Moving Day

I just moved into my new apartment. Literally. About 30 minutes ago, in fact.

After having lived in Berlin's Neukölln neighborhood for the past four and a half months, I've now moved all the way across the city to Pankow, which is northwest of Berlin city center. It's pretty far away from the busy city (and from most of my friends' places), but it's nice to be in a quiet residential neighborhood after the past few months of living in Neukölln.

Don't get me wrong. I like Neukölln quite a bit, and I feel like it gets its bad reputation unfairly. But as my friend, Rob, and I were just discussing on my way to the new apartment, living in Neukölln keeps you alert every single time you step out. Walking down the block without putting on some sort of tough guy front makes you feel vulnerable to all the groups of mean people stomping their way past everybody. Not to mention the drug deals that happen a few blocks down...

I mean I don't mind walking around with my hood on and returning icy glares with some of my own if needed (I find that people leave you alone if you do); but, honestly, you just get drained after a while. So now, living up here in Pankow, in the middle of a nice residential area, and in an apartment above a computer software firm, I'm feeling quite relaxed.

Check out the new digs:

I'm feeling rather lazy at the moment, so I'll unpack tomorrow. It is Saturday evening after all. It is also the long night at the museum (Die Lange Nacht der Museen), but I'm considerably further away and actually need to prep for an online presentation for tomorrow and an online seminar I'm teaching this week.

This coming week is also winter break for Berlin schools, so the students are off all week. Those who received poor grades are likely to find their break less enjoyable. Meanwhile, I'll be doing a lot of research work for my project, mainly with articles, etc. So it should be fun.

Also, two weeks until my trip to Italy, and I'm already counting the days. Should be a fun adventure. 

Till next time,

Sam

Time Flies

Today marks six months since I left Seattle on my yearlong adventure.

In that time, I've attended a Greek wedding in Athens, finished a six week German language course in Marburg, celebrated the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest in Munich, feasted with fellow Americans during Thanksgiving in Leipzig, visited countless Christmas markets with family in Berlin (and Munich), and spent way too much money on a week-long trek through Ireland.

Not bad. In case you're wondering though, I've also managed good progress on my Fulbright progress. Although today may have represented a tiny setback.

I was supposed to wake up at 6:15 AM this morning, so I could be at a school in northwest Berlin by 7:45 AM to pick up a letter of permission for my project and to introduce myself briefly to the students at the school. Since I've had to wake up early all week, I've been going to bed at insanely early hours (at least for me).

Yesterday, I crawled into bed at the absurd time of 9:30 PM. You'd think going to bed early would do me some good, but I've had some of the worse nights of sleep this week that I've ever had. I keep waking up every few hours and feel quite restless. At 5:30 AM, I found myself suddenly awake again and checked my alarm clock (my cell phone basically) and thought I'd sleep for another 45 minutes.

I didn't wake up till 7:06 AM and apparently didn't even hear the alarm.

Since I was supposed to have been on the U-Bahn by 6:45 AM to make it to the school by 7:45 AM, I was already way behind. Not only that, I was supposed to catch a train at 9:05 AM from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Cottbus, one hour and 40 minutes away from Berlin, to speak to a classroom of 8th graders through the Embassy's Meet US program.

A few minutes later, I asked called the school I was supposed to be at and left a message for the teacher in a groggier voice than I had hoped for. I sent him an email too. Poor guy...I feel awful. He was probably standing in the lobby waiting for me, and even worse, he had told the kids I was coming. According to his note, they were very excited for my visit, so I let down a ton of people today, even though I tried to be responsible by not watching a few more episodes of The Wire and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.

After missing one school visit, I didn't want to miss another, so I hit the road and made it in plenty of time for my train to Cottbus. Brandon met me on the train two stops later from Südkreuz, since he lives right next to that station. Glad he found me on the train, since he had bought me my ticket. I would've been down at least 40€ if they'd have checked me before we got to our final destination.

At the Cottbus Hauptbahnhof, we met up with another Fulbrighter, who's teaching English in Cottbus. He had impeccable German, just like Brandon. So I was the odd one out, struggling to form coherent sentences without pausing to recall vocab words. A teacher from the school picked us up (along with our Meet US Program Coordinator/Director from the Embassy) and drove us to the school.

We had known ahead of time that the visit would be split into three classrooms of 8th graders, 26 students each. What I did not know was that I walked into the classroom with the rowdiest kids of the bunch. I might've gotten one sentence out before pockets of kids started whispering to each other.

I paused, waiting for them to quiet down before beginning again. They made it through maybe another sentence and a half before I had to quiet them down again. I've dealt with rowdy classrooms/audiences before when I've given scholarship presentations, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me.

