Good, Bad? I'm the guy with the blog.

So, this is the end.

I got back from Germany two days ago, after a total delay of about an hour, due to Heathrow airport and the weather in Boston. Not to mention that the baggage claim belt got jammed, and it took a while for them to fix it. My parents didn't recognize me as I stepped out of the gate, not with my new hat, my new beard, and my new jeans (which, if you know me, is a huge step away from the norm). There's not much to say about the ride home. We talked about the program a bit, but not anything really specific. I was pretty tired from the flight, and was ready to just eat dinner and lie on the couch.

I hadn't been back in the States for more than 10 minutes when I noticed how different everything felt. The way that people talk. The English that people talk; It's American English, rather than British English. The dollar doesn't feel real to me anymore. It's more like monopoly money than ever. So far, all I've unpacked are the gifts that I bought. I can't even begin to think about where the rest is going to fit, and I've had barely enough time to see my friends before Christmas rolls around, and relatives take over for a few days. My friend Brandon is leaving for Cork, Ireland on the 28th. I'm lucky that I saw him before he disappeared for the semester. I ran into my friend Jess today while I was getting my haircut, so that's another down. We're trying to get people together tonight.

Tomorrow's the big annual Christmas party at the Pluskal's, to which I am obligated to go. I'm sure it will be a fine time, but it's all so soon after everything else. I'm still on Berlin time; just a little. I haven't even gotten used to my bed here yet. It's been so long; it doesn't feel right just yet.

It snowed about two feet the week before I got back to the States. It had only snowed about a quarter of a half of a third of an inch in Berlin while I was there, so this was a welcome change. I threw a snowball, and it was good.

As for the program, well, I don't know how much there is to say. I think I covered my impressions pretty well over the other posts in this blog. In case you can't tell after reading through the whole thing (which I hope you did), I had a good time. Actually - more than that.
I had a great time, a wonderful time. I do not regret going to Germany for this last semester, no matter how depressed, awkward, anxious, angry, or otherwise I might have felt during the whole experience. Sure, I wish that I could have traveled more, and that the actual academic portion of the program was structured a bit better, but that doesn't change the fact that I was able to go to a Germany, live with a German family fr four months, and gain a passable knowledge of the history, culture, and language of Germany. It was fun, it was exciting, and I'd love to go back.

My host family was beyond amazing. Tom and Dorothee Lennert are wonderful people, with a great amount of patience, compassion, and understanding for an American student trying to get his bearings. I'd like to put it out there that the Lennerts really made my experience what it was. It would not have been the same had I lived in an apartment like the other 50 percent of the students. Chumps.

I really can't complain about much (well, I could, but it's pointless and insignificant stuff). Everything is said and done, my classes and housing for next semester look like they're all set up, and life moves on.

That's right, life moves on.

I'd like to thank you all for reading this blog. It's been fun writing this thing, and I hoped you've enjoyed it. I might consider continuing writing in this, but that's a story for another day.

That's all, folks.

The Ugly

This is going to be the big downer. Honest, but rough nonetheless. It's long, rambling, and it might not make much sense, as I've typed this from about 3-4:45 in the morning. I'd rather not discuss this, so please don't ask me to elaborate on any of this. Thanks.

***

When I arrived at the program building at the beginning of this semester, I was full of hopes. I hoped to find friends. I hoped to travel. I hoped that the two would intersect at some point. I think, at the beginning, that everybody really got along well. I mean, we had to. For the most of us, we were strangers in a strange land, and we were all stuck together, for better or for worse.

So, in the first few weeks I did make some friends, I did make traveling plans, and I did go traveling with the friends that I had made. Good job, A+, and all that. A lot of the pictures that you see of me from the first few weeks of the program also feature this group of friends. We all look pretty happy, right? Well we were, myself included. I mean, I had found a group of people who are interested in going places, seeing cities, having fun, and were generally fun to be around. Unfortunately, it didn't last.

I guess the keynote of this whole little post here is the concept of Circles. No matter how open people are, there's always a circle of friends that keeps outsiders, well, out. It's all about exclusivity, really. At the beginning of the semester, the circles were open, nonexistent. For the most part, everybody was new, there were no problems, and we all wanted to know each other. It only took a couple of weeks for 71 students to define what were the circles, the cliques for the rest of the semester. Now, I don't want to sound so grim here. When I talk about circles, I really just mean the people that are most often together. This doesn't have a set level of exclusivity, and some circles were bigger than others. Some weren't really even there.

So as the weeks went on, it became more and more obvious that I wasn't really a part of the circle of friends that I thought I was. Maybe it was because the rest of them were all in the apartments, and maybe it was because the leaders of the circle didn't really like me, as far as being friends was concerned. I think it's a bit of both, to be honest. Regardless, it got more and more uncomfortable as the weeks carried on, and I tried to hold on as well as I could. I was already homesick, but this was something more than that.

