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
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
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