It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  It all started the last week in March when we were searching desperately for a new apartment we could move into come April 1. After looking a number of places and dealing with the struggles of being ex-pats in a country that loves paperwork we finally found a place.  Unfortunately, we had a little drama that resulted in our move-in date being pushed back from the 1st to the 16th.   We ened up moving three times in during the first two weeks of April and finally landed in our beautiful, albeit, internet-free flat. Luckily Dave’s a smarty and picked up a USB stick that allows us one of our computers to have access to the internet until we can get everything sorted with the actual set-up of wireless.  You think dealing with Comcast in the US was hard- try these German companies when you don’t speak German!  Pain in the ass…

Luckily all the hassle has been well worth it. We are now living in (what we consider to be) the most beautiful area of Berlin.  Our apartment is located right off of Kollwitzplatz on a street that is actual listed as an attraction in our Berlin guidebook!  The building is altbau- meaning it was built pre-WWII.  It has huge ceilings and our windows look out over a small courtyard.  It also has a bedroom separate from the living area- which is not something that’s always easy to find in Berlin.  Additionally, it comes with a built-in kitchen…oddly enough Germans tend to take their kitchen appliances with them when they move (everything: stove, fridge, sink, counters etc…).  Often new tenants will have to buy a whole new kitchen set.  Thankfully not us!

In addition to having a kitchen the apartment came only partial furnished, so we did have to pick up a few things…a bed being the big one.  Luckily Ikea is just a train ride away.  Additionally we now live only a few blocks from the famous Mauerpark.  Every Sunday a huge flea market is set up in the park and it always feels like the every one of the almost 4 million people who live in Berlin come to check it out every week. Neither Dave nor I are adept at bargaining, but we were able to pick up a few deals last Sunday.  We got a couple of mugs, plates and vases, but our big pick up was two old Ammo Boxes made in 1940.  They’re wooden and probably weight more than 20 lbs each. We decided to try our hand at being decorators and we re-purposed them as night stands. I love them- historical and chic.

We’re slowly collecting necessities- lots of trips to IKEA and the 1 Euro Shop- but it’s starting to feel more like home.  The one big thing we’re missing is a couch- so once we’re in possession of that we’ll be sitting pretty (pun intended!). We feel so lucky to have found this place.  They’re are parks, restaurants, shops and landmarks right outside our front door. Dave said just the other day that he can’t help but smile every time he steps onto our street.  Hopefully we’ll be able to welcome some visitors in the future:)

Our New Apartment and Neighborhood

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If you haven’t heard: Dave and I are engaged!!!  We are incredibly excited and enjoying being “affianced”.  We’ve done absolutely no planning thus far, but are thinking we will probably set a date for sometime next year.

Dave officially proposed on Saturday, March 3rd.  The night before I had a girls night out with my friends Katinka, Ana and Miriam in Kreuzberg.  We went out for dinner and cocktails and by the time I arrived back home Dave was already asleep.  The next morning he awoke before me to make breakfast.  I woke up to a delicious plate of eggs, sausage and toast and a steaming cup of coffee.  We had a lazy, relaxing Saturday morning before heading out into the city.  The weather on Saturday was the sunniest and warmest it’s been in Berlin for months!  Though it only hit a high of about 50° that day- it felt wonderful in the sun.  We took the metro up to one of my favorite area’s of Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, and walked through the street market and park before heading down to the Tiergarten.  Tiergarten is my absolute favorite place in Berlin.  It’s the big central park of the city and has wonderful walking trails, grassy fields, gardens and memorials.  We started at the English Garden and then meandered over toward the Rose Garden (where Dave had been hinting we visit all day).  Unfortunately when we arrived it turns out it was undergoing renovations and is closed until April 1st. Dave wanted to propose within the garden because we’d visited it the week we arrived in Berlin and recently I told him I thought it was the most beautiful place in the city (what a listener!). As you can see from the photo below- it really is a lovely spot. 

After discovering that garden was closed we continued our walk through the park.  Dave had been acting a little odd all day and I could tell he was getting a little more anxious at this point. We kept walking and talk though eventually cutting through a big, empty, open field.  As we neared a large tree he let out a big sigh and I asked what he was thinking about.  He took my hands, led me to the tree and said he’d been thinking about how much he loved me and how much he’d love if I would marry him.  He pulled out the most beautiful ring, got down on one knee and asked me if I’d marry him.  I have to admit that had kind of guessed it was coming- when you know each other as well as we do (it’s been 5 1/2 years) it’s kind of hard to surprise one another!  Still I was absolutely overwhelmed, but managed an enthusiastic YES!!! Happily we jumped on the bus and headed to Schleusenkrug (our favorite open air beer garden) for a celebratory drink!  We continued the celebration at home with chilled champagne and appetizers before heading out to a nice dinner in our neighborhood (and calling to share the exciting news with our families!).