Something you should understand about me, in case you don't already. I am a lonely person. I have friends, yes, but I am the type of person who can feel alone in a room full of people, just by virtue of being me. It's something that I've sometimes inadvertently cultivated over the past years. It hasn't prevented me from making friends in my life, but it does make me unwilling and, frankly, fearful that I'll lose them. So I held on. I tried to be as unoffensive as possible to these people whom I considered friends. It's a really horrible existence, fearing the loss of your friends, when you know that if you have to fear something like that, you're going about the whole thing wrong.

The shit hit the fan over our big class trip to Munich, Vienna, and Bratislava. Well, really just in Munich, during Oktoberfest. We were all having a great time, and for a little while, I thought things were doing just fine. We all went around shopping and having fun. There was some drama in the group, but not directed at me, so that was really just fine. Selfish perhaps, but it's the truth. Then, the day that we actually got to sit at a table, it was the beginning of the end for my membership in this little group. Some of us were all sitting around the table, drinking beers and eating food. But it wasn't as happy as it could have been. Leader Girl 1 snapped at me for assuming that she was paying for everything, since she had pulled out a 50 Euro note (and I thought we'd all pay her back later). Leader Girl 2 back her up on this, because they're best friends, and from the same school. 1 and a half liters later, something just snaps. Not that I think I said anything particularly offensive, but whatever it was, it made Girl 1 slam down on me harder than a Mack Truck.

Something along the lines of "You need to change your attitude or you'll never get any fucking friends. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?" I will swear on a stack of Bibles, Torahs, Korans, and Textbooks that I was likely just rambling about how great everyone was. Well, I'm sure it's because I was just drunk on the Festbrau, but it hurt. It hurt more than anything I'd experienced in a long while. And it killed the entire day. When we all dispersed, the two girls had also had some small fight (I don't know what about to this day), and we all separated. I wandered through the streets of Munich, trying to get to the Schloss for an optional tour; anything to take my mind off of what happened. It didn't. I ended up pretty much crying and shambling my way through the streets, not caring where I went. It was luck that I ran into some of the other people from the same group, or else I might have actually gotten hurt wandering into traffic. To make a long story short, the two girls and I talked it out, and we supposedly smoothed the whole thing over. I say supposedly, because it never felt complete to me. I've been convinced ever since then that they don't really like me; no matter how courteous they might be, they don't want to be my friend. Of course, I could just hang out with the other people in the group, right? Not really. It was so tight-knit that it was hard to ever catch them alone. I was out of the group, even though I still hung out with them for most of the rest of the trip.

Afer the trip, we drifted apart. I stopped going out places with them, and they never asked me how I was doing, or anything. I was depressed, is how I was doing. I was miserable. I felt like shit, and that I had actually wasted the first few weeks of the program. All the plans that I had were moot at this point.

Here's the thing: It's really hard to get into people's social circles, even if you've been friendly, when you haven't been there from the start. I couldn't try and go places with people without feeling like I was insinuating myself into their lives. Realistic or not, this is how I thought. I stopped going out on weekends for about two or three weeks straight. I had problems sleeping. I was irritable and tired all the time. I tried to brush off people's concerns, which is incredibly stupid for someone who feels alone. I hate it when people worry about me. It makes me feel pitied.

I thought I was going to London with my first group of friends, but that was a wash, obviously. Instead, I went alone to Brussels and Amsterdam. I went alone because everyone else already had plans. It was a last minute choice for both of the cities, not that I regret choosing them.

Eventually, I stopped feeling so sorry for myself, and got my act together a bit. I tried to get into another group of friends, ones who weren't such exclusive pricks. It worked, mostly. I mean, I spent a lot of time going out places with them and such, but it was never complete. I was always B-List, if you will. I never got invited unless I actively made it known I wanted to go somewhere, and other little things like that. It's disappointing really. I thought that I would be able to hang out with these people even after the program was over, as some of them were staying for the same week I was, but that hasn't happened. I've been passed over.

I've missed a lot of people in this program that I could have gotten to know better, and become friends with. That's my problem to deal with. I'm really just disappointed that things didn't work out as well as I had hoped at the start. Maybe my hopes were a bit too high for reality, but that's a rather grim look at things. Right now, I'm hardly more than a day away from flying back home to the USA, where my old friends await. I've been missing them a lot; I won't waste this opportunity.

Football

Last night I went to the Hertha BSC (Berlin) vs Bayern-Munchen football game at Olympic Stadium. It was really fun. The stadium had a bit over 72000 people in it, so it was almost full, and everyone was wicked excited about the whole event. I tried to get as much video and pictures as I could, so those will be available to see later, if you'd like. It's pretty hard to get good video of a game when the batteries on your camera are lose to dying. The temperature also fell below freezing, finally. By the end of the game, I actually ran most of the way to the subway station, it was so cold. Predictably, the subway was totally packed; actually, it looked almost dangerously crowded to me. As for the game itself, it was tied 0:0, as these things often are. Hertha was playing really defensively, though. They could have scored if they had just played a bit more aggressively.

