tour guide was a former East German, so we, as Americans, were given a Soviet perspective on the Potsdam conference. That evening I went to a modern theater production with my host father; Saturday I went rock climbing outdoors with my German friend, and Sunday I went to the Deutsche Oper to see Der Rosenkavalier.

The following week began the fun of German finals! However, I still had time to fit in some fun. Tuesday the 15th a large part of the group from our program went to a soccer game! It was my first German soccer experience. Berlin was playing Hamburg, and although the game wasn’t particularly exciting and we ended up with a tie, it was great to experience European football, which in my opinion is much more entertaining than American Pro Soccer. The weekend of the 18th was full of studying, but I took some breaks going to a farewell party with people from our group on Friday and going to another modern theater production Saturday with my theater class.

The week of the 21st were the finals for my other three classes, but also the first week I was able to attend my new classes for the Sommersemester here (Since our program was based on the American semester, it overlapped with the German semester, as they are on a winter and summer semester schedule). This summer, I am enrolled directly at the Freie Universität here in Berlin taking regular classes with regular students. Since my credits do not transfer back to AU, I am staying much more for the experience and am therefore a declared German and Religion major here for the summer! Beyond my German as a foreign language class focusing on Films in Berlin, I am learning Turkish (which I have always wanted to learn), and taking two religion classes: a lecture seeking to answer the question, “What is Religion?“, and a seminar “Religion - Notion or Reality?“. So far all of my classes are really good, and I am excited to be learning in German! I have also joined one of the orchestras for students at the Freie Universität and Technische Universität, and will be playing trumpet again! I am picking up a trumpet from another trumpet player in the orchestra this weekend and will go to my first rehearsal next week!

Since I am staying for the summer, I found an apartment to live in with another student for the summer. My new apartment is outside of central Berlin, but downtown is still very accessible with the S-Bahn trains, as well as with my bike. My flat mate is currently writing her masters thesis and is also a student at the Freie Universität. I moved in last Saturday, April 26th and am finally getting all settled. My new room has a balcony, where I plan to spend lots of time studying this summer and there is a canal nearby that is perfect for running. Also, I live only 5 minutes from the train station, where there are also grocery stores and a village-like town center and the Freie Universität is just a 15 minute bus or bike ride away. So, I am pretty happy with my choice! (yes, I will try to get some pictures of my new room, apartment and town taken soon, as I know you would like to see them…)

Since moving in, I have been enjoying spring in Berlin studying outside in the Tiergarten downtown, hanging out with some friends and acquaintances who are still here in Berlin and working on finishing moving in, like buying food to eat! Sunday I went to see Don Giovanni at the Staatsoper, the oldest of the three opera houses in Berlin, where I had not been before. Tuesday, I went to a lunch concert at the Philharmonie; they have free concerts on most Tuesday afternoons, with chamber groups and such with musicians from the professional orchestras of Berlin. Last night I went to an outdoor movie theater with some friends for a movie premiere, and I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of evenings at this outdoor movie theater: they play good movies and they are relatively cheap. The film I saw yesterday, 1. Mai, is about the demonstrations and protests in Kreuzberg, a specific part of Berlin, that take place every first of May. Today, the first of May is the national German Worker’s Day, and a holiday, so I don’t have any class.

So, that’s what April had in store for me…hope your April was good as well!

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