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We’ve had a been a pretty spectacular past few weeks- I got my visa, Dave finished finals (passing them all!), he went on an awesome week-long ski trip to Austria with friends, WE GOT ENGAGED!, we celebrated Dave’s 27th on Monday and next week we’re headed to Ireland for a week-long tour (including the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day!).  I’d say we’re extremely blessed and wonderfully lucky…and this is just the beginning!  We can’t wait to see what comes next!

***The slideshow has pictures from the actual day and then a few from today.  I was on such a high when the actual proposal happened I couldn’t even remember exactly where we were in the garden- so we went back to find “our” tree today and I snapped a few extra shots for memory’s sake.

As you may have been able to tell from the title of this post- we’ve been flailing a bit when it comes to our 2012 Enrichment Project.  Our Week #4 Enrichment project rolled into Week #5 as we struggled to watch the our movies in time! Then this week Dave was swamped with studying for finals and Friday he left for a week long skiing holiday with some of his classmates. Once he gets back he has a 5 week break until classes start again and we will be back on the Enrichment Wagon!

So while we feel bad that we let this project fall a little by the wayside, it’s still been a lot of fun when we do end up setting weekly goals. With our “Class Movie Week” we decided that since we’d given ourselves extra time to watch the films we’d up the ante from 3 to 4.  That may not seem like a big jump, but it’s takes awhile to find each film online, stream it, and then often pause it when it needs time to load.  The wonders and horrors of online media content.

Before deciding which films to watch we first compiled a spreadsheet with all of AFI’s Top 100 films (well there are about 123 of them due to the fact that the list was completed in the 90s and then changed when it was completed in 2007). Of those 123 films Dave had seen 69 and I had seen 47.  He hadn’t seen some of my favorites and me likewise, but we decided it would be best to select films neither of us had seen.  I got to pick two and he got to pick two.

We ended up watching:

• An American in Paris

• Wuthering Heights

• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

• Rebel Without a Cause

My favorite of the films was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?.  I thought the acting was the strongest and the plot-line the most intriguing.  Everyone knows the basic story- white girl brings home black boy to meet her parents.  Of course racism is the central theme of the film, but what I thought was most interesting is that the Drayton family (the girl’s family) is staunchly liberal, the father a huge proponent of civil rights. It would have been easy to cast them as a conservative white family who comes to realize that all people are created equal, but I thought it made for a much better story to show how much more challenging it can be to “put your money where you mouth” is, so to say.

Eventually it would be nice to get to all of them, but that will take some time.  Maybe instead of watching reruns of 30 Rock and Arrested Development we should try the more cultured approach…I’m doubtful that will happen though! I think we came to the consensus that all the movies were worth watching, but that maybe a few didn’t deserve the title of “Top 100”.  We’ll have to see how the rest of them stack up- my German classes finishes up in just 2 weeks and Dave is at the start of a 6-week semester break so we’ll have plenty of time to take in on some movies in the near future!

Today, after quite a few stressful months, I am finally legal!!!!  This morning at roughly 7:45am  (Central European Time) I received my 2-year freelance visa!!! I can stay and teach in Berlin until February 2014!

Week 3 of our Enrichment project was pretty basic- speak/listen to/practice German jeden Tag (every day). We were able to accomplish our goal relatively easily. First and foremost- I am in German class every morning for 3 hours.  Plus I always comes home with a few homework exercise to complete. My required daily use of the language  helped to foster conversation and discussion in and about German with Dave (who, to be honest, failed pretty miserably at this week’s goal).  To be fair he does have finals coming up in the next two weeks and has been studying his butt off!

In addition to the German classes we worked towards our challenge by supplementing flashcards, podcasts and German language television programs. We’ve been using a great flashcard program called Anki for awhile and simply amped up the number of new cards we covered each day. This is a great program for anyone looking to learn something new.  After downloading you can choose from hundreds of different topics.  The program allows you personalize your learning by dictating how many cards you cover a day and then keeps track of your successes and failures.  You can also chose to have words you are most confident with come up less often in review than words you need more work on.  I worked on more than 200 new words last week and am continuing to review them and add more this week.

