I had an . . . interesting day

I was picked up by my host sister, Anna, last night and taken to her home on Königsbergerstraße in the south-western part of Berlin. She and her father live on the second floor of a house above a zahnarzt or dentist. I have a nice spacious room to myself, as well as a large double bed where I promptly fell asleep last night after writing my blog post. I was awake for 28 hours straight, so, appropriately, I slept for 15 without stirring.

Mein Zimmer

Anna is a 25-year-old law student at Freie Universität. Her father is retired but getting a degree in mythology and philosophy at the university as well. They are both very nice, and Anna has been very helpful with my ridiculous incompetence. I have been speaking mostly German with them, except for certain things I really have trouble understanding. Nils, the student assistant at FU-BEST, told me I was lucky because most host families want to practice their English.

Both Anna and her father work so I was left alone most of the day.

And what a day it was . . .

The first reason for panic came when I realized I had left the blue bag I had received upon arrival back at the FU-BEST building. That bag had my itinerary and my transportation card, so I had to buy a bus day pass to leave the house and get to Brentanostraße where I was supposed to meet the group for an optional tour. Since I had to get my bag anyway, I decided to go.

First I will begin by saying that I am awful at public transportation. I have never taken a bus by myself.

I knew I had to get to Dahlem-Dorf. So, naturally, I got on the wrong bus and ended up at the opposite end of Berlin. Oddly enough, I wasn't even scared. I just sat calmly, got off the bus because the line ended, and found another bus that said "Dahlem" on it. It is not the same as "Dahlem-Dorf" but it was something I recognized in a city where I knew three place names. I asked an elderly lady in German how to get to "Dahlem-Dorf". Luckily she knew where that was, and, when I clearly wasn't understanding her directions in German, she rode the bus with me until I got to where I had to go. She was the answer to my desperate prayers. That the first person I asked would be willing to help a lost and scared girl who did not understand the language very well was totally a Godsend. She was very sweet and told me all about her children on the bus while I nodded and pretended to understand everything she said. I got the gist of what she was saying, but not everything. I praise God for that woman, though, whoever she was.

I finally found Dahlem-Dorf and incredibly ran into my group on tour. I was already 15 minutes late and they just happened to arrive at Dahlem-Dorf at the exact moment I did. So I joined the group and Nils, the student assistant who is a graduate student at FU, led us on a tour of campus. During the tour I got to know a bunch of different people in my program. Something has been making me ridiculously friendly these past two days, which I guess is good because I get to know people. One thing that has surprised me is that 75% of the students in my program have taken 2 or fewer years of German. Some don't know any German at all. I heard one guy asking another what the word for "water" was. I honestly don't know how they do it because I would probably have died on my little excursion earlier if I didn't know how to speak and read a bit of German.

When the tour ended, Nils took us to the Thielplatz station where most of the group left. I still need to go to the FU-BEST building to get my bag so I was going to go with Nils. Abby, who is in a wheelchair, needed to go to the next station because there was no wheelchair access at this certain station, so Nils and I took Abby to the station she needed. Then Nils showed me how to use the U-bahn and get to the FU-BEST building, correcting my German the entire way. It turned out the building was closed, so I still couldn't get my bag with my transportation pass.

I made my way back to the u-bahn, naturally got on the wrong direction, realized this two stations down, got off and then got back on the other side, and finally reached where I had to go. Got on the bus, got off two stops early, and had to wait for the next bus.

Finally, I made it home and explained everything to my host sister who I'm pretty sure thinks I'm an idiot. But, I guess I learned a lot. And now I know how to get to my school . . .