In the interim...

Hello everyone!
Sorry for my lack of posting frequency. I will do my best to sum up the last month or so. Big things that happened: Midterms, visit from Laura and Kate and Adrian, and beautiful weather!!!
Midterms were a challenge-- some classes had powerpoints to review, others had readings, others had purely the notes I had taken from the extremely difficult lectures (ahem HISTORY.) The added element of it all being in German was another challenge. Luckily my schedule worked out so that I had one midterm each day Monday-Thursday. Drama was my first one and it was pretty straightforward: four questions, 2 about each play. Art and Architecture was next. It included 7 questions and a comparison/analysis of two paintings or buildings of our choice. (Oh yes, the time allotted for these two tests was the same...only an hour an a half.) Multikulturelle Berlin was on Wednesday and it was 3 questions out of six, but she made us answer two of them. (One of which was a multiple choice-- woohooo!) So that wasn't sooo bad. I definitely used the power of the, how do I say, exaggeration and lots and lots of examples? on that one. Thursday was History, the one I was dreading. The man is brilliant and has been teaching history for...well, forever. But he comes in with no notes, no Powerpoint, no nothing and just lectures for an hour and a half straight. All I had to study from were my notes that I furiously wrote down while looking up words in his lectures. Gooood times. The questions were openended enough that it allowed room for you to put as much or as little as you knew on a given topic.

Results: Drama- A! History-B+. Not bad. I think they are fair.

Laura came to visit! (I think this was before midterms, forgive me.) And it was really fun. We went to the zoo (yay for spending 12 euros and then 2 hours in the petting zoo!) and to the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichtag and the touristy stuff but then we went to a club called Weekend from midnight until 6am (That is what people do here! I need to start adjusting my going out schedule.) While there I danced with and smooched a frenchie haha. Good times.

Kate came to visit last weekend! It was officially the quickest visit ever-- she got in late Thursday night (read: midnight or 1am) and then left on Saturday early afternoon (read: her plane was at 2pm) but we made the most of it. We were out both nights until 4 or 5 (now that it's almost summer, it is light by 5! It's so great!!!) and we hung out with her friend Nick from Brown who is studying here. We did a lot of walking and a lot of accidental exploring (screw you, tram system that doesn't quite work when I need it to.) Saturday night was the second time I've had to crumple my leather jacket up under my shirt to save it from early morning drizzle, haha.

Adrian came to Berlin toooooo!!! It was amaazing. No more long Fabio hair, my friends, but unfortunately, the mustache persists. And so does the vanity: "is my mustache crooked?" about every two hours. We ate gelatto, laughed about the family, and walked a lot a lot! It was quite a good visit.

That is all for now, but I shall be back for more info.
xoxo
Maia