In regards to the “listening” portion of our goal- I employed the use of our favorite device- the iPad.  I downloaded and listened to a couple different German language and culture podcasts over the course of the week. These included “Slow German”, “Die Deutsche Welle” and “Rick Steves’ Audio Europe”. I still have a hard time understanding German when spoken at a normal pace and with vocabulary words beyond my A1 level, but I figure my brain might absorb something…maybe I’ll try it while I sleep?

An easier way to put some context to the complex vocabulary was by watching German language television.  Interestingly enough the Germans watch a lot of American T.V.- only they dub EVERYTHING!  It’s a little weird to watch the Simpsons or South Park in German (the voices just aren’t the same!), but it’s interesting to watch a familiar plot line while trying to place the dialogue with what you think the character is saying. I also wonder how much of the story is lost in translation? What’s the general German opinion for example about the South Park episode that has Chancellor Angel Merkel brandishing a gun with her German posse?  My experience thus far with Germans is that they have a much better sense of humor than attributed by popular culture, but I wonder how much of our American humor really translates…I guess I’ll just have to work harder to increase my fluency so I can find out!

P.S. Dave also forced us to watch Steve Seagal’s Under Siege 2: Dark Territory auf Deutsch. In case your wondering it’s not any better in German.

COMING UP THIS WEEK….

Writing that felt a little like saying “I make fire”.  Yes, I have started intensive German classes (we meet Monday-Friday from 9:30-1:00), but I’m pretty sure my German communication skills still resemble those of a caveman…me want schnitzel?

I kid.  Even after just three weeks in the course I believe my language skills have improved a lot. Though I took German for a year at UPS that was over 8 years ago now.  Coming to Berlin I was a little disappointed that my old German skills didn’t come rushing back, though I must admit that I didn’t put forth the greatest effort.  There’s also the additional problem with the fact that most restaurant and retail staff in Berlin speak enough English that as soon as they detect that you aren’t a native German speaker they switch to English. So even if I’d been up to the challenge it would have proven difficult to practice the little German I knew on those I was interacting with.  Luckily I am now getting the opportunity to listen to and speak German for a good 3 hours each weekday.  Though most of what we’ve covered has been review my vocabulary has increased tenfold and we’re starting to venture into new territory.

My school is called Sprachenateiler Berlin and I’ve really liked it thus far. My class is small- there are only 6 of us and we come from everywhere…literally!  Not one of us is from the same country.  We come from Spain, Cuba, Brazil, the UK, Australia and the U.S.A.  The school has such a diverse mix of people- something I really like.

Every Wednesday the school hosts “Cultural Wednesday” events.  These are free or very cheap opportunities for students to see a bit more of Berlin and practice a bit of German.  I’ve attended two so far- the first was a walking tour of the Kreuzberg area and the second a guided tour of the Computerspielemuseum.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect on that last one, but it turned out being a really cool place.  Our guide spoke to us first in German and then in English- so I could catch most of what he was saying!  The museum houses a wide variety of original computer and game systems from the 70’s and 80’s.  It also details the rise in popularity of computer/video games and the different platforms invented to host them. There was some really interesting stories about some of the games.

My favorite story was about how Mario got his look.  Today video game characters closely resemble actual people and the video game industry has enough money to create top of the line graphics. Apparently back when Mario was invented computers weren’t sophisticated enough to create realistic human figures that could also move, jump etc… Additionally, the spectrum of colors available for graphics were extremely limited.  Only six colors were employed for the creation of the original Mario.  He wears overalls because if his sleeves were the same color as his torso you wouldn’t have been able to see his movements in a profile view.  He has a mustache for facial definition and a hat due to the fact that hair cuts were essentially impossible to create via a computer. Since the introduction of Mario and his gang in the original Donkey Kong (whose name apparently came about due to a translation problem the Japanese encountered…Donkey Kong was suppose to translate to King of the Monkeys) his popularity has increased dramatically as has the progress of modern technology.  Today Mario looks just a bit different than he did back in the early 80s…

There were tons of other interesting antidotes, but the best part of the trip came at the end.  The museum houses a large collection of video and computer games that all guests can play for free.  As soon as the guided tour concluded our group spread out and took over!  I spent some time playing the old video arcade games- Frogger, Space Invaders and Centipede before trying out an ultra-new racing game on a 3D flat-screen.  They has a video game room complete with 4 different T.V.s and comfy floor pillows. And the most interesting- a pain inducing video game that punishes you for preforming poorly!  The game is essentially Pong, but with the added bonus of pain. Players face-off across from each other, placing their left hand on a designated area and using their right hand to control the game knob.  If they miss balls they face heat, electric shock and worst-of-all hand whipping consequences.  I didn’t believe it when our guide first brought it up, but some of the people in my group played and I witnessed the abuse first hand!  If you don’t believe me check out this YouTube video I found of people playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cH5dGyFxIs.  It was crazy, but lot of fun (to watch!).

