On Saturday, I met up with some of the UW students studying in Berlin for a grill party in Mauerpark. After some challenges picking up grills (Lidl was out of them, so I had to go to Netto), I made it to Mauerpark about 5 minutes after our proposed time. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I was still the first to arrive. Haha. And I was all flustered about getting there on time...I've become so German.
Because of some challenges of their own back at the apartment, Temneet and Rachel didn't join us till later. So Dar-Ci, Tiffany, and I started with the first grill. Glad I bought two!
Dar-Ci brought these awesome fresh sausages (normally the ones I get are pre-cooked), and Tiffany brought a nice box of chicken wings. I brought some bread, some more sausages, and a few turkey skewers.
Our food smelled so good, it attracted this little dog, who kept coming back to us. She was incredibly obedient though, so she didn't try and steal our food, though she certainly seemed to be scheming the whole time.
Several times, we yelled instructions in German, and she followed them (like "sit!"). She was really quite adorable, so I threw her some sausage. I still don't want a dog of my own though.
I had never gotten the turkey skewers before, but man, they turned out to be excellent!
Two of the HIA Fellows from this year's program stopped by and hung out with us too, so that was fun. Lena and Josh brought some salad and salmon, which looked delicious. But Dar-Ci, Tiffany, and I had already stuffed our faces silly.
Later on, Temneet and Rachel joined us along with two other students, Andrew and Brian. Good thing I had the second grill, because the first had cooled down already. But boy, we had a delicious meal, in which we ate everything. We had one last sausage left and couldn't finish it, so we gave that to the dog too. She came back at the perfect time.
In the evening, we met up again and went out for drinks at a bar near the students' apartments. It's actually a place I went to two years ago with the 2009 UW Honors in Berlin group. It had been a while though, so I got sort of lost.
But Manuela joined us later too, and we all had a great time after we finally found the place. Way to go, Brian, on finding the entrance. Such is the challenge of "unofficial" clubs. :)
We also saw the German women's soccer team lose, shockingly, to Japan. It was quite disappointing, but the mood was nowhere near as somber as it would've been if it had been the men's team that had lost. There's a big difference in support for the men's soccer team and the women's soccer team (even though the women's team was the two-time defending World Cup Champions).
In other news, the sea urchin spine that had been stuck for a few weeks in my toe finally came out. It was starting to hurt a lot more lately, and I could start feeling it press up against my skin. So I poked at it with a needle yesterday, and it just popped right out. It was seriously nearly 1 mm long!
For some reason, my internet has not been nice to me lately, so uploading pictures takes much much longer than it used to. Otherwise, I'd show you pictures of the delicious burger I had for lunch at my friend, Rob's. We were supposed to go grilling this morning, but since I had to teach English at 2 pm, we decided to just chill at his house with his son, Noah, and make burgers. Man, Rob makes the most awesome burgers.
I finally caught up on emails today, after receiving quite a few via Scholarship Junkies this weekend. Good to see people are starting to plan for the fall already, which is good news for Scholarship Junkies as a business. It also means I will be able to survive the fall without starving. :)
In five days, I will officially be unemployed (when my Fulbright grant ends), and then two weeks from tomorrow, Lenz will be driving me to the airport to fly home to Seattle. Sad. But I'm making the most of my time left, and tomorrow I go to Marburg for the last time. Will see old friends, spend time with them, and then come back to watch Harry Potter 7, Part 2 on Wednesday night! Gosh, I love these "vorpremiere" opportunities in Berlin.
Oh, by the way, apparently Shia LaBeouf and the rest of the Transformers 3 gang were all in Berlin for a premiere a few weeks ago. Must've missed it when I was in Athens...not that I really care about those guys. Haha.
Till the next adventure,
Sam
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