The problem is that I was supposed to describe the typical American school day, which to me is kind of like asking "describe what time people go to religious services each week." The answer would be: it depends 'cause it varies depending on a range of factors. In any case, I had an hour to talk to the students about the topic and answer their question. In about 10 minutes, I had already finished introducing myself and talking about the topic. That might've been the easy part.

For the next 40-45 minutes, I asked them if they had questions. They had no problem chitchatting with each other while I was talking, but getting them to ask questions was like pulling teeth. I tried a number of strategies to get them involved, even talking really slowly in English and mixing in some German (although I'd say my accent isn't terrible, it's still not great...they asked me to say "a long sentence in German" and then proceeded to get some good laughs in).

I asked them questions, trying to help them see how the differences in their school day are just like the differences in the American school day. I tried pairing people up and chatting with each other, so they could answer some of my questions. Of course, noise does not equal productive discussion. At one point, they asked if I've ever met anyone famous, and then proceeded to chatter away among themselves before I could even answer the question. In an attempt to get their attention, I found the picture of me and Oprah in my wallet (I thought I'd taken it out already, but apparently it's still there) and showed them. The surprise and attention span was short-lived however, and after the Oprah picture, it was back to their own little worlds.

At the end of the period though, there were a few rare moments where it seemed I had everyone's attention—that was only when I answered a question about President Obama. They asked if I liked him. My answer was a bit long-winded, but it got into how I never liked politics before President Obama, how I never considered public service before hearing about the Obama campaign, and how I never thought I'd be interested in education, policy, and my work as a Fulbright Scholar if it hadn't been for President Obama. Their attentiveness caught me so off guard I kind of lost my train of thought.

In any case, some of them really seemed to enjoy the period. They were engaged, asking questions, and a few kids even asked if they could take a picture with me. Funny. The other guys, even though they had more attentive classes (relatively speaking), did not get photo requests (though we all did get Facebook requests). I asked them to send me the pictures, so hopefully they'll email them over soon.

All in all, I enjoyed the opportunity to speak to the students. It's always difficult managing a group of kids that age. The teacher remarked at the end that she was really sorry I had to deal with their behavior and expressed her disappointment to the students themselves. Two of the girls actually came up and apologized too.

When I was at the school this afternoon, I hadn't yet heard President Obama's State of the Union address, so I hadn't heard his call to "young [people]...contemplating their career choice" to become teachers. With all due respect, I'm not cut out to be a teacher. I don't have the patience to repeatedly get the students' attention just to learn a simple concept.

On the train home today, I had a lot of time to just think, and I thought that it's truly a shame that kids aren't learning more in schools today. Now, I don't mean to say that in broad sweeping terms since there are most definitely schools that are achieving highly. But, in general, I'd like to see our education standards raised even more.

Brandon and I discussed some of his classmates' educational experiences in China, and I personally don't think turning toward increased drills and rote memorization is the best way to go. Rather, I think we need to have greater expectations for kids to learn and understand the material in the classroom. Even more importantly, the material we use needs to be constantly updated and important (unlike the 20 year old books in some of the poorer schools of Berlin...or even in the United States). Perhaps because I'm a liberal arts kind of guy, but I am a big proponent of educating students in the classics. However, beyond the classics, we also ought to educate our children in the advanced technologies of the 21st century. For those who oppose teaching the classics, I say we can find intersections where all these pieces of knowledge can be brought together. Even some of the top CEOs in the U.S. might agree with me on that one.

However, the challenges to bringing about such an educational experience go beyond just any single classroom. It also means providing students with support in the home and in their community. The role that parents, families, and friends play in a student's development cannot be excluded from the discussion of education. I realize my blog post is becoming a long brain dump, so I'll stop (since I also have no pictures to distract you with today), but I wonder if there will be a day when excelling in school makes you the norm, not the exception. I wonder if there will be a day when every kid in a classroom cares deeply about his or her education and what they're learning in school.

I may not want to become a teacher, but I do hope the work I'm doing during this Fulbright year help me find ways to help figure out this challenge. We'll see how the next six months play out.

Hopefully, I'll have pictures for the next post.

Sam

Irish Pubs in Berlin

Today, I had two school visits and both meetings went very well. In fact, both meetings ended up being exclusively in German, and I spoke only a bit of English in the first meeting (none at all in the second). Both schools, although extremely different (one is a Gymnasium; the other was formerly a Hauptschule but is now an integrated Sekundarschule), were very open to having me interview some of their students for my research.

