Ireland

I finally have pictures from the people I went with so here's Ireland:

My friend Adam and a few of his friends, a few of whom I was already acquaintances with, came to Berlin for a few days. We did some touristy stuff, much of which I hadn't done yet. Then we flew to Ireland. There were there were 7 of us (we met up with a friend from Ireland and he came with us for the time there), so we rented two cars. And drove the entire island and stayed in every major city and saw everything there is to see in Ireland. We put over 1,000 miles on the cars in 4 days. We got lost every day, but those sometimes hours-long detours really took us to some of the best parts of the country side.

We flew into Dublin and Drove to Cork, spent the night, then went to Blarney Castle the next day.

I kissed the Blarney Stone. Rated the World's Most Unhygienic Tourist Attraction. It's at the very top of this castle, along the wall on the left. You have to get on your back and bend over backward while grabbing onto bars to hold yourself. It's pretty high up. But I'm brave like a superhero so I didn't cry (too much).

After the castle we were on the road again to Galway. We would stop off in towns like Limerick and Kerry for beers in pubs, finally making it to Galway by about midnight (which turned into a recurring theme for the rest of the trip). Not to waste any time, we hit the clubs. At one point that night I was riding a mechanical bull. We eventually all got up the next day, and got back in the cars to head to the cliffs of Moher. Really beautiful. Very windy.

After the Cliffs of Moher we drove towards Belfast. If you look at the map above, the Cliffs of Moher are between Limerick and Galway, and we were going to be driving to Belfast, attempting to stop at some monument or cemetery (or both). This was when we got lost for a good few hours and ended up finally in Belfast at exactly 12 Midnight. Of course we still went out that night, and of course, since it was a Sunday night in Belfast at about 1am, we had the entire club to ourselves. I'm not even exactly sure how it got started, but for some reason the hotel staff believed we were a famous band from the US, but since they didn't know who we were, we wouldn't tell them. They absolutely loved us and treated us like royalty. They would whisper and watch us in the bar. And didn't yell at us when we got noise complaints from other guests.


The next day we got up to go see the Giant's Causeway, on the farthest northern point on the island of Ireland. What we though would be a quick 2 hour trip before heading back to Dublin of course turned into a 7 hour detour, but well worth it to see the Northern Irish coast and Giant's Causeway.
After the Causeway it was in the cars and back to Dublin, another 4 or 5 hours. We finally got into Dublin (about Midnight), checked in to the hotel then hit the clubs. the next day was the bus tour of Dublin. Stopped at all the major sights, like St Patrick's Cathedral and the Guinness Brewery. First and last full Guinness I will ever drink. Like chilled jet fuel


This was the last day of the trip. My flight left at 6am, so I decided it was best to just stay up until i had to take my cab at 4. So after dinner we went to the casino, where everyone was up at least a hundred euros...except me. While everyone else was hitting black jack every other draw, I was almost always dealt 12, then a face card on the hit. After all my money was gone, I was eventually banished from the table for bringing bad luck to whomever I was standing next to. Luck of the Irish my ass

Greece

The week in Greece was absolutely amazing. I spent 2 days in Athens before heading to the islands of Mykonos and Santorini.

Here are some highlights:

-Seeing the Parthenon and Acropolis

-Eating greek salad for just about every meal (I even tried olives! --and I still hate them)
-Someone across the club sending me a bottle of champagne (because I'm such a stud?)
-The girls met a group of young Saudi Arabian guys at a beach club (with a bit of my help). Within an hour they had ordered us about 30 or so bottles of champagne, sprayed about 20 of them on us and eachother, then we all drank the remaining bottles. Then we all went out later that night and did it again. Some people have way too much money.
-The night reception guy at the hotel taking me and Rachel to the roof to get a view of Athens at night
-Laying on the beach(es) drinking beer
-The guy on the donkey coming into the beach club, pounding a beer (while still on the donkey), then riding off.
-Sleeping 5 hours in 3 days (yay Mykonos)
-Jumping in the waves at sunrise
-Driving up the windy cliffs upon arrival in Santorini
-Watching the sunset from Ia
-The red volcanic rock beach
It was also just so great to be with good friends.

