anyway, this week. fun. not enough work got done. oh well- it's the weekend, i'll slave away at everything now. yeah, right. i did buy a book that i need to read and i've read about 30 pages so far. another 70 or so to go. but it's kinda interesting. liosa and i tried to study on thursday. didn't work out so well.
so, i've talked about this jazz club Quasimodo before, but seriously, it's reallllly cool. i dragged angie (and liosa, kinda) there on wednesday, and the music is just awesome. those people just know how to rock together. and it's a jam session with different people coming in and out all the time-- it's not like they play with each other on a regular basis or anything. there was this guy about my age there with a violin playing jazz. that was kinda cool. but anyway, that night leads me to a very entertaining story about liosa.
liosa had a date on wed. at 8:30pm, so she said that if she came to the club at all, it'd be late. i told her to drag the guy along if he wanted to come/if the date was bad and they needed a change of setting. so she's like, "yeah--- ok, i might." but then she was like, "oh no-- what if Constantine's there? i can't have them both there.." (constantine is this guy she's gone on a couple of dates with that basically just wants to get her in bed.... one time, she was at his place and making out with him... he asked her THREE times if she wanted to go up to his bedroom... another time, he was thinking about going over to her place, and she was like, "well-- there's not all that much to do around here. no tv or anything." his response: "well, you've got a bed, though, right?") and he goes to Quasimodo on wed. somewhat frequently. that conversation was at about 7. she needed to leave around 7:45 to meet the guy. my phone rings around 7:35. "ohmigod.. guess who just rang me.." "Constantine?" "ya. ohmigod. and he wanted to know if i was going to be at Quasimodo tonight because he was going to be. now i can't go to there. well, i could, but i can't bring my date along. i can't have 2 guys there!" "so ditch the one and come alone." "ok... i'll try. maybe i'll see ya there."
i got to the club around 10:30. 11:45: in the bathroom. i see liosa come in. liosa: "where have you been? i just texted you (sent a text message to my cell phone) and was going crazy because i couldn't find you. my date's been horrible. he's boring, took me to an expensive place and made me pay for myself without telling me i'd have to. AND he's here, too. i tried to get rid of him and said that i was going to meet some friends near Zoo, and he said he was going in the same direction--- to Quasimodo. shit." me: "well, ya know who i'm sitting right by?" "shit. constantine." so she comes over to my seat and constantine immediately comes over, is caressing her legs and stuff, wants a kiss, etc. eventually goes away. basically, she ignored him the whole night. and her date was hanging out with some friends elsewhere in the club, and as he was leaving, she got a handshake. great sign of a good date. i had a fun time watching everything. the end.
thursday: had liosa, bea and emily over for monopoly night. it was fun.
Friday: went out with seth, emily and angie. met up at 9:15, got to bed at 4. had a good night. seth and emily are really cool. randomly ran into a friend of angie's while waiting for the bus. that's not very easy to do, and i'm always very surprised when it does. berlin's pretty big-- population of 3 million. plus tourists (though there aren't very many tourists in january..).
well, i should drag my ass out of bed and towards the shower. blah.
last night was the most that angie and i have spoken to one another in english.... she was having boy troubles and didn't want to/couldn't discuss them in german, and she took me out to dinner (my xmas present) , so i figured that was ok. :) i got to choose the restaurant, and it was this reallly yummy italian place. we got there a little after 6, and the place was dead. oops. i'd forgotten that the italians don't usually eat until like 9. anyway, the menu was in italian (without any translation). they had to verbally translate it for us. it was kinda fun. and angie decided that we should have a liter of wine (i was pushing for half a liter), so we got that as well. and then we started to eat. i ate so much good food! everything was delicious. the bread, the pasta, angie's dessert, etc.... i was feeling rolypoly by the time i finally went to bed last night.
and jim left for japan yesterday. well, actually, he left for hawaii-- he had a layover there first.. that guy's got it tough. seriously. germany for 9 days, japan for 10... all in one month. Hard life. i told him i'd really appreciate a postcard--- let's see if i get one or not. brownie points if he remembers.