Since I was meeting them for the first time, I had to have the headmasters sign the letter explaining my project and then submitting those letters of permission to the Berlin Senate. I was lucky to catch the headmaster before he left at the first school, and with my teacher contact, I explained my project and my goals. After giving me some background on his students and their families, he signed the letter and wished me luck.

At the second school, I had a great conversation with the teacher about my own interests and why I was pursuing this project. Although I said it all in German, I caught myself making tons of mistakes. Oh well. She understood me just fine. Sadly, the headmaster was in a full day of meetings and conferences, so in the two minute break where the teacher and I caught him, he only said he would like to read the letter over the weekend and get back to me at a later time. The teacher thought he would sign it anyway though, so it should work out fine.

All in all, I had a productive and successful day. So on the way home, I stopped by the Irish Harp Pub, which was literally around the corner from the second school. I had seen it on my way to the school, so I popped in for a Guinness, just like the Irish folks did after work in Dublin and Galway. It was surprisingly quiet with only one or two customers in the corner. There was no one at the bar and no one I could see in the kitchen, so I just waited. I should've just poured my own Guinness—after all, I did learn how to pour the perfect pint at the Guinness Factory in Dublin and am the Master Brewer's Honorary Apprentice.

Finally, after about 5 minutes, a server came out and got me my Guinness. I sat at the bar, drank my Guinness, and updated my documents with all the materials I need for my Senate proposal. It was nice to have a Guinness on tap again. 

Anyway, I headed home after that, cooked fried rice with some leftovers, and chatted with the new roommate who took Ronny's old room. His name is Luka, and he's pretty cool. Although he speaks great English, I speak with him in German, since that's what we started speaking when we first met yesterday. He offered to just speak in English, but I said it would be better for me to practice. Besides, I plan to speak in German with Lenz when I move into the new apartment on Saturday, so why not start speaking German at home now?

As I was sending emails tonight to more schools who have contacted me, I came across some stories from Ambassador Murphy's speech last week. You can watch a video clip of his speech (or read the whole thing) as well as view a couple pictures taken at the event. Sadly, I'm not in any of the pictures or video. The last pan shot in the video cuts out right before it got to me in the audience though. I was sitting in the back to the right if you're facing the podium. Nevertheless, it was a neat event.

I should've been in bed an hour ago as I have to wake up early for another school visit tomorrow, so I'm going to get off the computer and get 8 hours of sleep. I got 13 hours of sleep yesterday and 'twas heavenly. I needed it badly...so badly I fell asleep at 9 pm, which is wayyyy early for me by normal sleeping standards.

Ok, good night.

Sam

Beginnings and Ends

Today was my roommate Ronny's last day in Berlin with me as roommates. He's heading back to his parents for a few weeks, and by the time he returns, I will be at my new place. So we spent the day doing what we do best—making good food to eat and just chattin'.

After sleeping in slightly, we went to the bakery across the street to pick up some fresh bread. Strangely, this was the first time in the four-five months I've lived in Berlin that I had actually gone to one of the fantastic bakeries on my street. Normally, Swen or Ronny go and pick up the bread, so I honestly did not know which bakeries they went to. Anyway, fresh bread is awesome.

I had a fried egg and a boiled egg to go with my sandwiches as well as bowl of cereal. Good stuff. Breakfast is quite a fun meal when you've got the time to just enjoy it.

Our plans for the evening was a curry night with a few friends, so Ronny and I went to the grocery store to pick up all our ingredients. I think I've got enough food to last me the rest of this week until my move on Saturday. Niiice.

We unpacked groceries at home, and then I actually left to meet up with some fellow Fulbrighters, who were in town from Leipzig. On Friday, I had run into two of them, and we exchanged a few texts before deciding on meeting up this afternoon. I joined them for a nice self-guided tour. Of course, it was nice to just walk around the center of Berlin again and catch up with them all. Sadly, I forgot my camera at home. Nevertheless, we had a nice stroll and ended the afternoon with a nice Kölsch place near Gendarmenmarkt. I had actually never really had Kölsch (at least, not that I can really remember). It wasn't too bad.

Hanging out with them made me look forward even more to the Fulbright Conference in Berlin this March, when we'll reunite with many of our friends from Marburg. It should be a good time.

I booked it home after that to help Ronny cook, and by the time I arrived, Brandon was already in my kitchen chopping onions. It was a huge feast though, and we had plenty of great food to eat.

Doesn't it look tasty?

Of course, I had to take the obligatory picture of Brandon and Michelle as seems to be usual when we cook together. And as usual, Brandon has a beer in his hand.

