Enjoying a Fall Day

So for those of you who happened to catch me on Sunday you'll remember that the day was a bit rough; for those of you who don't know that, then you need not know any more than that. So today I went into school in a less-than-great mood. I had no real reason to feel that though because it's BUW! Block Unterrichts Woche (Project Week) wherein students prepare projects for their final exams. The schedule isn't really set out, and the students drift from room to room working half-effortly on workshops like "Biology!" and "Oral Exams: How to prepare." Guess which group I was working with? The strike of the teacher's union was making things even a bit stranger, so it ended up me and 4 students in the French department's airy supply closet with the door propped open, chatting about Snow Falling On Cedars (I'm hating less and less) and globalization...and whatever else we could think of in 2 hours. I have to meet them again on Thursday, and I think I might ply them with cookies. they were sweeties though.

In our trusty rusty teacher's room

I happened to run into a certain teacher I might have threatened with physical violence when he landed on my blacklist (like Ryan on The Office), but when he asked about my Sunday, I kind of let it spill and almost started crying again (LLLLlllloooooooonnnnnnggggg story) so he looked at me and said "I'll invite you out after school. I'll make good on what happened," so we met up after class.

It was a pretty fall day, rather chilly, but I was still comfy in a cardigan (even though I have sweaters now! YAY!) ...like this picture, which I took a few days back!


He took me into Oranienburg where we visited the artists' collective you might have seen in Goodbye Lenin (it's when he's going out with the russian girl and they sit on this very ledge and smoke), but now it's much more of a simple hangout, and they put glass on the ledges where the two sat in the movie. It was beautiful though, wild and free and artistic and modern but somehow a throwback to a bohemia that may or may not have existed, a Berlin Christiania in miniature. It was refreshing to see all of that, relaxing in its own way and thrilling to be so close to that wild energy.

look familiar? like from A MOVIE?

Afterwards we ate fries German style...with weird things on them. He had mayo, ketchup and cooked onions (wtf) and I had curry. While we were eating we ran into a teacher from England who was visiting our school (and who has the same last name as me) and the English department head, out for an equally productive afternoon of wandering around (he's on strike). After that we had a mango juice, and he gave me the skinny on meeting people, on how it's hard at first, and how his wife went through the exact same thing, how I just need to keep going. This I had heard before, but from a German and the way he explained it it all just kind of made more sense. It was nice to hear, and just to have someone be friendly to me after such an icky Sunday was really like drinking a long slurp of mango juice on a hot day, thick and cold and nice. Long story short: my city geography is getting better and he's off my stabby-stabby list.