Yay for short weeks!

It's Thursday night and I just completed my first week of work. A short week, mind you, but it still counts in my book. Things are getting better here, but perhaps that is because I know that I won't be here for the next 4 days. That cheers me up a bit. Paris here I come!

Work isn't that bad. Tuesday and Thursday I brought my old German flashcards with me so I could brush up a little. I relearned all the verbs that I had to learn over the last year. I figure this will cut down on all of the hand gestures. The nouns on the other hand, who really knows... I can deal with the pointing, but trying to get someone to understand "open", "send", "find", "want", etc. That's another story.

Today I got to watch water drip with Anna. She is an undergrad student here that works for Annika as well. She is very nice and I think we got along pretty well. She's studying environmental engineering and is in her third year. Once she found out I could speak a little German she encouraged me - it was fun to practice today. I showed her my German book and she got a kick out of it. We laughed about all the phrases that are way out dated or they are only used in Bayern - southern Germany where they are thought to walk around in lederhosen all day.

We talked about lots of stuff - mostly the differences between here and the States. I found out that going to college in the state of Brandenburg is FREE! For all schools! Crazy. She laughed when I told her that we pay tens of thousands of dollars just for a year of school. All to obtain the same degree. Ridiculous. She knew english pretty well - enough for us to have a good conversation. She said she started learning it in school when she was 11, but nowadays they teach it when kids are 6 years old. I find it rather lame that we are not required to learn a second language in school. We are required to take two semesters to graduate high school and maybe three semesters in college but that is it. Definitely not enough.

Annika told her that I was going to Paris this weekend and we talked about traveling in Europe for a bit. I originally thought that trains would be a lot cheaper than flying, but as it turns out it is the other way around. Apparently trains are thought to be more comfortable - more leg room and such - so they cost more. Some of them go pretty fast so it's not that slow to travel in either. I mentioned how from London to Berlin is just like going from Atlanta to Dallas, TX and that it isn't that far away at all. In Europe, however, that is a great distance away so most people have never traveled that far. She showed me the different countries where she has been. I asked if she used English to communicate in all the different countries (clearly not everyone knows German) and she said yes. I guess it's cool to be brought up in a country that's national language is really the international language. I'm fortunate to have the ability to travel around to all these places with ease and not have to worry too much about language barriers, but at the same time I see why the United States get the reputation of laziness and superiority - we've never had to change our ways to fit in with others, we make others comply to our standard. Huh.

Walking to the post office today I saw this old man walking with his old wife. He had on leather pants. Not lederhosen, just plain black leather pants. He had to be about 70 years old. Clearly he must have been a rockstar when he was younger and decided to pull his old pants out from the back of his closet. Crazy.

I need to do laundry so I asked Toni, my roommate, where I could do it at. He told me that I had to ask the Hausmeister (the head custodial person for the building) for some coins and that the laundry machines are in the basement. I went to talk to the Hausmeister to get some coins. He speaks no english and I don't know the German word for "coin" and have nothing to point at. I tried to say something along the lines of "I need to buy a coin to wash my clothes". I'm not sure what it came out as but he just looked at me weird. He eventually got what I was saying and then asked me "How many?" in a way that implied I was stupid for not telling him already. This was our second time meeting and I get the sense that he does not like me. Whatever. I paid 5€ for 5 coins. Why I can't just put a Euro coin into the machine and get ride of the middle-man, I don't know. Oh well. I'm sure he will see more of me in the future. I know I'm excited.

I discovered the cellar the other day. I was looking for the place where I could do my laundry. The cellar is probably one of the top 10 scariest places I have ever been. It is a long dark hallway that runs underneath the building and is lit by a minimal number of lights. Pipes cover the ceiling and are about 3 inches too low for me to walk under without having to duck. Also, the hallway is separated into chambers that can be closed off by these large metal doors. In order to cross between chambers you have to step over a barrier and duck under another barrier. All along the hallway are rooms that can be used for various things. I heard people playing guitar in one the other day. There are 2 different laundry rooms that have 2 washers and 2 dryers in each. Connected to these rooms are a series of rooms that have rope hanging across them so you can air dry your clothes. There is only 1 light in each laundry room so it's very creepy and shadowy with all of the clothes hanging up. Very freaky. Although it's morbid, I'd have to say that if you ever needed to mug, rob, jump, or attack someone, the cellar of my apartment building would be the best place to do it.

I leave for Paris tomorrow! My flight from Berlin takes off at 12.25pm and heads to Amsterdam where I have an hour and 30 minute layover before I head to Paris. This means I need to catch an 8.15am train from Cottbus to Berlin. Awesome. I'll arrive in Paris Friday late afternoon and leave on Monday afternoon. Katie and her friend George are going to be there as well! I'm so excited! This will be the last time I get to see Katie before she leaves for California, so what better place to say goodbye than the City of Love? I can't wait!

I still need to do laundry and pack before leaving tomorrow morning. 4 washers for the whole 5 story apartment building makes it difficult to find one available. Packing shouldn't be an issue though because I'm only going to bring my backpack. Katie has sworn herself to only bringing a backpack so we all don't have to relive Italy and her enormous suitcase. So, if she's only bringing a backpack, then I most certainly can only fit my stuff in only a backpack... I think.

Until next time.

-Keaton