Try the currywurst.

I’m sitting in the computer cluster at 1:00 in the morning, German time, trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to wake up later this morning without an alarm clock. I could just stay up until the time I planned on waking up (at 7:00), but that would require un-sleeping and I’ve never been a fan of being awake. My converter for my electronics blew a fuse and now all connections to the 21^st century—my cell phone, my computer, and my electric razor—are meaningless boxes of wire and plastic. Fortunately, this has been the worst of my problems lately.

I really like it here. Now that I know how to get around the city without accidentally taking the subway to Austria, it has been a lot more enjoyable. I'm familiar with the neighborhood that my host stays in and it’s really wealthy and artsy. Not to mention the euros they allot to us for food far exceed the cost of good eatin’ in Berlin and can be used on much-coveted trivial purchases in the area. If you can picture having your own room in a European-style Haight-Ashbury district with lots of bars and bookstores and no children, then you can see why I can’t wait to move in Friday. Maybe she’ll let me use her studio.

Besides the limited food options of sausages and potatoes and sausages and potatoes, the only problem I can see on the horizon is the way the students in the program are already starting to group off. I envisioned myself making certain new friends here, as in I scoped out people I thought were cool—and I must have impeccable taste in personalities because they all seem to have realized this and they’re becoming friends with each other instead of diffusing their interestingness around the city. Perhaps I could just try harder in the next few days. These things are delicate like jell-o; if you let them sit too long in a cool place they solidify and become nasty. Wow, that was an impressive metaphor.

Tomorrow is our first day of classes. I placed out of the lower level German this summer, so I’ll be fumbling and confused with the big kids instead of the beginners. The professor is amazingly engaging. Living here might be worth becoming yet another quarter behind in my major. I’ll post pictures as soon as I find another converter.

Love *manda