After dinner, we were planning to go out for a drink to celebrate Ronny's last night in Berlin for a few weeks. But it was still slightly early, so instead, Brandon, Michelle, and I hung out in my room, where we proceeded to play a bit of softball (in preparation for the softball season Brandon and I have coming up playing for the Berlin Black Sheep). It was quite amusing to play with a nerf basketball as our softball and a rolled up poster for our bat. Here are some of our memorable pictures:

Thankfully, we did not ruin anything in my room, and soon after, we decided it was time to head out. But not before Brandon tried on Michelle's winter hat. I think this picture looks like something out of a magazine or catalog or something.

We ended up going to a bar close by, and after we had our drink, Ronny, his friend, and us all split in different directions. Brandon, Michelle, and I actually headed over to a bowling alley nearby, but it was reserved, so we headed to the 1€ falafel shop across the street. Apparently though, they now cost 1,50€. It's considerably less attractive to me now because of a 50 cent increase. Yeah yeah...it was fun though as Brandon had never had a falafel.

His take on falafels: "It tastes like a mix of Bagel Bites, Pizza, and Taco Bell." Haha.

We ended our night after that at another bar, where we met up with a couple other Fulbrighters. It was pretty neat to have five Fulbrighters all hanging out together. I had never met one of them, and it turns out she teaches English at a secondary school in Neukölln. The neighborhood, which is where I currently live, is one of Berlin's poorest and has considerable challenges, especially in its schools.

We chatted about her experiences in the school, and I asked her about the educational reforms that were put into effect this year (merging the lower two tracks of the secondary school system into one to go along with the highest grammar school track). As I have suspected since I began my research, the change this year has been mostly in name only, and in fact, she told me some of her colleagues said the school has become worse as a result of the policy change. My feeling though is that the changes will smooth out in a few more years, but that is not to say the challenges faced now are not great ones that need to be overcome very soon.

She told me that the English textbooks they use in the school date back to 1989, and Germany is still divided into West and East. The school used to be a Hauptschule, which is the lowest track of the traditional three-tiered German education system. However, given the new policies in Berlin this year, the lowest schools have been combined with the middle track, Realschule, and been renamed simply Sekundarschulen. The Gymnasiums have stayed the same. But our conversation tonight mirrored some of what I wrote a few weeks ago about disparities between schools and their curriculum: in chatting with other teachers, she found out that other Fulbright English teachers at Gymnasiums talked about how they were giving lectures and facilitating discussions on more complex topics like ethnicity and identity (in English). In the former Hauptschule, kids the same age as those in the Gymnasium were learning how to use "the," "an," and "a" in their English class.

I had a great time just chatting about her experiences as a teacher in a lower track of Berlin schools, and I plan to visit her school sometime soon now. But I also realized tonight that I still have quite a ways to go in terms of research and data collection—outside the interviews themselves. The exciting part is that I really look forward to doing the work and just learning more about how these challenges are linked to other areas of social policy and daily life in general. It should be a very productive next few months amidst a few travels here and there.

So, as Ronny moves out and I move to a new place, a part of my time in Germany is coming to an end; but at the same time, with the new opportunities coming up over the next few weeks, I am also beginning to take a big step forward in fulfilling my Fulbright project. Despite not being able to sleep in as much as I had been in the fall, I'm happy that things are coming together nicely these days. Hope you're enjoying the updates as well.

Till next time,

Sam

More Good Food, Museums, and Movies

Today, I met up with someone I met in Ireland. We actually grew up in the same town. Small world. She's now studying abroad as an undergrad, and we met up 'cause she had been planning to swing by Berlin anyway. So I offered to show her around a bit and also do a bit of recruiting for Fulbright as I often do.

After getting döners at Hackescher Markt, I randomly saw a couple walking down the street and quickly realized: "I know them!" They were fellow Fulbrighters from the language course I did in Marburg, and they don't even live in Berlin. So it was quite odd that I ran into them, since Berlin is huuuge (3.5 million people or as I told the Irish folks I met—"almost as big as Ireland"...roughly 4 million people). Crazy. I'll see them tomorrow though, so that'll be cool.

We finished our döners though, and we decided to head to Museum Island. I recommended the Neues Museum and Pergamon, since she hadn't seen either, although she had visited the Old National Gallery yesterday. Since I have an annual ticket now, I just flash my card and get in easily. Love it.

Since my last visit a few weeks ago to the Neues Museum, a few items had been relocated. So I took a picture, since the lighting was better in its new position. 

Kimberly had already been to a ton of museums on her trip, so she wasn't keen on staying too long in any of the museums, which was perfect for me. We finished the Neues Museum and its four levels in 57 minutes! Yes, I kept track. I did take a picture of the ancient "sorting hat" too. It's actually something that has to do with astronomy.

