greetings from "The Collective"

Hello again. It's been a while since I've last posted, so I apologize (especially to my family, who I know are diligent readers and are always telling me UPDATE!).

Since I have last written, a lot has gone on in over here. I spent a week in Russia (SO COOL!), and I have so much to talk about. So I won't just ramble on and on, perhaps we can start with some structure?

1.Germany up until now:
Well, I haven't done anything too exciting since my last post here in Germany. No more breaking into apartments (knock on wood). I've done some shopping. Souveniers and gifts mostly, and every now and then I stop by H&M and get a sweater/shirt (always good to have). I also got an umbrella last week, which is really cute and will be so useful. Germany can go from absolutely beautiful to complete downpour in minutes. Sounds familiar...hmmm....New England anyone?? So yeah, that was a good buy. I also got myself some really cute black leather heels/boots for 3o euros. Everyone in Europe has these great boots, and of course, why shouldn't I? They were cheap! woo! and cute. And I can walk around in them and my feet don't really hurt. I think I win. sweeeeet. We have also recently been frequenting this place called "Another Country" which is an English Bookstore in Berlin. Every Tuesday and Friday they have a movie at 11pm, and home cooked dinner for sale at 9pm. The people here are all either ex-pats, or people from the UK or Australia..or even Germans who want to practice their English. It's a pretty great atmosphere.

2. German Night Life:
To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about German night life at this point in time.... I mean, don't get me wrong, I LOVE to go out. It's just so expensive!! haha. I really like going to cute little bars on random streets, and every now and then going to a club for some dancing. The only thing that gets a little crazy is that we seem to ALWAYS travel in a huge group. I like the people I'm with, but when just a couple of us decide to go out..it usually ends up being MOST of us. And I just feel like that many americans huddled together in one place just gets awkward for Germans, and thus I have been pretty much unable to make German friends on the weekends when I go out, because I'm always surrounded by Americans. I don't know. I like my friends, but I also want to see more of the city, and not always go to the same places. Also, I want to meet Germans and have a more "authentic" life here. Maybe I'm just being idealistic. Who knows. I guess either way I'm having fun, so that's what really matters!

3. DEUTSCH!
My German has gotten remarkably better since I have been in Berlin. Also, with my pink hair, I must look a little German, or at least like a Berliner, because I am frequently asked for directions in german from visiting Germans, and even foreigners. I really like it when people who obviously speak English try to ask me for help finding something in German, and I know they know english so I speak back in English. They always look really relieved, and I'm glad to help them because I remember how hard it was to find things in berlin when I first got here. I went to a souvenier shop a couple weeks ago, and refused to let them shopkeeper speak to me in English, and he told me that I had very good German for a student! I win!! :) He also thought I was from France...I don't really understand how that was decided. Either way..my German was complimented, and that must be good! Also, it has gotten MUCH easier for me to understand when my friends/teachers/people in general when they speak German. I've come a long way since my German classes at Colby!

