WILLKOMMEN IN BERLIN
My view in my room
Dear Caroline,
First week done!
It didn’t start out quite as I had planned but I made it none the less. Which such a rough start I decided to give myself this week to just relax, get used to the routine and my surroundings. So far Berlin is cold. Not as cold as Canada, but it’s cold. And wet. In Canada at least, most of the time, the weather decides if it’s cold or wet. Hardly is it ever both. There hasn’t been any blue skies since I’m here either which is a little hard coming from Texas.
My host mom is lovely, she kind of reminds me a bit of Mamie. She’s a painter, the whole apartment is decorated with her paintings. Every summer she travels to Italy for a painter’s retreat. She has a cat, his name is Kenji. He does not like me, at all, every time he sees me he hisses. I found out that he loves spaghetti, chickpeas, and Parmesan cheese.
Kenji the Demon Cat
So far the food is ok, I think my host mom is just learning what I like and don’t like, also my schedule is a little off with her’s so I understand it can be difficult to plan for me. One thing I wish could be a little better was the shower situation. I don’t know about you but I like a nice hot shower before bed especially in the winter. But since the building I’m living in is old there really isn’t any hot water. It’s just warm according to my host mom, according to me it’s room temperature. So I guess for the next 6 weeks I’m having cold showers.
My german classes are interesting. On paper when I read german I can make sense or make an educated guess on what everything means. But the second someone talks I have no idea what’s going on. The way they pronounce letters is so different than I realized. In music school we studied a lot of german music and composers, in that we sang many songs in german so I know the sounds but for some reason when some talks to me it goes in one ear and out the other.
Every class we do an introductory game to help us practice and one of the questions we have to answer is how old are you. Every time I say my age everyone is confused thinking I’m confusing the German numbers. I insist, I am 30 years old, they all say I look very young. As my friends have pointed out I’ve looked 25 for the past 10 years.
One cool thing I learned this week is that my namesake, the Mediterranean Sea, is Mittlemeer in German. I quite like that, it makes me sound like some Marvel character. If I ever get superpowers my alter ego will be Mittlemeer.
I got your message, I think Chloe would be a great name for Wonder Woman. I’m going to take her to the museum this weekend so we’ll have so much to show you.
Miss you much