After the Neues Museum, we headed over to the Pergamon, so she could see Berlin's most famous museum. Beautiful as always; but I counted, and I've now visited the Pergamon five times. I'm sure I will be back there before long, since we have the Fulbright Conference coming up in March. I did take another picture of Hammurabi's Code, but it's apparently only a copy of the real one, which is said to be in the Louvre.

We hit up a third museum today though, and it was one I had not visited before. At least, one that I had not paid to visit before—the German Historical Museum. There is a special exhibit called "Hitler and the People" right now. It's had such high attendance that the exhibit's been extended for an additional three weeks. It was pretty interesting.

Museumed-out, we headed to a cafe and had some warm drinks. It's been cold in Berlin recently, and the snow returned today but only briefly. Thankfully, it did not stick. At the cafe, which is right next to my university, we actually ran into two friends of mine. They were meeting up for an interview, so we ended up chatting and catching up for a good hour at least. By then, Kimberly had to leave, and the rest of us decided to all head home. Nice to see familiar faces again though.

At home, Ronny and I decided to make Auflauf with the remaining pasta. I had plenty of that in Marburg, so it was fun to just make one up. Of course, that's pretty much what Auflauf is anyway. 

We threw in chopped up chicken, salami, corn, carrots, jalapenos, and gouda cheese. We added some oregano, salt, pepper, and red chili flakes. Man, it was delicious. 

Sadly, we were so hungry, I did not take a picture of it after we'd taken it out of the oven. Oh well. We also had the rest of our lentil soup and a huge bowl of salad. I'm liking the salad now, so I've been eating much more it, even the tomatoes. Can't say I like them much, but I'll at least eat some. Baby steps.

After watching the Colbert Report and the latest Modern Family episode (hilarious, by the way), we watched The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis. I had never seen it before, but I had read the Great Illustrated Classics for Kids' version. Even with that background, I picked up on the changes from the book, which were fairly substantial. Other than those changes though, they stuck with the main story lines. Pretty good movie and really fantastic soundtrack.

Tomorrow will be yet another feast. We have some friends coming over for Ronny's famous curry, which I really have to learn to make. Ronny leaves for a month or so on Sunday, and I move to my new place next Saturday, so it's going to be our last dinner we'll cook together in the apartment. But we'll definitely be cooking and eating together again throughout the rest of the year when we visit each other. As such, we'll probably have some good pictures.

Until next time,

Sam

Finally Feeling Busy Again

This week, I made good progress on my project. Besides continuing my regular twice-a-week volunteering as an English tutor at one school, I visited another Gymnasium this week that had offered to connect me with students for interviews.

My meeting with the teacher proved to be extremely productive as she not only agreed to have me interview some of her students, but also she helped me out big time in two ways:

1. She asked me to come back to give a presentation on the UW Dream Project and my Fulbright project in general, keeping in mind the theme of "ethnic diversity"—the broader theme for her English class this semester; and 

2. She contacted all her colleagues (foreign language teachers) in Berlin, which was nearly 30 teachers at other schools around the city, about connecting me with some of their students for interviews as well.

Why do these help me out big time? For the first part, the visit would be part of the U.S. Embassy's Meet US Program, which would mean I would be sponsored by the Embassy to go share my experiences. I've already done one of these presentations (and have another one next Wednesday), so I know they're very productive ways to hear young German students' opinions.

Second, she single-handedly increased my school contact rate of success by about 200%, as I've already gotten a good number of positive responses from teachers she emailed. Finally, nearly five months later, my project is gaining good traction.

While I continue working through the bureaucratic processes that exist here in Berlin, I'm also gaining a bit of experience in the classroom as a quasi-teaching assistant. Today, I spent part of an 8th grade class teaching "comparative adjectives." Now, when the teacher first asked me to teach the students this, I was like, "comparawhat"?

After he told me, I realized that I knew what they were, but I couldn't explain the rules for why we say "greater than" instead of "more great than" or "more disgusting" instead of "disgustinger." So he briefed me quickly on the three rules he wanted the students to learn, and off we went. One of the students I worked with picked up the rules right away. The other two were a bit slower. But as the teacher warned me, I needed to find a way to make the lesson interesting rather than just diving straight into the rules. So we used pictures of Lady Gaga, Cristiano Ronaldo, the girl from Twilight (I had no idea what her name was...the teacher told me, and I've forgotten already), Justin Bieber, and Spiderman. 