4. RUSSIA!!!!
a) The People: Russian people...really are crazy. The men in Russia...well, we pretty heinous (with the exception of a few, of course). However, the women were absolutely GORGEOUS. Apparently, they don't go out of the house unless they have gotten dressed to the nines. It's insane. Really, I'm not even exaggerating. Here's an idea of the typical russian woman you might encounter on the street: First of all, she's taller than average, has light skin, dark eyes and hair, and a TON of makeup. Lots of black eyeliner, mascara, and bright colored eyeshadow (this shadow thing goes more toward the older russian women...who apparently think Mimi from Drew Carey was some sort of fashion icon). Then all of the women..with the exception of maybe two women in the whole of Russia, wear this insane pin-thin stilleto black leather boots. In addition to this, they wear wicked tight jeans or black pants tucked into the boots. For a jacket, of course they go with leather or another very nice fabric. And all of the jackets are lined with really nice fox fur (they are OBSESSED...let me repeat...OBSESSED with fur! It's a little unnerving that so many animals have been killed to serve russian women's needs for beauty. Apparently though, when the iron curtain was up during communist times, the only imagery that had from the west in terms of makeup and beauty was stuff from magazines and movies (aka: TONS of makeup and really expensive clothings..really dressed up, etc) Oh, and Russian men have this strange affinity for the mullet. YES. the MULLET. it's not as bad as the average American Trailer Trash Mullet...but shit. It's bad. Think updated and a little more sleek of a mullet...i like to call it the Modern Russian Mullet...if you will. I really don't know what they are thinking.
b) STRAYS: There are stray dogs and cats EVERYWHERE!!! It's really insane. I got a lot of pictures of stray cats and dogs. Apparently, russians don't care so much for pets...or strays. Such a contrast to Berlin where everyone has their pets..dogs, etc. Here, the animals are essentially wild. I felt so bad for them. Russians will often kick them if they are in the way or sleeping, so the dogs are really scared of people, so they run away if you are coming, or get out of the way to avoid being kicked. It's so twisted and evil. SO, because I felt so bad for them, I stole sausages/hot dogs from breakfast at the hotel. I carried them around with me all day purely to feed the dogs and cats I found on my way to lectures at the local university. I did my part for the needly pets of Russia.
c)Russian Vodka: yep...it's strong. We all tried it..but it's CERTAINLY an upgrade from Orloff's! woo!! Also, everything in russia is crazy expensive..especially the alcohol...though vodka shots are generally inexpensive. Also..in russia it is considered rude for a man to order a cocktail with vodka in it. If they want some vodka, they need to just drink it straight!! This little thought about men (Russians can be pretty sexist) probably contributes to the many drunk men on the streets of St. Petersburg.
d) Church on Spilled Blood: THE most beautiful church i have ever seen in my life...seriously. It made me want to cry it was so beautiful. By far my favorite place that I saw while in St. Petersburg. Check out the link to my pictures to see it. It looks like an extremely fancy version of a candy house. Beautiful.
e) Russian Language: is so hard to understand. The characters are completely different (cyrillic), and its difficult to read. Hwoever, we did learn some really useful phrases, etc.
f) Russian Metro: The Metro Stations in St. Petersburg are the deepest in the world. Many of the suvway stations are located 500 meters below ground. This is because when they built them they had to avoid underground lakes, above ground canals, etc. Because its so deep, one must take an over FOUR MINUTE escalator ride into the underground station. Where you don't even have to think about getting on the train, especially during rush hour. During rush hour, the people around you put you on the bus. Everyone is pushing, etc, alllll into this really small subway car. It's absolutely crazy. But very interesting. Russians also don't have a sense of personal space. They are literally in each others faces all the time, and no one has a problem with it. They are SO close to each other on the metro...everyone is literally on top of one another. you can't even move...shit, if the train were to hit a wall, i wouldn't have moved because there were so many people wedging me into the middle of the train. But, it was pretty exciting to take the metro---its so intense in russia! to many people in the city. I missed Berlin's quiet trains...haha
g) KSYUSHA!!!!: I got to see my friend Ksyusha while i was in St. Petersburg because she lives here! I was so excited to see her. She brought me to a couple really cool bars, and her mother cooked me some really amazing and delicious russian dinner. We had a lentil soup with vegetables and ham, meat bilinis, some cheese bilinis, a pickeled cabage salad, bread, and some really great juice. It was great, and so much fun. It was SO amazing to see her--it was way too long of a gap!! I was also able to meet a bunch of her friends, who were also very nice! I love my crazy Russian Ksyusha!! haha

Alright, well that's all for now. I'm SO exhausted from running around St. Petersburg for 5 days straight..soooooo tiiiireed.... gah. I'm so excited to sleep in tomorrow. WOO!! :)

Also, please check out my pictures!! liebegruesseausdeutschland.shutterfly.com

liebe Gruesse!!
Jenn

My friend has his version of what happened yesterday with the whole window incident on his blog..follow this link: http://lliw2322.blogspot.com/2008/10/breaking-news.html

I'm pretty sure his blog is a much better representation of what went down...also it's far funnier than mine. Please appreciate the references to the third reich when dealing with the cat.

ALSO: if you would like to help me pay for a new window, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT! donations can be sent to my mother, who can feed it to my starving bank account.

PLEASE & THANKS!!

yes, I am the Anti-Christ.

So last Friday I went to the Zoo. It was AWESOME! I will update soon with pictures from the Zoo and info on it. But today I'm updating on something different.

