Busy, Busy, Busy

Forgive me with the lack of creativity in my blog post title, but it captures my week so far.

On Monday, I woke up at 6:20 and headed out to a school in Charlottenburg (western part of Berlin). I interviewed a few teachers at one of my partner schools (really fascinating), and then I headed toward Mitte to the Fulbright Commission.

At the Fulbright Commission, I met up with the Executive Director, Dr. Hoffmann, and his really nice assistant, Monique, who set up our entire event. Three other Fulbrighters joined us, including my friend, Kate, who is an English Teaching Assistant in Berlin this year, and Benjamin, who is the president of the German Fulbright Alumni Association.

We met with Mrs. Sandra Deal, the wife of the Governor of Georgia (Gov. Nathan Deal), and two members of her staff. Gov. Deal had been traveling on his first international trip as governor to discuss business partnerships for the state of Georgia, etc. Mrs. Deal joined him on the trip, and as a former middle school teacher, she made connections with various schools and education program. Our conversation lasted for about an hour, but it was really nice to chat with her and hear her stories.

After the meeting and a few photos, I had to rush out the door and catch my tram to another school in northwest Berlin. I was in such a hurry I almost ran over the bodyguard/first lady's security detail posted outside our door. But I caught the tram just in time thankfully and made it to the school only a few minutes late. I did two round of interviews with students there, and it was overall another successful interview gathering trip.

But my schedule for the day was completely nuts, and I even printed out a minute-by-minute schedule, so I knew when I needed to catch my transportation connections. Thank goodness the public transportation here runs on time. You can almost always trust that it will arrive when the schedule says it will. It's a luxury I will miss for sure.

On Tuesday, I went back to the school where I volunteered a lot during the winter. It had been nearly two months since my last visit, and the students were still wondering where I'd disappeared to. So the teacher asked me to share with them what I had been up to. It took them a while, but they finally figured it out. I couldn't stay as long as normal though as I had to rush over to a school in the eastern part of Berlin to give a presentation on multiculturalism in the U.S. 

After an hour on public transportation (the bus took forever...fail, after I just wrote about how great public transportation here is), I made it to the school, had a nice chat with the students for an hour, and then did one interview with a student. Then on Tuesday night, I hung out with my friend's friend, who was visiting from Prague. Hanneka is actually Australian, but she's lived all over the world for the past ten years, and she's just an all-around awesome person. So we had a lot of fun spending the evening, eating falafels/schwarma, drinking beers in the park, and having a real Berlin experience at the oldest beer garden here. I'm glad to have extended my international network even further.

Then on Wednesday, I went to a school in Kreuzberg along with our program director for the Embassy's Meet US Program. She doesn't typically come with us, but she does like to meet new schools they partner with. Since I had introduced the school to her program, Heike decided to come along. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad to say it was much better than the first time she observed one of my presentations. Back in January, she accompanied me to Cottbus, where I had to talk to a class of 8th graders who were extremely rowdy and were very hard to manage in the classroom. Wednesday's program was a lot of fun.

I also felt a certain amount of pressure though, because some of the students had heard I was coming and returned their tickets to the Germany vs. France soccer game at the Olympic Stadium. It was a school-organized field trip and my talk was optional as well, so they were choosing to come see me instead of the football teams. Talk about high expectations! It turned out well though, and I'm proud to say that the students from this class that I had tutored over the Easter holidays ended up doing well on their English exams.

This morning, I joined Brandon and Bernhard, my two Fulbright friends at the Humboldt Universität, for an interview with a former Fulbrighter and movie director from Los Angeles. He had contacted us via the Fulbright Commission, seeking participants in his new organization, Americans Living Overseas. So for an hour this morning, we got to talk about living abroad and being Fulbrighters in Berlin. It was a lot of fun. In fact, I'm meeting with him tomorrow morning for coffee to discuss ideas for further developing his plan.

Immediately after, I went down the hall and met with my project advisor, who now teaches at the Humboldt after being a researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB). It had been over two months since we'd met, so I updated her on all the school visits I'd done and the interviews I'd gathered. I shared the preliminary results I'd gotten and then we mapped out a plan for the remaining two months I have in Berlin. So in four weeks, I should have my final report done (in English) and an idea of what's most important to share in German. Then we're going to try and write an article together in German. Lots to do!

Finally, tonight, I joined a friend I recently met via Ronny, my old roommate and German teacher who now lives in Vancouver, BC, for an event hosted by the Georgian Embassy (the country, Georgia, not the state). May 26 is the Georgian Independence Day, so there was a nice event at the largest and most famous porcelain factory in Berlin. It was a nice party, and even though I didn't know anyone, I had a lot of fun.

My friend, Tamar, went to school with a lot of folks who now work in the Georgian Embassy, so she introduced me to a lot of her friends. I also got to meet the Ambassador from Georgia to Germany. In fact, after entering through the roped off entrance (invitations only), we had to walk through the line to shake hands with the Ambassador and a guy in a military suit and the guy's wife—all while two cameramen captured everything on video and camera. I had brought a tie with me, and at that point, I wished I'd put it on sooner. Everyone was dressed up!

We were too, but I went without a tie at first, thinking it'd be ok. Well, nearly all the invited guests were ambassadors or delegates, etc. In fact, even U.S. Ambassador Murphy made an appearance, I heard, albeit for 20 minutes.

The night was full of Georgian culture though, and that was mainly why Tamar thought I'd be interested in going with her. In my hurry to rush out the door, I'd forgotten my camera, so here are my photos from my Blackberry:

The Ambassador spoke for a few minutes in the beginning, and right when she began, the sunny day turned wet. Notice the nice server who rushed over with an umbrella. All the dancers had to just stand in the rain. The couple in front of us hid under the girl's coat. I, thankfully, was standing under the umbrellas at the tables outside.

The traditional dancing began after the ambassador's remarks, and it was really interesting. Tamar, who had danced for over 10 years, said the dance group wasn't the best though. I am just untrained, I suppose.

They danced various dances, and the one below features a fighting song. Hence, the marching.

Then a couple of musicians played a few songs, while the little girl in front was happily dancing.

I believe the dance below started shortly after the war in 2008 between Georgia and Russia.

Of course, they had Georgian food too. It was really good, especially the chicken. Some stuff I wasn't sure what it was, and I wasn't a huge fan of its consistency. But otherwise, it was excellent.

After dinner, the sun came out again, and there was this huge rainbow. Nice.

Right before we left, I overheard some words in English and whipped around to find an American couple taking pictures with the Georgian flag. I had thought they were American, so I ended up going over to chat with them. Turns out, the couple had been the host family for one of Tamar's good friends from school, when Tamar's friend went to Pennsylvania. We ended up chatting for nearly an hour, and it was really nice to meet friendly fellow Americans from back home. They were likewise happy to see another American face.

Anyway, that's my long recap of what has been a very busy week. My allergies have also been horrible this week, and I've been popping pills like mad. Tomorrow, after morning coffee with Andrew, the Fulbrighter and movie director from LA, and an afternoon of interviews at a school in northwest Berlin, I'm coming home to an evening of fun grilling and movies with James, Brandon, and Matt—my Fulbright and DAAD buddies. Lenz and I bought tons of food last night, when we went grocery shopping. He had his car back, so we drove all our beer bottles back to get our refund (nearly 10€ worth). Needless to say, we picked up two more crates to stock up once again. :)

Alright, time to hit the sack.

Sam