Side note: these kids love making fun of Justin Bieber. It's quite amusing actually, although there are a handful that do like him/his music. Nevertheless, they are guaranteed a laugh if they just start singing, "Baby, baby, baby-ohhh," though most of them are snickers. 

In the past few days of working with students on English lessons, etc., I'm realizing that the more familiar they become with me, the more crap they try to get away with. I've found myself having to be a bit more stern with them. I've also realized (again) that I do not have the patience to teach kids, although I do enjoy working with older students.

On top of my school visits, I also had a Fulbright event this week. Every so often, the Fulbright Commission invites its scholars to special events and programs. Today, the Free University of Berlin partnered with the U.S. Embassy to host U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Philip Murphy, for a lecture commemorating President John F. Kennedy's inauguration 50 years ago. Fulbright Scholars were invited to the event, so I RSVPed to go and found another rare occasion to wear my suit ("Suit up!"). 

After the president of the university spoke, Ambassador Murphy gave his own speech, and I have to say he's quite charismatic. It didn't surprise me, but he was definitely more down-to-earth than I had thought. His background is in business, and he speaks German (though with a noticeable but not entirely overwhelming American accent). The few snippets he gave in German brought a number of chuckles from the mostly German audience. Happy to say I understood them too. 

When he concluded his remarks about how President Kennedy's goals that even now continuing today (from his inauguration speech, which was one of the best ever), he asked the audience if any of them had been in Berlin for President Kennedy's visit in June 1963. A handful of folks stood up and got a nice applause. The Ambassador asked them to share a few anecdotes, and it was neat to hear their stories—about being a young student watching President Kennedy speak at the Rathaus Schöneberg, about being a kid playing on his lawn when the President's motorcade drove by, or about being a university student waiting to hear the President speak at the Free University. Overall, I enjoyed the event, and sadly, I forgot to bring my camera. But I'm sure the Free University will post some of their pictures online soon.

Finally, after a long day, I made it home and cooked some tasty pasta with white wine sauce. Since I am moving to a new apartment soon, my roommate Ronny and I planned a nice dinner with our good friend, Manuela, whose last time at our apartment was when she helped me move in back in September. We did a good job cooking it all together!

I've known both of them for a few years now through our UW/Seattle ties and also in Berlin, so it was really nice to get together. I gotta say...we cleaned up. We made tons of food, but we ate it all. My other roommate, Swen, and his friend, Gregor, also helped out too. The pan was completely empty.

Not surprisingly, we were stuffed. But we had a fun evening of chatting and laughing and just hanging out in general. Can't ask for anything more than that. 

Tomorrow, I can sleep in a bit again, so that will be nice. But I have to start getting work done ahead of the school visits I have in the next few weeks. Nevertheless, it's nice to feel more productive again.

Till next time,

Sam

Shultzy's in Berlin?

So I lied. I said I probably wouldn't have anything to post for a few days; but, today, I do, in fact.

If you've ever been to Shultzy's in Seattle, you may remember their old breakfast menu. When I first went to Shultzy's in the morning, I never really thought they'd have good breakfast food, because who would really want to eat all that fried deliciousness in the morning.

That was until I discovered the BOB (Bowl of Breakfast).

I don't think it's on the menu anymore, but if you ask the servers for one, you can still get one since the essential ingredients are ones they use every day. As described on the old breakfast menu, the BOB consists of Shultzy's Sausage Chili over a bowl of rice with cheese, sour cream, and a egg over easy on top.

Well, with all that left over lentil soup from last night (that was semi-spicy 'cause Brandon dumped red pepper flakes in it), I decided to give the BOB a go in my own kitchen, although you can't really find real sour cream in Germany. It's pretty watery. Different ingredients aside, I have to say it turned out pretty dang well. I suppose it could've used some Pico de Gallo, but even Ronny liked it despite thinking it was a strange mash of foods.

So there you have it. My exciting news of the day. Oh, if you didn't know, Shultzy's is pretty much my favorite spot in Seattle, where—on top of fantastic burgers and fries that are really bad for my cholesterol—I can always get delicious German import beers like my favorite, Köstrizer. As such, for dinner tonight, I drank a Köstrizer along with my homemade BOB just for kicks.

In all seriousness though, I had a pretty productive day as I contacted a number of schools in Berlin to visit, updated my project advisors on my progress, and planned ahead for some spring break traveling. Tomorrow begins three consecutive days of school visits, so I'm going to have wake up way earlier than I've become accustomed to during the last few weeks.

Here's to hoping I wake up on time tomorrow morning. Cheers!

Sam

P.S. I ate plenty of salad with my BOB today, so don't worry, I am eating healthy stuff too.

