This is for those people from home...

I'm not gonna lie, I'm hatin' on most of you right now just a little bit.  Or a bit more than just a little bit.  How many of you promised to stay in contact?  How many of you have done anything of the sort?
Blog strike.
(I find it depressing that that's all the fire I can bring, but I really have no power over you.  EMAIL ME NOW!!!)

Clubbing

Okay, there was a group of us that went clubbing last night, and I feel like I should write about it while it's still fresh in my memory.  To prep for this, I do want to say that it was a group of Mormons, we stuck together, did those things which were right and left at a reasonable time.  Sometimes people say that no animals were injured in the making of this production, but in our case no souls were lost in the making of this blog post.

There were ten of us that went, six girls and four guys.  The girl who was showing us where to go had a club in mind, but when she found out that none of us had brought our passports with us she decided we'd better try somewhere else. (How was I to know that they only accept passports as valid ID to get in?  I thought they were more lenient with stuff like that because of the much lower drinking age.  That and I thought that maybe you only had to show ID at the bar as you were buying a drink [which I wasn't planning on doing] because that's the only time it would really matter, right?)

We then went to a different club and stood in line for about 20-30 minutes.  Don't worry, it wasn't boring- this little hobo man who was so completely soused that I've never seen the like was hanging out towards the front of the line in front of us.  He was kind of creating problems because he was staggering around, running into people and shouting while clutching his little bag of glass bottles to recycle.  A man tried to get rid of him by giving him a cigarette, but then he staggered into a woman and she tried to fight him.  Eventually the bouncers took notice. [Aside: Let me tell you about the bouncers.  They were these three HUGE black men.  I'm talking NFL big, and not the quarterback end of that spectrum.  I also got told that they usually are pimps, so they're kind of evil and without any form of compassion. After watching them, I believed it. They are known for "sticking" those who don't comply.  I never asked exactly what that meant. ]  First they pushed him down, but when he wouldn't stay down and kept crawling back towards the entrance two of them caught a hold of his arms and literally drug him across the street.  He was on his rear end the whole way, kind of cartoon style.  They didn't wait for traffic, so there was a moment that I honestly thought they might just be throwing him in front of a car, but they went clear over to the other side.  Once there they threatened him a good while and who knows what else.  Then they sauntered back.  The man followed.  After that we couldn't see what happened, but a few hours later when we walked back down that street we saw the bag of bottles he'd had, left abandoned.  It seemed a bit ominous.  I bet he just passed out somewhere, though.

When we got to the front of this thrilling line, we got turned away for not having a passport and so it was time to resort to grungier methods.  We went to a club that our leader knew to not ID anyone.

It was super dingy and trashed, but it was huge and offered lots of different stations for dancing depending on the type of music you wanted to hear.  We kept hopping between them for the next few hours.  Nothing really noteworthy happened while we were in the club per say, but I saw what the clubbing culture is like and lived to tell the tale.

When we got home we smelled of smoke, death and the Underworld.  It was so gross.  I'm actually surprised I didn't have an asthma attack in the club, the smoke was so thick. My eyes itched somethin' terrible, though.

Conclusion: I would never go clubbing again.  Never.  Blegh.  It also made me more excited to go swing dancing in the fall, because it's going to be the bomb!

I'm too busy DOING things to stop and WRITE about doing things...

I really loved the idea of using a list of bullet points, so here I go again:

