Ashamed

So I broke my promise.  I said I'd get a post out over the weekend, I didn't do it... I'm very sorry.  Sorry!  Entschuldigung!

I have to say, though, that I wasn't home all weekend long.  I went out on Saturday to Sophie's birthday party, ended up sleeping at Christoph's house, headed into Hamburg on Sunday to meet Devin's parents, met up my class and watched Faust I in theatre, and then got back to Luebeck around 12:40 am.  At that point the busses weren't running anymore, so I slept at Geo's, and then went to school today.

In any case, I haven't been around too much, and certainly not around a computer.  Sorry again.

I should probably throw a note in here about last weekend.  We had our End of Stay camp in Berlin- all 50 CBYX scholars met up and stayed in a hostel from Thursday til Sunday.  We did the whole tourist thing- took the city tour, saw the big sights, and all that jazz.  On Friday we were an audience to the Bundestag, Germany's parliamentary unit, and afterwards we went to the American embassy.

The embassy was really cool.


It was funny- you went in, and everything was very serious.  Jackets were checked, bags were searched, everything was x-rayed, everybody went through a metal detector, some were patted down... and then, after we were through security, we were very solemnly led into a big courtyard.


The courtyard was basically a beach party.


There was a DJ, a little stage, drinks and refreshments, and lots and lots of kids.  The little things really made the difference- they had imported sodas from the US that you can't find in Germany, the wall outlets were American, the doorknobs were American, even the toilets were American.  It was just like being in America!

I was also very impressed with the German ambassador.  I must say, his German wasn't too good, and it was very, very accented, but he had a huge personality.  He really knew how to stir up a crowd, how to get a message across, and how to make everyone feel at home.  I liked him!

Another cool thing about Berlin was the dome on top of the Bundestag building.  Designed to symbolize the transparency of the government, the whole building is made of glass, including an enormous, spiraling dome.  There was a headphone tour, too, and you could walk up the spiral rampway and hear about the Berlin skyline as you went.  We had perfect timing, too- the sun went down just as we had gotten to the top.  I'll post some photos of that in the next post.


Berlin