So I'm probably the most terrible person ever to live with. I didn't go to school today because I didn't feel well. My friend Will came over to drop stuff from school off for me. I had to let him in, so I left the door to my flat open and then opened the main door. Unfortunately the cat decided to scratch himself using the open door...thus resulting in a closed...and locked...door. Let me mention as well, that I had JUST put coffee on the stove in the espresso maker. AKA THERE WAS A FIRE GOING ON THE OVEN WITH A COFFEE THING. So now we're locked out. I am freaking out. I'm afriad that there will be a fire and that I will burn the freaking apartment building down. So I'm in the hallway in tears. Trying to call the emergency number, but THE DIDN't ANSWER THE EMERGENCY NUMBER. WTF?! So I'm still freaking out. Finally a neighbor comes down, and he helps me look outside with Will to see if there is a window we can get into. The bathroom window was a little open, but we couldn't manage to break it open....so I kept looking in the window to see how the coffee was doing. Eventually the handle, well, melted off. Fabulous. Then the smoke alarm started going off. Then it all went to hell. I was sobbing, we couldn't figure out how to get in. So, the neighbor found a big brick..and threw it through the kitchen window. SO now we're in, but there is smoke, and the cat was hiding under my bed, and it smelled TERRIBLE. Yeah....so Will and I cleaned up the kitchen and then Birgit came home and she didn't seem too happy...but I guess no one wants to come home to a broken window after being at work from 8:30 to 7...oops. I felt, and still feel like, shit about it. Now there is a big hole in the window. Hopefully the window people will come tomorrow...but I have to pay for that..yikes. expensive. And I need to buy some flowers for the people upstairs who helped me cuz they were SO NICE! And I need to buy Birgit a new espresso maker pot thing..yay for being broke. oh well, shit happens. I'm sure that everything will be ok..but still this SUCKS. oh well. I'll probably post pictures at some point.

Hope all is well back home and you aren't doing any stupid shit like I have been doing!

alles ist verruckt!

Well I have only had 5 days total of classes, and I am already feeling bogged down by work. Most of my classes have a reasonable workload...however, my Visual Culture class has...oh only like a zillion pages of reading to do per night. what. the. fuck. So I'm not a fan of that too much...other than that though, I think my classes are very interesting. I just wish that the reading was more manageable for such a short amount of time. I mean, I can read it, but I don't retain as much as I would if I had the time to really focus on the words flying into my brain. c'est la vie (I'm getting ready for my trip to Paris in November, can you tell? mwaha).

I feel outrageously broke since the Euro has succeeded in completely raping me up the butt--what the hell did the U.S. do to have such a shitty exchange rate? jeez. Someone needs to sort that shit out. Some superpower.

My german class went from essentially no homework whatsoever to FOUR PAGES OF PURELY CONJUGATING VERBS. the most that accomplished was some serious writer's cramp, and complete confusion as to what verbs require sein or if it requires haben...or some sein...or haben...or seiben...ich weiss nicht!!!

Alright anyway...some updates on my life in this wonderful city called Berlin.
I have been cooking for myself more and more...and I am damn good at it, as I have mentioned previously. Although I do wish that it was cheaper to eat out, because I miss good sushi (oh Yuki, what would I ever do without you?!!?).

Have I mentioned anything about the German dogs yet?? It doesn't matter what breed, what size, what color, or ANYTHING...every german dog is the smartest dog in the world. There are dogs all over the city, and almost all of them are unleashed, but they walk around and follow their owners like their owner is the only person in the universe. They won't listen to you if you talk to them, but they immediately respond to the owner when it speaks to them. There are unleashed angry looking german shepherds on store stoops, ready to totally rip out your jugular if you try to steal anything. Of course, they will only get up from their spot if their owner commands them. It's seriously out of control. I really want to get a german dog because they are outrageously well behaved. I don't know what psycho boot camp the german people send their dogs to, but I need to find out cuz Rocky could really use an ass kicking in the behavior department.

OH! My friend, Cea's, birthday was on Sunday, so on Saturday night we all went out to this awesome club called White Trash Fast Food (you can google it). The top part is a restaurant that serves like, gourmet burgers and other really tasty and probably pricey things. You can go downstairs to the club, and its like you are walking into a cave. The ceiling and walls all look like rocks, and its a completely underground club. The party there that we went to was called White Noise and it happens about twice a month. The DJs are awesome and they play indie rock dance music, and it was probably the best compilation i've heard for dancing. It was so much fun! Sam and I got there at about midnight-ish to meet up with everyone else, and we left a little after 4am I believe. And that's early by german party standards. My host, who is 40, wasn't even back at the flat until 8am. haha. I need to step it up i think. All together though, I think that this was my favorite club/bar so far! It was so much fun! Although, I still have a lot more exploring to do. And on that note, I just bought myself on amazon (the german version) Lonely Planet: Berlin so I can check out some places I might not find on my own. Oh yeah, and what the hell?? German Amazon ALWAYS HAS FREE SHIPPING! What happened American Amazon? Let's get with the program pleaseee.

