Hello! So I’m Stephanie, and this term I’m studying abroad in Berlin, Germany! My posts will be mostly about stuff that I’m doing here in Berlin – hope you enjoy it!
My week was pretty uneventful… Last Saturday, my friend and I went and saw part of the “Berlin Festival of Lights”, which was pretty cool! I took a few pictures, but they didn’t really turn out too well. We walked from Brandenburger Tor all the way past Alexander Platz, which is a pretty long walk! Basically the Festival of Lights is sort of like an art installation, but instead of actual art, it’s done using projectors, mostly on famous buildings/things, like the Brandenburger Tor or the Berliner Dom.
It was pretty cool, and I’m glad we went and saw it!
The school week was pretty uneventful, besides going to two plays; one on Monday and one on Tuesday. In those two days, I’m pretty sure I spent more time in the theater than I spent sleeping! Both plays were almost 4 hours long each…so it was a long two days! The first one we saw was “Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung” which I actually enjoyed! Even though the actual play that we read was pretty short, they somehow managed to make it into almost 4 hours… But it had some humor in it, so that’s what made it so enjoyable! The one on Tuesday was “The Three-penny Opera”, which I did not enjoy at all. It’s by Bertolt Brecht…and I don’t know much about Brecht, but he seems like one weird man. I honestly couldn’t even really tell you what it’s about, because it’s so weird! Although apparently it’s pretty famous, so maybe you’ve even heard of it!
For those wondering, all my classes are in German! For the first three weeks of being here, we had an intensive German course for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. That definitely helped me improve my German! Now, we’ve started actual classes. I’m taking 5, which is a big shock for me since at Lawrence we usually take 3 a term! I’ve needed to do a bit of adjusting, just because I’m not used to having so many classes in a term. But it’s going pretty well so far. In addition to taking 5 classes, I’m also doing a practicum at a school for disabled children. I’ve only been there for a week or so, but I really like it! I’m sure I’ll write more about that later!
Anyways, on Sunday my friend and I decided to go to Potsdam to see the fall colors and such! Plus he hadn’t been to Potsdam before, so we thought it would be a nice little day trip. (Potsdam is a half an hour train ride from Berlin, and we don’t even need to buy another train ticket to get there!) We walked around the Sanssouci Park for a while and took some pictures! Sanssouci was the former summer home of Friedrich the Great, who was a King of Prussia. There are a bunch of buildings in the park, and it was really nice to be in nature after being in Berlin for so long! I love Berlin, but I miss the nature sometimes! It was a nice day and we had really good weather!