Watching the Seahawks Lose (Sadly) in Berlin

Today, I hosted a Seahawks vs. Bears viewing party at my apartment with the help of my roommate, Ronny. Brandon and Michelle came over as did a friend of Ronny's.

Before we started making our football game snacks though, Brandon gave me a haircut. It looks much better than when I tried to do it myself.

For dinner, we made nachos, lentil soup, and enjoyed some German beer (Köstrizer). As usual, the customary silly pose with Brandon and Michelle.

'Twas plenty of food, and I have lots and lots of leftover lentil soup now to keep me full for a few days. Good, since I have very little food in the fridge. Looks tasty, doesn't it?

We hooked up my laptop to a bigger screen and plugged in our speakers, so we had a pretty nice setup going for the game itself. Sadly, our game-watching setup was way better than the product on the field.

Final score was a 35-24 victory by the Bears, who will now face the Packers. Should be interesting for all my American friends in Germany who are from Wisconsin.

I may try and set up a Super Bowl party in a few weeks too. We'll see. That could be fun. This week though, I've got a few school visits lined up, and I will be contacting more schools to set up more interviews. I think I may just shift strategy and focus on even fewer schools to do even more in-depth interviews with a smaller subset of students. I think that'd make for a more interesting book.

In any case, I spent the weekend planning for my next trip (to Italy in February), and now I have to make some more progress on my project until then. It may be a while until the next blog update unless some special occasion arises.

Until then,

Sam

Finally Back in Berlin

It was really quite nice to be back in my own apartment, although I only stopped long enough to greet Ronny, drop off my bags, and hop in the shower before going to my friend Michelle's birthday dinner. I feel like I have been on the run for weeks straight, and even after getting home, I couldn't even stop very long.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderful birthday dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Thanks to my good friend, Brukab, I have eaten some great Ethiopian food—no silverware required (nor available for that matter). Just your fingers. :)

Clearly, Brandon and Michelle were ready for it. The food was truly delicious, and I was definitely stuffed. I am quite hungry again now though and would love to eat some more...

After dinner, we went to Brandon's place to watch a movie, Get Him to the Greek, which was...interesting. I got home after that with a taxi since the bus would've taken me an hour. I had a nice chat with the taxi driver in German.

Before I returned to Berlin this afternoon, I was actually in Marburg for about 19 hours for a doctor's appointment. Today, on my train ride back, the rivers around the area were completely flooded. The picture I took wasn't great, but the trees are actually in the water. Crazy.

Also, funny sequence on the street today in Berlin: two young boys were walking past my bus stop and all I heard was an animated back-and-forth of, "Du bist so hässlich...". Sadly, I didn't catch the rest. But they were insulting each other with "You're so ugly..." jokes. It was quite amusing.

Anyway, tomorrow is a fairly quiet day to catch up on email, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. It will be nice to cook for myself again. My next travel adventures aren't for another few weeks, when I head back to Rome for a week. So until then, the blog posts will be much less frequent unless some cool stuff happens.

Toodles,

Sam

Cheerio, Ireland!

I am back in Dublin now and in the hotel bar again. I decided to take a break from the internet last night since we got home late. I stayed unplugged for a total of 22 hours. Not bad. ;-)

Yesterday morning, we were still in Galway and planned to take a bus in the afternoon. So we spent the morning in the Galway City Museum, which is actually quite good. It's free, and the first exhibit was a fantastic recollection of JFK's visit to Galway in early 1963. I liked it a lot.

The rest of museum wasn't as interesting to me, but it was still cool. There was a model of a Galway Hooker, which is one of the fishing boats. I laughed the first time I heard the name. 

There was also other old artifacts they had discovered. I thought they did a good job of explaining everything on their signage.

After a short stop at a Celtic jewelry shop where we chatted up the guy at the desk, we took his suggestion and went to Charlie Byrne's bookstore around the corner. It's like a mini Powell's Bookstore in Galway. Two books that caught my eye were The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick and JFK in Ireland: Four Days That Changed a President by Ryan Tubridy. I'll have to find them and read them another time, I guess.

Our trip back to Dublin was nice, but it was a bit more crowded than when we went to Galway. There was, of course, free Wi-Fi on board again, so I checked email and did some work. 

In the evening, we met up with a friend of mine, whom I had met in Greece back in 2009. We've stayed in touch ever since, and I saw her this summer too when I went back to Athens. She had just returned from Athens yesterday, so we were lucky to catch each other before I fly out tomorrow. At dinner, I finally got to try a Beamish Beer, which I had been asking for everywhere—nobody had it! It was alright. It's sort of like a Guinness, but a tad bit sweeter at the beginning and then more bitter of an aftertaste. 

