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Weren't the days longer in the past?
I have so much I'd like to write about and so much to do. The eternal dilemma
Of course this only means I can't write a coherent text (as if I ever could) and will resort to a list
- As it turned out, they didn't forget about my first day at work.
Not that this was much of a help, because the one person who knew about it, Prof. Blub [not his real name] was not there. So everyone was still staring at me, clearly thinking "Who are you and what are you doing here?" during morning rounds. But I managed to convince them to let me help and the next day Prof. Blub found two minutes to say "Just let yourself be but in the schedule as if you were one of the doctorate students." before disappearing again. - Otherwise work is fun. I'm on probation, spend every day from 8:00 to at least 17:00 at the clinic, I don't get paid, am lucky if I find the time for a lunch break and it's still doubtful if I will be allowed to stay for longer than the three months (the cynical part of me - which is nearly my whole being - is sure Prof. Blub is just exploiting my eagerness) but I love it.
I *really* need professional help - Yesterday J. and I decided to watch the fans watching the first WC game.
After we got turned away at the entry to the Fanmeile (because as usual I forgot about the swiss army knife on my key ring), we first walked back to the Potsdamer Platz, accompanied - because by then the game was over - by thousands of excited fans.
That walk was quite interesting because of the next point of this list. But still fun, because I'm amazed by the enthusiasm so many people have for this game. It was only the first of the group games. But if you looked at them it could have been the final.
I worry what will happen if the team makes it into the quarter-finals, and anything after that is beyond my imagnination. - I can't help but feel slightly scared by masses of people waving flags and shouting things that contain the word Deutschland. I can't help it. I'm trained to react this way. The German flag shown anywhere but in front of official buildings or at big events like the Olympics makes me queasy. I can stand it if it's accompanied by other flags, but on its own, I don't like it.
This has not much to do with anything, I just felt like mentioning it. - After we arrived at the Postdamer Platz, J. had the nice idea of walking back to the flat.
A very nice idea. And even though the one time I went to the PP by bike it took me over half an hour, I still said yes to the plan.
One day we will remember that both of us tend to underestimate distances in this city for some reason.
But we walked back. The whole way.
Ok, it's not *that* far, I just like to complain, but still, a short walk it was not. - I did know that most teams were staying in the western parts of Germany for the WC, but I didn't realize it was this extreme.
Dear foreigners, the eastern parts aren't *that* dangerous. I promise. - Amusing to Germans should be the fact, that I just wrote an email, telling the company about this (What? I read the packages when I'm bored and there is a slight chance of getting some Weetabix for free out of it.) and following the law about spelling errors wrote about "Pakungsaufschriften".
- I have never studied Russian and have not once looked at an explanation about cyrillic letters, but by now I not only recognize a lot of names of places and the different words for schools, but can also differentiate between capital letters and those that aren't.
Volunteering for things will help (for a given value of help) you in the most unexpected ways.
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And no worries. No matter how much flag paraphenalia people put on or how loud people sing the Finale song, Germany is not going anywhere. I kind of want them to because I like seeing Germans smiling and happy in public for once, but I know deep down that they will not make it.
Also, you *walked* from Potsdamer Platz to Stieglitz? You do need professional help ^_^ Other interns have been saying they don't want to take courses at the FU because the *S-Bahn* from Unter den Linden to Stieglitz takes too long!
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Contributing to the stereotype here, but the people staying in Bayern probably have a harder time.
(And I'm not saying that *just* because Bad Nauheim und Königstein are really close to my hometown and Lokalpatriotismus is a concept I'm much more comfortable with than patriotism as a whole. No, really ;)
I found it strangely comforting that even some of the shouting fans seemed to be uncomfortable when their "song" called for more than two "Deutschland, Deutschland" in a row. You could sometimes hear them instinctively pausing before realizing that it's OK to shout that as part of being a fan. But they still tended to break it up with short bursts of "Finale, finale" or stuff like that.
Also, while Unter den Linden -> Steglitz is a bit less than 20 minutes by S-Bahn, we only had to walk for two hours to finally arrive at home >.<
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And yay for the job.
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I tend to underestimate distances in Berlin too - at my last visit I walked around with Hubby about 20 km, but I'd never walk just for fun to the next village from my home, which is 6 km away...