I just got back yesterday from a week in Greece, then met up here in Berlin with my friend Tony from college. we decided to go to Amsterdam, so I will be there til Tuesday. Then I will blog about both....

I realize its been quite a while since my last entry, and quite a lot has happened since. I'll blog retrospectively with pictures and stuff later, but for now I'll do a quick summary of what's happening.

Today was my last day of class, I've been going to class every day since I got here in March. My German is doing pretty good. I met yesterday for the first time with a tandem partner, which is a fairly regular thing here for people learning different languages. It's a guy who is learning English, so we meet and hang out and talk, and switch off languages. Yesterday was all in German, next time will be all in English. The point is to correct each other and help each other form correct sentences and such. Or ask questions about certain words and when they would be used, etc. We hung out along the river and drank beers and talked.

I'll be here at least until next summer, I had to sign a 1 year contract for the apartment I found, but I think that's better anyways since a main reason I moved here was to become fluent in German.

So that's a quick summary of what's going on right now, I'll write more about what I've been doing, with pictures and stuff later.

Visa

Today I finally got my Visa. I had been putting it off because I had only heard bad things about the entire process. I needed lots of paperwork and to be at the Foreigner's Office by 6:30am in order to get a good number it opened at 7am. I was actually able to convince not only one but two German friends to come with me and help me in case there were any confusing questions or anything. But in spite of all the horrible stories of people's experience there, I was in at 7 and out the door with my visa in hand by 8:30. For some people it can take up to 6 weeks. I guess Germans just really like me and wanted me to stay in their country. I now have permission to live anywhere in Germany for 2 years, at which I can reapply for a longer visa if I would like. So for now, I will for sure be staying in Germany longer than the 3 months I was allowed without a visa. whether its for the full 2 years or longer I have no idea. But at least now I can rest assuredly knowing that I don't have to leave next month.

Autobahn

This weekend I had my first experience on the Autobahn. I wish the US had freeways like that, it was so much fun, you can literally go as fast as you want. We drove to Poland to hang out and go shopping because things are much cheaper there, and we made the trip in about 40 minutes.

I haven't been writing too much because there is not tons going on, classes still everyday for 4 hours, then usually I go to the park with friends. I've made some really cool German friends and hang out with them quite often, it's great because of course it helps with my German. They know I'm here to learn it, so they help me with new words and stuff. Of course all the dirty words that everyone must have in their vocabulary. They are all Berliners, so they take me around and show me all the good restaurants, bars, parks, etc. My German is coming along quite nicely, I have 1 more week of class, then I'm taking 2 weeks off to deal with all my paperwork stuff, and my friend Ali is coming to visit for a few days, then I will re-enroll in the school for another 5 weeks or so and see how I feel after that. May will be a busy month, dealing with the paperwork, Ali coming to visit, then I have to search for a new apartment (assuming all goes well with at the Foreigner's Office) because the room I have now I'm subletting just until June 1.

Warsaw

Since I had a 4 day weekend from school, I thought it a good chance to travel somewhere I'd never been to. I basically chose a place that was cheap to get to and would be cheap to do. So I chose Warsaw, Poland. My friend Adam's dad works for Marriott, so he was able to set me up with a nice room there for only about $15 a night more than it would cost to stay elsewhere. Thank god I was able to do that, otherwise the whole weekend would've sucked even more. It's not that I didn't like Warsaw, I just chose the worst time to go: Easter weekend in a very devout religious country. Basically everything was closed. Everything. Shops, restaurants, bars. I was forced to order the $25 hamburger from room service one night because after wandering around for 2 hours, I did not find even a kiosk open. This also meant that I couldn't buy beer or anything anywhere. Everything I had planned to do I was unable to. I did have a great view from the hotel though, I was on the 30th floor.

The city itself was OK, most of it pretty bland from the communist era, but the old part of town was very nice. In the middle of the day on Easter the touristy restaurants in the old town center were open. There I had a yummy meal and a hot beer with cloves and raspberries. That was the highlight of the trip. Also swimming in the hotel pool for 3 days.