hurdling into week two

so tuesday seems to be update day. if i stick to that, i'll be proud of myself - weekly posts on the same day is a daunting task, but having a schedule is always helpful. and man, i thought that being here i would no longer be known as something of a task-master amongst our program folks, but apparently that image has stuck... and apparently people's propensity towards planless days and late arrivals has also stuck. the lack of planning mixed with a few good plans has worked out well for me in these first days, and i feel like i've been both productive and totally having a good time. i've been going to the summer school lectures/workshops every afternoon, and scratching one task off my list each weekday morning. once i turn in all of my paperwork tomorrow (my certificate of a registered apartment, certificate of bank account, certificate of health insurance, certificate of income, letter of enrollment), i just have to wait until i get my student i.d., then make one last trip to an official office to get my residence permit, and bam! all of my bureaucratic tasks will be done. while it's sort of a bunch, compared to turkey it has all gone so smoothly it's kind of unbelievable. so that's good.

on the life/friend/emotions side of things, i've already been having some good swings up and down, but mostly it's been up. tim has a lovely group of friends here which includes these three american girls in their mid to late 20s who've all lived here for a number of years, who've just totally accepted me into their friend group. last weekend we all went out on friday evening, which was marija's first night in germany, but then she and tim went home early and i stayed out with the girls, then wound up sleeping over at their place since it seemed far to difficult to get all the way back over to my, as gudrun calls it "more established" corner of kreuzberg. in the morning we woke up to dazzling sunshine and my new friends set about making a heaping pile of delicious banana pancakes, and tim came over to top off the feast with corner store fixings for mimosas. who could ask for a better first weekend brunch? after a lovely bike ride home (oh, i bought an adorable vintage pale pink lady's city bike, which i'm super into) i met up with the girls again for some leisurely park lounging in a newly opened park near my house. seriously fabulous. the evening got a little darker when i returned home and joined gudrun and two of her friends for drinks on our balcony, only because my german skills are actually negligible enough at this point that i started slipping back into feeling like the helpless teenager i once was, sitting in on a conversation where those around you inevitably think you're less intelligent and interesting than you know you are, if only you could tell them what you were really thinking! so damn, i need to study up.

the week looked up again though with dinner parties on both sunday and monday, the first hosted by gudrun as something of a welcome party for me. she invited a few friends, including an american playwright working towards a phd from berkeley and doing fieldwork here, and i invited tim and marija. the following evening it was back to marissa, hannah, and lauren's house for a feast based around the mushrooms they'd picked the day before in the brandenberger wald. delicious, and totally fun, including being introduced to a very interesting german girl who goes to my university and previously chose to study in magdeburg, a town in the east quite close to where i did my exchange, because she felt compelled to try to understand the other side of her country that most wessies simply write off as backward, racist, poor, etc. while i would never put myself back in sachsen anhalt, i do feel an odd attachment and defensiveness about it, and we had an interesting conversation about the type of person who puts herself in a situation she knows will be difficult and potentially sad/bad, and it is in fact difficult/sad/bad, but she comes out being glad she did it and feeling better for the experience. we are both apparently that kind of person.

oh man though, i do like happy and nice things too! one such thing i've found here is the berlin pop choir, with which i had my second practice this evening. for our concert in a few weeks we're singing "personal jesus," duran duran's "planet earth," "don't walk away renee," and "hold tight." i'm fucking stoked.

we also had orientation today, and those few stragglers who i hadn't seen yet were there, which was really a happy reunion. next week i'll register for sports classes, then the following week everything actually starts! so exciting!

yes, i still very much miss america and all of my lovely friends and family there, but i think i will indeed figure out how to be happy here. or at least i hope so.