Well, Adrian has left for Prague for a month and I am officially alone here at the apartment. Adrian is only going to be gone for 1 month, but I will obviously miss her a lot.  From speaking to her on the phone and knowing how much she loves Prague, I know she’ll have a great time there. Plus I get to go visit her in just a couple of weeks so I have that to look forward to!

Meanwhile my plan is to use my time here in Berlin to:1. Improve my German as much as possible and 2. Develop good study habits for the HWR program. Now anyone who knows me knows that the phrase “good study habits” and me do not belong in the same sentence. I am a notorious procrastinator. But am determined to change that this time around by drilling myself into doing at least an hour of work for school regardless of whether I have class the next day of not. I only have class two days a week (Tuesday’s and Thursdays), so I am trying to avoid having to do all my preparation on Wednesday and Monday nights. Well see how it ends up.

Also with Adrian not around, I have been able to do a little more unplanned exploration of the city. Adrian and I obviously get along very well, but I would say our one major difference is that she likes to plan ahead very carefully and with a lot of detail. I like a little bit of spontaneity once in a while, so after I dropped Adrian off at the train station yesterday, I spent the rest of the afternoon more or less wandering around the city.

My tuition at HWR includes unlimited travel on the S (elevated) and U (underground) trains which together are the subway system for the greater Berlin area. As I said in a previous post, I love the public transportation system here, so after dropping off Adrian, I spent awhile cruising around on the S bahn taking in some sights and listening to diffent street performers wander on to the train playing accordions, guitars and other instruments- panhandling for Euros.

I got off at the Tiergarten stop and immediately noticed a huge outdoor market that was going on so I walked through that for a while. It was without a doubt the largest and strangest outdoor market I have ever been to. Conservatively I would guess there were 200 different booths selling everything from antiques to radishes. I loved checking out the old German memorabilia, but I couldn’t find any Nazi related objects. I wonder if they’re illegal or something? Maybe they’re just considered bad taste.  All in all a very interesting and entertaining afternoon.