Berlin and Mykonos

Wow! So I wanted to blog last week again, but I got a little lazy and decided not to :-(. Tuesday night when I was done blogging we all got ready and went and saw a beatboxing play called Klasse Klasse. It was cute, the people wore these weirdo masks and played out high school stereotypes which is always funny. After the show I went home and watched Mean Girls with Christine and Jakob. I love that movie.

Wednesday we went to the Jewish Museum, and we had a really good tour guide who spoke German at a normal speed so we could all understand her. The museum was huge, so we missed a lot of it, but it was still really cool. After the Jewish Museum we went to Kudamm because Ashley and Emily wanted to get their noses pierced. We hopped on the Bahn and saw the Gedaechniskirche, then went to the tattoo shop. When we walked in it was really nice and clean so they were happy about that but still nervous. I didn't get mine done, so don't worry! In the end, they looked really good! After that we went to the mall and I ate some deeeeelish chicken friend rice. We were cooking dinner on Thursday, so we went to the grocery store to get stuff for that. Afterwards we went to dinner at the same place as Sunday because it was our professor Laurel's birthday. We had some wine and veal with veggies that was really good, and for dessert we had the best Tiramasu ever. After dinner we decided to go out for a drink, and we ended up meeting this group of kids from Israel who were in Berlin on vacation. We got their facebook information, and they were really nice.

Thursday we took a bus trip to Potsdam which would have been lovely if I wasn't so tired. Oh and the fact that it was cold and rainy didn't help. Apparently it's always cold and rainy in Berlin, at least every day that we were there. We did get to see the cute castle-thing where the Potsdam Conference was held, which was really cool, but unfortunately we didn't get to go into it. After that we went to some other palace thing, but I wasn't paying too much attention because I was soaked and cold and tired, and my brain simply wasn't processing German that day. I definitely fell asleep on the bus ride home. I really wanted to take a nap before I started cooking my penne with vodka for dinner, but I'm glad I didn't since the whole experience turned into a disaster. First off, I had bought stewed tomatoes instead of diced, so I had to dice all of them. Then, I was upset because there are no italian style Redpack tomatoes in Germany, so I knew right away that this stuff wasn't going to taste right. Then, when I went to cover the tomatoes with plastic wrap, I spilled them all over myself, Brittney, and the floor. It was a huuuuuge mess. There was nothing left to salvage for my sauce, so we had to send a bunch of people to the store. Meanwhile, we through our tomato sauced clothes into the bathtub with a handy little packet of Tide that Jess C. had. Then the other girls threw their laundry in too, and we had a big laundry party in the bathroom that involved make shift spin cycles and tons of fun. After cleaning the clothes, we cleaned the kitchen up, and started to make the sauce again. This time we had diced tomatoes but they weren't italian style and still didn't taste right, so my sauce was kinda gross. Oh well. The boys made beer brats, and that made up for my failed attempt at pasta. Our professors came over for dinner and it was really nice. We had really great cookies that Christine and Korie made too. After dinner we watched some youtube with the professors, and then I decided to go out. We went and hung out with the boys for a while, and then went to this bar in an illegaly occupied bombed out world war 2 building which was really cool! It didn't have any windows because they were...bombed out! We didn't stay there for that long, and I didn't have a drink there at all because it was a little sketchy, but it was still really cool looking. It was on the top floor and looked out over east Berlin. I guess now it's home to a bunch of artists.

Friday night we had a whole day to ourselves. So Friday I basically just stayed in. I sat around and just relaxed in the apartment alllll day long. Then Friday night we went to the symphony. We all got dressed up and it was really nice. I'm not sure if I'm a symphony kind of person, but it was still cool. After the symphony we went home and changed and made plans to meet my friend Firat who lives in Berlin. I met him over the summer at my friend Paul's house. We met him at the Bahnof Zoo, and then walked over to this club that we were on the list for. Unfortunately the doorman didn't think we were good enough for this club and he quickly turned us away. I think his reasoning was that our group consisted of Me, Firat, Andrew, and Hoss, which means I was the only girl, so maybe if we had more girls with us we would have gotten in. Reason number two could have been that Hoss has a shaved head. He's a swimmer of some sort, so at home it makes a lot of sense. In Berlin I guess it makes him look like a neo-nazi. So anyways, we weren't able to get into that club. We decided to go back to the apartments and hang out, then go out to an east Berlin club really late. We went and hung out for a while, then we got hungry so Firat and I went and got Doeners and met up with his 3 friends at Friedrichstrasse. We all went back to the boys apartment to hang out more, but I couldn't make it any later (it was already 3 or 4!) so I went back to my apartment and went to bed. We had to get up early Saturday morning to leave anyway.

Saturday entailed a long trip back to Cologne, and I wasn't feeling well anyway. I slept a little bit on the train, which was good. I got back to my house and immediately started packing for Mykonos! I had to leave my house at 1:52 in the morning for my 5:20 flight. The airport is right near my house, but no buses run that late at night, so I had to take the kvb bahn to the S-Bahn, and it ended up taking an hour to get there because the bahns only run once an hour. I tried to get a little sleep before I left, which I didn't really, but that's okay. I got everything together, and had to take line 9 into Deutz (so pretty much downtown), then switch and wait for the S-bahn for 40 minutes, then take that back out towards my house and the airport. Once I got there, we got checked in then went and took a nap til it was time to board. The flight was empty! I got a little bit of sleep which was nice. Mykonos airport was smaller than the South Hills Village...actually it was about the size of the Alpine Club with a runway. It was TEEEENY! I'm surprised our plane was even able to land there! When we got to the airport, Mina, our bed nd breakfast owner, came to pick us up! She was so nice. Our bed and breakfast is right near the water and there's a bus every half hour to take you into the main part of Mykonos, only about a 5 mintute ride. We got settled in to our room, which has two balconies and a sea view. Mina gave us some maps and stuff, and then we walked down to the beach. The water was cold, but it was still only 10:30 Am or so! We hung out there for a little while and took pictures, then went and changed to catch the bus to the city. The city is gorgeous, all the buildings are white and look like a square cake! The main part of town is pedestrian only, so we walked around there for a few hours. We went and saw "Little Venice" where the buildings are built straight on the water, and we saw the Mykonos Windmills. The city is really easy to get lost in, cuz the streets are all narrow and there are no street names! After walking around the city, me and Emily decided to go back to the beach, because at this point it was really warm out. We went swimming for an hour and a half or so, then came back and got showered and ready for dinner. I got some pictures uploaded onto my facebook, then we went and ate at this nice restaurant on the water, that was really reasonably priced. The food was amazing too! After dinner we wanted to go Greek dancing at this place nearby, but when we went and looked there wasn't really anyone there, so we decided to just come back and get a good night's sleep. Today is going to be a beach day, and we're just gonna relax and swim all day. We're going to a beach that's supposed to be one of the prettiest on the island! After that, we're going to try and see the sunset in Little Venice, and maybe check out some of the nightlife that Mykonos is renowned for. I love Greece so far!

Jess