• My body hates Europe. So much. I love it, but my body is enraged. The bottoms of my 2nd and 3rd toes on my right foot are the latest to join the rebellion, which is being led by my stomach, ribcage and hair.  I've been sick for two weeks now, and I finally went to the doctor this past Thursday.  He said that I most likely have inflammation of the stomach. Whatever that means.  He gave me medicine, so we'll see if that works.  If not, he said I need to swallow a camera.  Yay!  In relation to that, as many of you may well know, when I don't feel well I lose all ability to control my emotions.  Thus, I've been incredibly grumpy, snappish and teary for the past two weeks.  Some people thought I was actually nicer because I was also mellower and less sarcastic, but I think I've been a wench.  One day, when I was hurting quite a bit, I went to get groceries.  A man on the street tried to hand me a flyer and a small bottle of free lotion for a promotion.  He spoke very quickly and used words that are not in my working German vocabulary.  The result? I teared up.  The flyer and lotion were in my hand, but I wasn't gripping them tightly, so he kept a hold of them on the other end.  When I asked, "Was?" He tried to explain why he was giving me these things.  More tears pooled for no reason.  It was then that he realized that his free gifts had pushed a mentally unstable girl right over the edge.  He uneasily withdrew his offerings and backed away warily.  Thinking about it later when I had a better handle on myself, I cackled for a very long time in great merriment.  His expression was priceless.
• This is where I put in a guilt plug: Some of you (and by that, I mean all but about two of you) are not staying in contact. At all. Not even a cursory attempt. Please at least drop small messages every now and again so I know a little about your lives.  I may not be the best at replying, but you can just stalk my blog.  I don't have that luxury in the vice of the versa.
• My English is completely shot.  I speak fluent Denglish, but neither English nor Deutsch.  I'm going to have to read all the classics when I get home to regain my power of coherent speech.
• We went to Dresden last weekend.  It was pretty, but I missed the hustle and bustle of Berlin.  On the Saturday we were there I may or may not have consumed 5 ice cream cones in one day.  May not have.  Don't judge me for something that may not have happened.  But just so you know, hazelnut flavor rocks and yogurt with fruit is also the bomb.
• I went jogging one morning, decided to take a different path home because I thought these two specific streets ran parallel.  Turns out, they don't.  I got lost.  Really really lost.  For upwards of two hours.  With no cell phone or public transit pass. It was awesome, though, I saw some interesting things as I wandered about.  There was a daycare named Kartoffelkinder!!! Everyone in my old high school German class will understand why that is super exciting.  At last I found a body of water and decided that I could survive there because there was water to drink and wild game to kill and eat.  I was about to try to build shelter under a bench or climb a tree to protect myself from rabid joggers when it dawned on me that this was probably the lake in Charlottenburg (the area where I live) and that since all lakes have boundaries, if I just kept walking around the edge I might eventually find something I recognize from the one time I'd been there before.  It worked.  I got home.  Late, but safe.
• The towel I bought over here must be made from recycled materials, and I think it was saran wrap in its former life.  Imagine trying to dry yourself with saran wrap.  Yep, that's what I do every morning.  It's kind of interesting.
• I have been talking about the Word of Wisdom and eternal marriage so often over here lately that I'm beginning to think that the church should be funding my trip here.  (Oh, wait, they are...)  It was really awesome to get to share some of my standards with my classmates.  When they found out that I'd never drank any alcohol, tea or coffee or smoked it nearly blew some of their minds.  Made me smile.  A peculiar people are we, indeed.
• Today I joined a Syrian demonstration for a little while just so I could chant "One Solution-Revolution!" and "We seek freedom!" for a little while.  Amelia and I were the only white girls.  It was unnerving, so once we got a picture of our Berlin protest, we quickly left again.  We are POSERS.
• Someday (if it is at all possible) I am going to bring someone (or multiple someones) back here to Berlin to show them how awesome it is.  I want someone else from home to understand why I love it some much.  I also wouldn't mind if they were exceedingly impressed with my knowledge of the city layout and public transit system.  Genuflecting is a bit much, but maybe a bow or curtsy to acknowledge my genius wouldn't be uncalled for in that moment.
• We leave in less than a week.  I'm already depressed.  But I'm so freakin' excited for Tuebingen!
• Only about 33 more days until I'm home.  The time is flying!

