As per usual, I've been very busy. My last week has been quite eventful. Last weekend, I went to England. I stayed with a friend in Brighton and we spent a day in London. In London, I had the incredible fortune to attend an afternoon performance of Matilda, a Royal Shakespeare Company production of a musical based on the Roald Dahl book by the same name, in addition to an evening performance of Wicked. Both performances were wonderful and amazing and I wish I could do it all over again. I was particularly impressed by the dance sequences in both shows, the talent of the children in Matilda, and the costumes in Wicked. I also had a lovely time around Brighton, which is a fun town.
I came back home to Berlin (and it really did feel like coming home) early on Monday morning and had class in the afternoon. In the evening, I packed my things up, and then on Tuesday, I moved! I'd had a combination of issues that were contributing factors to the move. I was frustrated by my distance from Humboldt and IES and thus from my classes, and I was also frustrated by my distance from other students. Half an hour to IES is reasonable, 45 minutes from other students is a big deterrent if I ever want to hang out or invite someone over. In addition, while the area I was in had some good shopping, it wasn't very interesting for a student. For example, the only bar near me was for New Zealand expats and showed live rugby, and I don't think there were any cafes. It's a really great area for families or for "real" adults, but for a student, it was a cause of frustration. The final big issue was that I had very much expected to have regular contact with my host and be able to hear and use German at home, but my host expected me to want to be very independent. I would see her maybe once or twice during the week. The really cool thing was that I had the opportunity to spend weekends with her at her place in the countryside, and that was a really good place to meet people and practice German, but I didn't always want to give up my weekends.
So I moved. My new host is the chief editor of a flamenco magazine, a flamenco guitar teacher, and a freelance journalist and photographer. He has 50% custody of his seven and ten year old girls. His girlfriend doesn't live here, but she's around a lot too. They're all very nice. The kids can get a little loud, but they're charming. The older one just started learning piano and the younger one is learning Christmas carols, so I alternately hear Harry Potter theme music and Christmas carols coming from the other room. I'm also less than ten minutes from IES by foot and around fifteen minutes from Humboldt.
My IES classes are starting to pick up. We have three more weeks of class plus finals left. The way classes are structured here, most of the graded items are turned in at the very end of the semester. The only graded items we've had so far are midterms. I've also given one presentation, but I don't think I'll be given a grade until I turn in the accompanying paper, which is due at the end of the semester. In the next month, I have three papers, one presentation, and two tests. My Humboldt classes are going until February, at which point I'll have a test and a paper for them, but that paper will be as long as the three IES papers combined. I also have ongoing work for my German as a foreign language class, which is generally weekly one-page papers and some tests as well as, of course, regular readings.
This week IES is doing a Thanksgiving thing on Wednesday and then on Friday I'm going to the Netherlands to celebrate with some expat friends who live there. I'm bringing challah and I'm very excited!