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All in all I’ve been having a great experience with classes and social activities these past few weeks and am looking forward to continuing with them.  I’ve signed up for German classes through March 2nd and am hoping for some vast improvment in that time…I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!

Our challenge this week was actually incredibly challenging- exercise everyday!  Making yourself exercise in the most pristine of weather is hard enough, but throw in 7 straight days of rain, snow and wind and it’s even less appealing.  We struggled through though and feel great about doing it.  We have to be honest though, we did miss one day- blame it on the rain (and excessive drinking the previous night…whoops!).

We alternated different exercises on different days, but stuck with our “14 Day Ab-Workout” throughout.  I don’t know if I’ll admit to seeing any real progress, but we both noticed how much easier the workouts became by days 5, 6 and 7.  Day 2- I couldn’t even bend over to put on my boots without intense muscle pain. For the major portion of the exercise we rotated between jogs, brisk and lengthy walks (on the one sunny day all week) and yoga videos.  All in all not the most fun we’ll be having over the course of the Enrichment Project, but hopefully this will be a way to start a more regular exercise routine.

We took a sobering trip to the former concentration camp called Sachsenhausen just north of Berlin this past weekend. It was a cold and miserable day out which was almost fitting weather for such a depressing, but also rewarding trip.

The trip got off to an inauspicious start as Adrian forgot that she bought a pass for the A and B zones of the BVG and Sachsenhausen is in the C zone. If you look at this map of the Berlin transportation system, you’ll see that it is divided into A, B and C zones. We live near to the Nollendorfplatz stop on the U1 line which is in the A zone and we very rarely travel outside of the A or B zone so to save money, Adrian bought a pass that is only good for those two ones. Unfortunately, Sachsenhausen is at the Orianienburg all the way at the top of the map, in the C zone. Dave’s pass from school is good for all the zones so he was all set but Adrian was forced to buy a ticket… after just recently paying 70€ for a monthly pass! What a ripoff!

The train trip took a long time… about 45 minutes but we didn’t mind as it gave us a chance to check out a new part of the city. Berlin really is a huge place! Sachsenhausen was about a 15 minute walk from the train station as well so it was pretty clear that this was going to be an all day excursion.

When we finally arrived at Sachsenhausen we were struck by the sight of huge concrete barriers that are in front of the memorial entrance:

Combined with the cold and windy weather, the place felt appropriately stale and desolate. We were both freezing cold and quickly went inside the memorial to grab a map and warm up for a minute. Unfortunately, neither of us had any cash to pay for the audio guide, but that did not end up mattering as the site was so full of information the audio guide probably wasn’t really necessary.

First we came upon the only standing bunkhouse left over from Sachsenhausen’s days as a prison camp. It was exactly how one would imagine: small, old and completely devoid of any comfort. There were rows and rows of bunk beds crammed into a small room, a pathetically small lavatory area and a washroom which we snapped a picture of:

The rest of the bunkhouse has been turned into a museum of sorts, dedicated to the stories of the former prisoners and the history of the camp. Sachsenhausen is different from many other concentration camps in that it held many political and war prisoners in addition to the gypsies, Jews and other minority groups that the Nazi were trying to eradicate. We were also really interested to see that one of our favorite German films, Die Counterfiters, was set in Sachsenhausen. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s the story of a group of Jewish printers and other craftsmen who were forced to counterfeit British currency during the war. We highly recommend it!

From the bunkhouse we went to check out the camp’s jail… if being in a concentration camp wasn’t bad enough, imagine being in the jail inside the camp. One cannot imagine the horrors that went on in the structure.

Many of the cells of the jail have been turned into make-shift memorials for victims who died in the camp by their families. It made us imagine the families trying helplessly to tract down lost relatives after the war, only to find out their fate. Imagine not being able to have a funeral or even say goodbye to a loved one. Very sad and touching.

From there we walked to the former execution area. There are still some remnants there of the ovens used during the Nazi regime as well two memorials to the victims of the camp: a grave built on top of the ashes of the victims and a more traditional statue type memorial. We took a picture of the grave:

In all, the trip was a very sobering reminder of Germany’s dark past. One of the most remarkable things about Sachsenhausen is that it is right in the middle of a fairly residential area in the town of Orainienburg. It was hard for us to imagine living near such a horrible place but for many of the citizens of Oranienburg, that’s exactly what they did.