Arbeit, Fussball und Chemnitz!

Hallo! Wie geht's euch? Ich werde jetzt nur auf Deutsch schreiben! haha, just kidding! no more German, even though I would like to write in both English and German. Unfortunately it's hard enough to write in one language...

In case you are wondering why I am writing a blog in the first place, other than to brag about how cool I am, I will start now by explaining that. I have an internship in Berlin at the Institut fuer Europaeische Politik in Berlin and I have to write a 20 page paper to get credit for it, so I am writing this to record my best memories :) I will try to include pictures to keep things interesting, but, unfortunately, I don't have any pics for this post. I should probably talk about Germany now though...

I have now moved into my new apartment with two echte Berliners (yes, I realize that is in no way proper German). The neighborhood is awesome and I live right next to the Spree River and Tiergarten! It's pretty central in Berlin and I can go in pretty much any direction easily with the u-bahn or s-bahn. There are a lot of Turks around, so there is a doener kebab shop on every corner and there are some nice cafes and bars. There are also a lot of parks here, Tiergarten is one of the biggest parks in Berlin and there are also some smaller ones, as well as a nice walkway along the river.

I work about 15 minutes away from the apartment and the u-bahn is very reliable, I have never waited more than 3 minutes for the u-bahn on that line during the day (the trains are less regular during the night). I correct English reports for my job, which can get a little tedious at times. Institutes for European politics from every EU member country, as well as the member candidate countries send us reports and we compile them into a publication. I am the English editor... I am a little disappointed, cus correcting English for 8 hours a day doesn't help my German very much, but I do talk to my co-workers in German a lot. I also have to write an introduction to the topic of the Copenhagen climate conference and the European reactions to it. It's interesting to read European reactions to major issues and to see the differences between countries. I am getting a much better perspective on individual issues, like the name dispute between Greece and Macedonia, Iceland's bank bailout dispute with England and Holland, Belgium's language problems and the Union for the Mediterranean. Its also interesting to see the big differences in opinion over the Greek bailout. It's amazing to see how innocent Greece feels and how the rest of Europe only blames them for the problems, especially the northern countries. My coworkers are all very informed on politics, European and German, and its interesting listening to them talk about politics over lunch breaks, although I have trouble contributing to the conversation unless they ask how it compares to the USA. Germans are very informed about politics in general and their conversations are more in-depth. The main topics so far are, in order of importance: how Ballack's injury affects Germany's World Cup chances, the resignation of the Bundespraesident and possible successors, Lena's Eurovision contest victory and the Gulf oil spill.

I should include a little bit about Berlin, because I am supposed to write about the culture and city. Berlin is huge city (900 km2) with 3 million people. there are lots of different neighborhoods: Mitte (Middle), Tiergarten, Moabit, Wedding, Neukoelln, Kreuzberg, Friedichshain, Schoeneberg, Pranzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg to just name the most central ones. Wedding and Neukoelln are the worst neighborhoods in Berlin (Kevin-Prinz Boateng is from Wedding...) from what I've heard and I can't wait to see them, lol. They have huge immigrant populations and large unemployment. I've heard Berlin is unusual for Germany due to the high rate of immigrant unemployment. I'll return to immigration later though. Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain are the trendy parts of Berlin, but can be a little shady at times. I haven't seen much of them, but tomorrow I plan to go to Tempelhof, a huge airport that is now a park. It is three times the size of central park and still has all the empty airport buildings, so you can hang out in an empty hanger. I work in Schoeneberg and it's a pretty nice neighborhood with Ku'damm Strasse, the main shopping street. Mitte is pretty much the main tourist zone and Charlottenburg is known for its palace. Moabit is between Tiergarten and Wedding and as a kinda bad reputation. Prenzlauer Berg is known in Germany for its large population of young families. I haven't made it out there yet, but it is undergoing renovation after the Mauer fell. A lot of areas still need renovation, but Berlin does not have a lot of money. The average salary is loser than the rest of Germany, which is unusual because average salaries are generally much higher in capitals.

I went to Chemnitz over the weekend to go to an ELFK Jugendtreffen and see some old high school friends again. I was surprised to know quite a few people there, because they all went to MLS at some point. I had a good time and I played soccer for the first time in at least a year. I felt pretty bad, but my lack of stamina was the worst part. I did manage to score a goal though, I slid in to redirect a beautiful pass into the open goal. Unforutnately, Chemnitz doesn't have much to do, but there was a Schlossteich (castle pond), which was really nice, and statue of Karl Marx, which I didn't see. I did eat Burger King for the first time this summer though, I'm not sure if that's good or bad... The ELFK church was really nice and made out of stone. I sang in the Jugendchor and the acoustics were awesome. I also enjoyed spending the weekend with Germans, because it has been difficult to practice German and I barely spoke English at all.

I am starting to learn a little Berlin dialect and German slang. Hammer means awesome, Berlin ist der Hammer! Krass means "toll" or awesome in English, das is voll krass! And the last German slang I have learned is "chic". It means "super", like alles chic! and they pronounce it like chick in English. My favorite Berlin dialect transformation of a word so far is from "gut" to "yut". I will probably be using that wehn I get back to America.