Well thats it for updates today. I should probably head to bed-tomorrow and thursdays are my tough academic days, because I have 4 classes (so I am at the school center from 830am-6pm. eep.)

Hope all is well overseas!!
viele Gruesse!

First and foremost, I'd like to say that I am a badass cook. I didn't know it. You didn't know it. But now we all do. I made this for my dinner last night. Cold pasta salad with grape tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumber, sprouts and italian dressing. And The fish is hot off the stove talapia with italian dressing, lemon, butter, and olive oil. It was probably one of the best meals I have ever eaten. Yes, when I return home, you can pay me to cook for you.

I know this picture is wicked shitty, but I had to post it. I was on the S-Bahn today and the guy across from me was drinking this..it is Jack Daniel's and Coke...ALREADY TOGETHER IN A CAN! I thought that my friends back at Colby would greatly appreciate this. Sorry the quality is so bad..I was trying not to make it obvious that I was taking a picture of this man's drink.

Today my Identity class went on a field trip with our professor, Sabine, to Potsdam. Potsdam is located right at the outskirts of Berlin, and it is pretty historic. There is a German section, a Swiss section, and a Russian section, as well as a small Bohemian section. We drove around on bikes to check everything out, which at first seemed awesome. However, as we continued our tour down beautifully cobblestoned roads, my butt begged to differ. It now feels as though my ass was continually beat with rocks all day, it is so sore. But that is beside the point. Potsdam was really beautiful, and I took a bunch of pictures so that I can share. Sweetness.

This is a Jewish Cemetery in Potsdam. It was closed for many years because there were no Jews at all in the area (post WWII). However, it has more recently been reopened, and it is being used again as a cemetery.
This is a picture of a kind of palace-like structure. It wasn't really a palace, as much as it was a pretty place to go. The architecture here is wonderful, and a lot of it has been restored, but there are still some places in it that are original, which didn't have to be restored. We could climb to the top of the tower you see pictured here for an amazing view--we could even see the TV Tower in Berlin!
Here is just a small portion of the spiral staircase that we took to go up to the top of the tower. You can see some of the original decor on the walls. Pretty sweet.
View from the top of the tower, looking down toward the front of the palace property.
You can see the sign pointing toward Berlin! We're almost heading home! You can see here the architecture before you get to the bridge. I think that this used to be a checkpoint of some sort...but don't quote me on it.
Here is a monument in the heart of Potsdam, located in front of the huge main church.
Another very pretty monument centrally located in Potsdam by the church.
This is just a sample of the Swiss section of Potsdam.
This is a Russian-style home, which has been turned into a restaurant with Russian cuisine. It's pretty adorable, and reminds me of gingerbread houses and christmas. This makes me very excited to visit Russia next month. It should be very interesting and different.

Was geht's?!

It's Sunday night which means that I have class in the morning (blah. even in germany classes are still making me want to stay in bed-haha). Although, I am a little excited, because tomorrow is the first day of actually classes and not just intensive german instruction. I have class until 6pm tomorrow...well Mon-Thurs. I don't have any classes on Friday. Those are our days off, as well as days for class field trips. sweet. I pretty much slept all day today..I got out of bed around 5pm...I didn't go to bed last night until 5am, so that's legitimate I suppose. Last night I went to the Bassy Club (Cowboy Club!) where my host, Birgit, was DJ-ing (how cool is that?!) I was even on the guest list-so I didn't have to pay the 10 EU cover. AWESOME. I have never been on a guest list before. I is special. haha. It was really cool to see her DJ. The club was really cool. It was full of Rockabilly people, and Birgit played 50's and 60's dance music (no..NOT disco) think Johnny Cash, etc. It was interesting, and I really enjoyed it. Her and Raoul didn't come back here until about 8am...crazy. Germans take their nights out very seriously. It was a great experience, and I got to talk to Birgit's friends, who are all very nice.