Dresden by Day

I'm heading to Dresden tomorrow to do some shopping. There's supposed to be a great Weinachtsmarkt there.

I...hope it's running tomorrow.

Endgame - The different

I'm going to be making a few posts about the end of the semester over the next couple of days - what I've learned and experienced. Don't expect these to be full of happy, shiny people; I'm going to try to be honest about myself here. I'm starting out with neutral territory - things that are just different. We'll get to the bad stuff, though, before we finish with the good. It's always good to have a happy ending. So let's get this started.

****

Berlin is different than anywhere I have been before. Hell, Europe is different. There were some things that struck me immediately, others that didn't. It's complicated, of course. I might as well just list them off.

Dogs: From what I can see, nobody loves a dog more than a German. Berliners take their dogs everywhere; down the street, in the park, on the bus, on the train, in a cafe, in a restaurant. It's a universal thing. I've seen chihuahuas and rottweilers, schnauzers and poodles, beagles and dachshunds, great danes and black labs. Of course, I love dogs, so I was plenty happy to see at least three every single dayjust going to school. It was odd at first; dogs may be man's best friend in the US, but they never have the presence that they do here in Berlin. I'd also like to add that a large portion of the time, the dogs are not wearing leashes. You might be thinking "But Geoff, don't the dogs get out of control? Isn't there a safety issue?" No. There isn't. At least, not that I've seen. German dogs are incredibly well behaved; I'm not surprised to see a dog waiting at the entrance of a market for their owner to come back out, or for a dog to be running ahead, around, and behind their owner as they go down the street, with hardly a word from the owner as to where they're going. I've even seen dogs on the trains get up at the departure stop before their owners even realize the same thing. It's uncanny. The only downside to this is that there is dog crap everywhere. The Germans don't pick it up. I assume automatically that every time I step off of the main sidewalk onto any form of grass or slight gutter, I am running my foot through piles of filth. That is the price we pay for our canine friends.

Tipping: There's a fine art to figuring out the tip in Europe. Often gratuity is already added in the bill, so there might not be any reason to do it. Still, my delicate American sensibilities are offended if I levae without giving something back to the waiter/waitress. It's kind of hard to justify at times, since I'm spending comparatively more than usual anyways due to the Euro.

Food: Germans eat a lot of meat and cheese. Wurst, obviously, is a favorite. It's taking a some getting used to for the specifics, but I actually like German food now, for the most part. I'm still a little undecided on the whole "cabbage" issue, although I'll eat it out of politeness.

Transportation: Berlin has a fantastic public transport system that runs to pretty much every corner of the city. It's hands down better than the Metro in DC and the T in Boston for usefulness. The trains are actually so punctual, that you can rely on the schedules posted in the stations if you don't want to look at the electronic signboards. Fantastic.

The people: Germans are different from Americans. Wow. What a revelation. On the whole, they're sticklers for law and order, punctual, and always interested about the details. Germans are so invested in law, that they won't cross the street 80-90% of the time if the signal is red. Try doing that in Boston and you'll get trampled by the pedestrians. They are usually happy to speak English, and often will try to do so even when you want to speak German to them. Germans do not talk or look at eachother much on trains and buses, and don't strike up conversations with random strangers as often as Americans do. I think the only time I actually had a conversation with a German outside of official program events was at a bus stop, when they asked me the time. After giving him the time, I explained that I was American, which was why my German was a bit bad (he looked confused, and I though he deserved an explanation). We spoke for about 5 minutes until the bus came.

Bikes: Berliners love their bikes. Their bikes love them. All over the city there are bike paths that run right down the sidewalk, sometimes crossing into the street. If you're in one of these paths, you'd better move fast, or else you are going to get run down. Seriously, they really don't slow down that much if you're in the way. I can't say that this is like anyplace I've been in the US.

Greenery: Berlin is a green city. There are trees everywhere, even in downtown (and they aren't the scraggly excuses that New York, Boston, or DC has). Furthermore, the Tiergarten is situated right in the middle of the city, providing a massive area for people to bike and run and generally have fun outdoors. The Grunewald is much the same, except that it's an actual forest within the borders of the city. How about that? Germany as a whole is far more concerned with its environment that the US has ever been. After all, there's less space to mess around with.

I think that's all for now. It's pretty late, and I need to get to bed. Keep watching for the next installments; the Bad, the Ugly, and the Good.

Good night everyone.

MS Paint Theater

Checking in

Tonight, I have absolutely nothing that needs to be done. It's a good feeling.
In the last three days, I've probably had only about 13 hours of sleep. I'm actually going to bed fairly soon. Don't worry about me.

I'll make sure to put together a real post sometime soon. There'll definitely be one summing up the whole program.

I'm actually having some slight trouble focusing my eyes here, so I'm going to bed now.

*collapse*