tomorrow night, the plan is to go back to Quasimodo... i've already been there twice (once before christmas, once with jim) and really had a good time... AWESOME JAZZ. and it only costs about $2.70 to get in, and that includes a beer (which costs $2.70 anyway). hooray for wednesday night jam sessions. thursday night, i'm having company for the first time here in berlin. it's unofficial girls night in. emily, bea, liosa and ang are going to join me for a night of mulled wine (Gluehwein) and Monopoly. i bought monopoly when jim was here because we didn't want to go out but we didn't want to get bored staying in... and i'm determined to get as much use out of the damn game as possibly. besides, it's in german, so it'll be fun to bring it back to the states. i was rather disappointed-- they had Monopoly Hamburg and Munich, but they didn't have Monopoly Berlin. blah.
i'm tired, and it's only 6:50pm. nap time? i was planning on cleaning tonight---our apartment's kinda a pit... not due to us, though. of course not! nah-- seriously, it was a bit messy when we moved in. Jens isn't exactly all that concerned with cleanliness. he does his own dishes and stuff--- there are just crumbs and stuff all over the floor, and that's the main problem. anyway, i think i'll get to that now before i stop thinking about it.
well, i'm doing a bit better than i was on wednesday. I was rather... emotionless. well, not so much emotionless-- it was more like less happy and more sad. which sucked. i had a good cry and then i felt a bit better. but i didn't want to talk about jim or anything that day. was rather anti-social. And i also decided that i was going to remain chill until the end of the semester. we'll see how that goes. so far, so good, though. i just got home for the evening, and it's about 12:30, so that's not at all bad. tomorrow night, i'm going to say no to the disco and yes to doing something chill probably. yeah. i've been in the library more the last few days than i have been all semester. i have to write about 30 or 40 pages for Feb. 15 (in German), so it's about time i get cracking. And i need to start studying for a big final. i think it's 4 hours long and a written exam, which i am definitely NOT used to.
anyway, i'm doing better. seth asked me if i wanted to do something this week, and i originally said no, but then i changed my mind. we ended up hanging out tonight. went to this way too expensive bar called the Erdbeer (the Strawberry), where i had an EXCELLENT strawberry dacquiri orhoweveryouspellit (like, they had fresh strawberries and used them in the drink. i think each one is homemade. didn't taste any alcohol in it, though. oh well). the drink cost me friggin' 7.50 Euros (a little less than $7.50)! anyway, then Emily called me and ended up joining us. by that time, we'd found a different bar which was a bit cheaper. we had a good time chatting and stuff and decided it was about time to go home a little before midnight.
so, it'd been snowing all night, and there was this excellent layer of snow over everything... it was the type of snow that crunches when you walk on it--- excellent snowball snow.... too bad there wasn't more of it. anyway, i said something about snow angels, so emily decided that she was in the mood for a snow angel... i would have joined her, but my coat's beige, and i didn't want to turn it black or something from rolling around in a thin layer of snow on the street. but anyway, it was fun. emily said she's going to call me tomorrow... maybe we'll do something.
well, i think that's about it. the last few days, i've kinda gotten my new room in order and stuff... i still have some stuff at the old apartment, but i think that's going to stay there until approx. jan. 31. my crazy landlady basically said that if i move all of my stuff out, i have to give my key back. i don't want to give her my key back right now because then she'd maybe be able to get double the rent this month by renting out my room as of now. and that's just not cool. i have to PAY double rent and she GETS double rent? nope. not going to happen.
so liosa and i were at a travel agency today. she's trying to convince me (and doing a good job of it..) to go on vacation with her after next semester is done and before we fly home. so, i think it'll be fun. so far, i think Bulgaria is our number one choice because it's so damn cheap. we're talking about $400 for a flight AND a hotel for a week-- including breakfast or something like that. AND sun and a beach. and water. not too bad. i'll probably write more when we come to some conclusions.
anyway, i've been babbling a lot tonight, so that's all for now.
heya....
thought that it was about time i got back to you... today's my official catch up on e-mails day. :) 2 down, about 10 more to go. hence, this might be kinda short.
things going on my life:
Jim's coming tomorrow!!!! i'm excited.
