I'm just a curbside prophet

Seems like winter is officially here in Hildesheim. First snow fall, well I guess it snowed Tuesday night but no evidence of it when I woke up. So it doesn’t really seem to count. This morning much to my instant reaction to hate the sight of it. There it was just glazed over the city rooftops like crispy creme donut. Snow.

Snow and I have this love hate relationship. I think I hate it more than I love it, Yet some how I dont think Id ever want to live without it. Its beautiful (only when looking at it from inside somewhere warm) and can be fun. However it has been my enemy a number of times making me colder than I ever wand to be. Oh and my car don’t even get me started on that…snow + my car not friends at all. All sarcasm aside I appreciate this being the first snow fall today. A day I’d normally be getting ready to go see family and catching up on our lives. Answering the never ending questions so when will you be done with school Charlinda? How’s school going? and my ever never ending answer Spring 2012 and school is school. Watching my cousin Joe getting attacked by all the little girl cousins. Always the highlight of the evening in my book. I’ll be sad to miss that.

Three fantastic things though happened to me yesterday. One while in my Photography class I realized I’m understanding more words in German! Like instead of hearing half of what people say and guessing what the full sentence meant. I cant understand some sentences completely! Still my response level isn’t the greatest but its getting there! Second was going home to a package in front of my bedroom door! I knew instantly it was sent from Tracy! Also the sign of Target on the box excited me to no end. Opening that box was like having Christmas early. I haven’t been this excited about the holidays since my mom was alive. Everything about that box just reminded me of her making holidays special for me. Just those simple pleasures cookies, candy, Christmas decorations, pictures of family and pets, and MAC N CHEESE! I basically loved everything in that box even the Target bag which I kid you not I hugged. My roommate Paola things I’m a bit of weirdo probably. SO huge thank you to the Shepard Family!!!! Third exciting thing was the Christmas Market officially opening last night. Im so excited to show Jessie and Mackenzie who are coming in a week! So exciting! aaah! I want to eat everything at that market. I will probably end up there almost every night of the week.

Until then

tchüß

TURKEY!!

So we just got back from our voyage out to a Wal-mart like grocery store to prepare for Thanksgiving. A bit early I know but we can only book this room on Mondays. Id proudly like to say and complain that I just carried a Turkey and a half (not to mention all the other side crap) all across town and up 5 flights of stairs. Pretty sure even if I had to go pee right now my back wouldnt let me. Officially becoming one with this couch. Crap! I didnt put it in the freezer…Oh well.

Its so strange its 4:46pm right now. Which means its 14 minutes away from being PITCH dark over here. Today we actually had sunshine with intense strong winds and a bit of rain. I had to squint I was so unfamiliar with the bright light coming from the sky. Although we did experience sun in London but it seemed I adapted quickly to the gray dark skies.

I think I shall post some videos from London and Photos.

Tchüße (Bye Bye)

Charlinda

Day 1

I was already pretty pumped for the Berlin trip. Evidence of this is all from the crazy dreams I had the night before. Getting up wasn’t that hard despite my lack of good sleep. However it felt extremely wrong seeing nothing but pitch darkness at 7 in the morning. The fun began when we were calling people like Pedro and Clay who were still in bed when everyone else was at the station. So they had to run to the train station to make it on time. It took Clay probably the whole train ride to finally function properly. Clearly not a morning person but it just ended up being more entertainment for us on the train.

The main train station of Berlin is pretty much out of this world. Made out of glass completely and 5 levels high. Although this 2 billion euro station was pretty grand it wasn’t too overwhelming with people. Which was nice. What was even nicer was the sunshine streaming through the glass window. Putting a smile on everyone’s faces.

The first thing on the agenda after we got some food into our systems was the City Bus tour. I felt bad for the guy who had to switch back and forth from English and German. However it was really nice to just get an overview of what the city had to offer.

The truth is you need more than a day to see all of what you want to see in Berlin. It takes a day to get the transportation system. The following days would become easier to get places quicker.

After getting a quick bite to eat we went to Charlie’s Checkpoint about the Berlin Wall. I was walking with Alexei one of the Russians and he like the rest of us felt very sad after seeing the museum. However I’m glad it touches people and I’m glad all of us from all over can come together and look at how wrong humanity can be sometimes. It makes you feel like we’ve made progress as humans.

After the Museum we went to the art district or as our tour guide called it kunsters district. (kunst = art)

It was great! We stumbled on this one place where they had these bonfire pits behind this deserted looking building. Literally it was like just a cement building with a bunch of graffiti in the stairwell. However on the top level were huge amazing paintings. I bought a few cheap prints. Never the less it was great waking up smelling like bonfire :-) felt like home.

Berlin trip continued at a later time…