Yesterday 10 of us in the IES program went to Hamburg. It wasn't as exciting or as fun as Berlin, but it was still a nice trip. Hamburg has a lot more money than Berlin, and so there are a lot of people there who are very wealthy and showy. The rich people kind of look down on you unless you are wearing versace or some shit like that. I think thats pretty lame. In Berlin, you can rarely tell who has money, because everyone has their own style. Yay Berlin! Berlin is also a lot more cultural and busy. I did take some pictures of Hamburg, so please enjoy!


On the train to Hamburg from Berlin! This is Ella, our student services coordinator. She is a woman who lives in Berlin, and she is so funny. She's wearing my headphones and listening to some german music from my ipod. It was a very fun train ride.
The port in Hamburg. Apparently, it is pretty popular to have a sailboat, and we saw TONS of them in the water. A little out of control.

Some grafitti we saw in Hamburg near the water on a pole for advertisements. This means "The Bible is a Fairytale Book" in English. I thought that this was pretty awesome.

There was a chinese celebration in the middle of Hamburg while we were visiting. Lots of food, drinks, and chinese arts. This statue was lit up with multi-colored lights at night.

An example of Hamburg architure. This was part of the Hamburg 'town hall' for lack of a better expression. It is very detailed...perhaps Baroque era?

We walked past this man during our tour of Hamburg. He was making this sidewalk mural out of pastels. It is amazing, and we were all very impressed. There were german words lining the mural, and a few other small murals that were to the left and right of this large one.

Das ist alles fur jetzt! More to come...Hopefully I will get some pictures of my train station (which looks pretty sketch, but I like it!). Miss you all.

viele zu machen, nicht genug zeit!

hallo aus Berlin!

Today we met our professors for our classes. I am signed up for six classes total...including the German class that I have already begun. The classes seem really interesting. I´m taking advanced German language, The Metropolis as an Antagonist in Literature and Film, The Politics of Sexuality: yesterday and today; Sex, Soccer, Drugs and Rock ´n Roll on Modern Culture; Formation of Identity in Modern Europe; The Urban Landscape (not all of these are the exact course titles, they are all so long i can`t remember them all). All of them sound so interesting, and the professors seem very cool. The only thing I am a little hesitant about is my german course. There are only three students in the class including myself, and I am wondering whether my professor is legitimately insane. It is totally a possibility...who knows. He has some strange teaching methods, and we always listen to this really weird old german punk music. He only has it on tape...it is pretty old. probably right before the wall fell.

Speaking of the wall. I have seen it, or at least what is left of it. It is pretty eerie to see. In the US the second world war and the holocaust seem so distant, but here it is uncomfortably obvious. What is so weird is that the German people don´t really talk about it at all. Almost like it never happened. uhhhh...whaaaat? Kind of a huge part of German history and it is always incredibly glossed over or not talked about. Great example: today we went to the German History Museum (Deutsche Historische Museum) and our tout guide knew we only had two hours for a tour of the museum, and she spent an insane amount of time talking to us about random wicked old german and european history and about the painter Albrecht Durer (who she said was a german artist..but i learned in AR112 at Colby that he was actually Dutch, so who knows). Finally it was 10 of 6 (the museum closes at 6) and we were only at the first world war part of the museum. Naturally, we are interested in the second world war and the nazi regime. When she finds out we only have 10 minutes, she goes oh no! well let´s head to the part of German reunification! uhm....what?! She COMPLETELY skipped the part of the museum on the second world war and Hitler, etc. and we were all like, um...seriously? This is pretty much how Germans are about the who 1940s....kind of like everything has always been just peachy. It is a little unsettling to me that they have no desire to talk about what happened, but I guess for them is is recent history and they have to be constantly reminded of how terrible things were. There is grafitti everywhere in Berlin which chronicles it. Out of control. I am also very curious about the time of Hitler and teh Nazis because I feel like we don`t often hear about it anywhere unless you specifically study history. But I have been asking a lot of questions at school, so I am starting to understand things a little bit better.

I am totally missing everyone at home, but it is so amazing here. If you ever have the oportunity to visit Europe, you should definitely opt to go to Berlin. It is beautiful and so much fun. You can pretty much do and wear whatever you want, which is very refreshing. I even see older women on the trains with really modern haircuts with wild unnatural colors. It is wicked cool.

please write me! You can easily email me for my address: jacorriv@colby.edu

viele Grüße!