This morning, since it was our last full day in Dublin, we woke up early and headed out to breakfast at a cafe that was suggested to us yesterday. It was okay, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of just sweet stuff for breakfast. I'm used to having sausages, bacon, eggs, and toast now. 

We strolled past Christ Church Cathedral, which along with St. Patrick's Cathedral, is one of Dublin's landmark churches. Sadly, it wasn't open for the public until much later.

So instead, we headed off to Kilmainham Gaol, which is Dublin's famous/infamous jail. While there, we got a tour for 2€ each (student price). Pretty dang good for all the history we learned. From the past few tours I've gotten in Dublin now, I have a much better understanding of modern Irish history. It's really quite fascinating that so much was happening in Ireland during the late 19th/early 20th century (especially between 1912-1924 or so), which I had never truly learned about in detail during my years of schooling. 

I won't write a long post on Irish history now. You can read up quickly on Wikipedia. At Kilmainham Gaol though, a number of leaders of the Easter Rising were executed. We saw the "Stonebreakers' Yard" where they were shot. There are crosses on the ground now to commemorate the events and the tremendous impact they had on the future of Ireland as an independent republic.

Inside the museum, there was a fantastic part of the exhibit called "Last Words," which featured letters/correspondence from those sentenced to death to their families. It was really quite powerful to read the letters in full and realize that this was written nearly 100 years ago.

From Kilmainham Gaol, we took a bus over to the Guinness Storehouse, which is among the world's largest breweries (if not the largest). The 11€ ticket for students is definitely worth it, since it's a self-guided tour and includes a free pint of Guinness. 

The first part involves all the essential ingredients of Guinness, including pure water. They had this awesome fountain in the room. I like it a lot.

One of the floors featured Guinness advertisements through the years, and I found this one rather interesting. It's a play off of the Bayeux Tapestry, which I had really wanted to see a few days ago at the National Museum of Ireland—Archaeology & History. 1066 to 1966. Funny.

For the free pint of Guinness, you can choose whether you want to pour your own pint or claim your free pint at the bar on the very top level (level 7). I definitely wanted to pour my own pint, and for my efforts, I even got a certificate saying that I am now officially certified to pour "a perfect pint of Guinness." Pretty stellar, no?

I had a bit of Guinness on the taste-test part of the tour, but I had it on an empty stomach. I figured I needed some food before my free pint, so I actually sat down at their cafe and had a BBQ Chicken Ciabatta sandwich and a cup of vegetable cream soup. Good stuff. Plus free Wi-Fi. 

The view from the top is quite nice too. You have a 360 degree view of Dublin. 

It was about 4:30 PM, and we wanted to try and hit up the Jameson Distillery too, so we headed out and walked quickly to the Old Distillery only a few blocks north. I'm not a huge fan of whiskey, but I can appreciate a few sips here and there. 

The tour was not self-guided, but the tour guide was nice. The price was also 11€ for students. We got a free whiskey at the end, which I mixed with Ginger Ale (which is apparently what Londoners do). It was actually pretty good. Olivia volunteered to do the taste test, which involves tasting Jameson (Irish), Johnnie Walker (Scottish), and Jack Daniel's (American). 

Nobody liked the Jack Daniel's (funny), and the 8 taste testers were split between Jameson and the Scotch. This was the first time I tried Jameson, but it's considerably smoother than other whiskeys I've had (which were mostly all crap anyway). In fact, all I knew about John Jameson before today was from the commercial I like. 

After the Jameson tour, we headed to a souvenir shop and picked up some small gifts from Ireland. I think they appreciate it with the way their economy is at the moment...

We then headed to dinner back at the Old Storehouse, since that was probably our favorite place for dinner this past week in Ireland. There was live music, fresh Guinness on tap, and as always, delicious food. I had fish and chips. Yum.

The music tonight was a two-man band named Problematic, and I think the bartender said they were both 19 years old. Regardless, they were pretty dang good. Actually, really dang good. After an hour though, I was ready to head home, so I headed back to the hotel first. I did thoroughly enjoy their music though.

Tomorrow, I fly to Frankfurt and spend a night in Marburg before returning to Berlin. Lots to do this week, and I'm eager to get back to my research. With my last trip to Marburg, my family's vacation in Germany, and this past week in Ireland, I've been doing sightseeing stuff for nearly a month straight now. I'm ready to do work and just relax.

I will miss the relatively warm weather in Ireland though. I hope all the snow in Berlin has melted away and won't come back until after I've already left the country at the end of my Fulbright year. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen though. Oh well.

Until next time,

Sam