just got back after 10 days with my host families in Minden.. 5 days with one, 5 days with the other. i got triple the christmas presents this year... i TOLD them not to get me antyhing. I was already expecting stuff from home.. and then i got stuff from them. I did get to Euro-Starter-Kits.... the banks here sold them to get people familiar with the money--- each has about $11 worth of euro coins. cool. what else did i get? socks. and lots of shower gel. (i got some from my first set of host siblings, their parents and their grandma... i was wondering if they were trying to tell me anything...) you make out pretty well?
tonight's going to be pretty chill, i think. goingto hang out with my friend Anna and a bunch of her friends that i don't know. there are going to be about 10 people total, which sounded appealling, and they're going out dancing after midnight, but i'm going to go home then because jim's getting here at 11AM. i need to be up, sober and not (too) hungover.
i'm moving into my new apartment sometime in the next week or so. very excited about that.
hmm... what else? tried to call you yesterday (i was bored), but you weren't there. maybe i'll try sometime in january.
well, take care and have a happy new year!
love,
Leah
last night, i met this guy (seth) from my russian class in prenzlauerberg, his part of the city. another friend of his (emily) came along, and we had a good time... i went away tipsy/slightly drunk and it was fun. we just talked for about 3 or 4 hours. but it was a good time. i miss the american sense of humor and sometimes forget how to be sarcastic-- it's nice to have a refresher course a few other americans. anyway.
so i need to start calling owners of apartments and see if angie and i can visit them... apartment searching isn't bad, but when you have a deadline or just want to get out ASAP, it makes it a whole helluva lot more stressful.
angie and i were toying with the idea of moving out about a month ago and kinda
So i told her about the water thing. and she said, "that's not what i'm talking about. this isn't a bed and breakfast... if you have guests, they're using my space, too and they should pay a little bit."
My response to that: What? why didn't you say anything sooner?
Psycho: well, it's standard for a guest to have to pay; it's not like it's a lot. Only $10 a night, but we can also discuss that. it's like it was for you and angie when you first moved in.(we moved in about a week before the start of a month, so we paid 20DM/night for the first week.)
Me: Well, this is a bit different than when we first moved in. I don't think that that should be the case. I pay for my room now; in any normal WG (I live in a Wohngemeinschaft, hence WG... basically it's any apartment where multiple people live there with each person having their own room and sharing other areas, like the kitchen, bathroom, etc...), i would be able to do whatever i want with my room-- but not here?. (I said that last bit with a bit more tact, but not much. she could tell i was not happy with the situation.)
Psycho: Not the case. This isn't an ordinary WG. That's not how it works here.
me: Not an ordinary WG? how's that?
Then she went on to explain how it was different (basically, she's just come up with minor differences... all of the furniture, etc. is hers and we use that... in a normal WG, everyone shares everything. but our rent reflects the use of her stuff... so i don't see her argument as being valid.). And nothing's different, except that i'm even more intent on finding a new apartment NOW. Before jim gets here. A friend might let me use her apartment for a few days when he gets here (to avoid the additional rent), but then she gets back on the 5th or 6th of Jan., and Jim's staying until the 8th. Shitty. very shitty.
So, this morning, i called about 20 different places looking for an apartment, and i have 2 places to look at tomorrow and one agency to go to tomorrow. i'm just hoping that we'll have some luck. it's really stressful not liking where you live. Right now, the WENCH is in the kitchen and i want to make dinner, but since she's in there, i'm not going to go in there. That's not cool. I just don't feel comfortable with her around. I feel like there's going to be a confrontation everytime i see her.
I really have urges to be super passive-aggressive when it comes to her... but i still have to live with her. one idea that i like is to speak english with Angie whenever she's around so that she doesn't understand us (she can speak some english, but if we use slang and speak quickly, it should work out). And Angie said that we should speak German when she's not around or we're talking to one another in our rooms. And you can hear what other people say in my room, so she'd know what we were speaking german .... anyway, that's really petty and stupid, but i want to make her feel as alienated/unwelcome in her own apartment as angie and i do.
anyway, that's about it. I'm going to Quasimodo, a pretty wellknown jazzclub tonight with a few friends... i should be cool. Cover's only about $2.50 tonight as opposed to $10-25 on other nights. I'm looking forward to it.