This Sequel is Better than the Original, Kind of Like Madagascar II

• Whenever I went hiking in Switzerland (which is how I spent most of my time) I would find wild raspberry and blackberry bushes.  Did I forage in the Swiss wilderness and eat many berries for free?  Yes, yes I did.
• If you must ride a night train, crawl up in the luggage rack to sleep.  I was very jealous indeed of the man behind me who did.  He slept like a baby while I struggled to lean further away from Smelly Old Man (see next bullet point) in the seat next to me.
• A nasty old Russian man sniffed me on my train ride from Zuerich to Berlin!  I couldn't sleep after the incident, so I arrived in Berlin quite rumpled in mind and body. Why are people always sniffing me?!  It happens way too often to be chance!
• It's funny how quickly one can adapt to a different culture.  In my 4 hostel nights I got so used to having to share rooms with guys that when I reached the hostel where the BYU group was and I was erroneously given the key to the men's room rather than the girls', I just walked in and waited for them to tell me which bed was free for me.  It took me a good long (and I mean loooong) while to realize what was wrong with my current situation.  The poor guy trying to get out of the shower but being held captive by my female presence is what finally made my tired brain speculate as to what could be causing the slightly horrified looks I was receiving.  I then swapped keys and got me out.
• First Doener experience = perfection.  I WILL get a hold of one of those enormous meat kebabs and I WILL eat doeners at home.  I WILL.
• I hate art and architecture.  So much.  I love looking at it- hate learning about it.  
• I carried a jar of pickles cradled in my two hands all the way across Berlin (in the metro stations and everything) like it was some sort of sacred relic, because I'd had it for 4-5 days and hadn't been able to open it and needed a guy's help.  I got some strange looks.  I like pickles.
• I learned some funny/interesting things about Asian dramas.  Kamille, Haley and Julia- I will share this great knowledge with you when I get back.  It explains some things in Boys Before Flowers.
• Per request, here is a little more information about the morning that I found a shirtless man standing over me.  This makes the story less interesting, actually, so if you prefer the exciting version, don't read any further.  All it was was that two people had been assigned to my hostel room in the middle of the night, well after I was out like a broken lightbulb. In the morning the guy got out of bed and was standing in the middle of the room waiting for his sister to get up.  It was a small room, so by standing there he was kind of over my bed also, and it would seem he shunned shirts when he slept.  That is all. It just startled me greatly, because I'd fallen asleep alone and then woke up to a man's unrobed chest in my line of sight. Filling my line of sight, actually, considering how squinty my eyes are in the bright early morning sunshine.
• I'll try to get pictures on facebook, but I just want to type here that: We trespassed into an empty high-rise apartment in Gendarmenmarkt to watch The Scorpions perform live!!!!  It was AWESOME!!!  And last week we listened to the dulcet tones of Daft Punk as it drifted from the abandoned Tempelhof airport.  I think I'm a little bit in love with Berlin.  It's going to be difficult when we break up here in a little while.  I'm going to need chocolate.  Which makes it a good thing I'm in Germany, right?

Highlights

• I live with a lady named Frau Mueller.  She's marvelous.
• My roommate is named Becca and she's super great.  We have fun. :)
• I am mastering the Berlin public transit system. I'm going to have quite a bit memorized by the time I leave.  Which will be completely useless knowledge, considering that I'll never get to come back here, but hey, why not?
• A swan attacked me in Lucerne and I lost the lens cover to my camera.  I still hate birds.  I'm going to kick a pigeon while I'm in Berlin.
• We sometimes go walking through ghettos trying to find that elusive Berlin crime, but so far we haven't found anything worth mentioning.
• I am going to be late for church, even though I only wrote about 10 sentences.  Crud.  Goodbye.

Germany Is Great

Hostels and Lithuanians are of Satan- it was all fun and games when they had me sit with them while they played a drinking game (I was waiting for laundry in the room they were playing in, but managed to convince them that whiskey shots counted as alcohol and therefore I would NOT be participating in any way,) but then when I went back for my laundry there were terrible terrible horrid things happening in that room.  I ran away faster than I've ever run before, waited a few hours and then made the receptionist go into the room to check if the coast was clear. I will NEVER go in a hostel laundry room again. NEVER.
Berlin is freakin' sweet- I'm more in love with it than I thought I'd be.  I live in an apartment that is like a jungle/ballet studio (it's so cool!) with an awesome girl named Becca.
The guys have been keeping me safe, so I've never really been lost.
I'm well fed. That's all that matters.
Goodbye.