Diane’s World

My 22nd Birthday is in a month. 22 is a big number. One year bigger than 21.

This is nice:

I also like this:

And why not this as well:

There are no subliminal messages in this blog. I promise.

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Hey world… ok you can have a real post

My song comes from the New Death Cab For Cutie CD “Narrow Stairs”. I never listen to the radio in Germany (something I really need to change)… but the first time I heard it in months, it was playing a song (”I will possess your heart”) from this CD. This CD is barely even a month old - WHAT? How did 1) Death Cab for Cutie hit the mainstream Radio??? and 2) How did it hit Germany so fast? We used to joke that all the music comes to Germany in a rowboat… maybe that isn’t so true anymore?

Anyways. Enough venting.

Today was my last day in Intermediate German class. Apparently I am now an Advanced German Student. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have been approved to go on to the very scary class level of C1. (The levels go from beginner to advanced: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 -each level taking two months to complete)

I remember being in A1 and thinking “man… those C level students know so much German. I’ll never be that good.” But right next to me I have a paper that says that not only did I pass the B2 level… but I passed it with a good grade of 1,4 (An “A” or “sehr gut” ) They were broken down in five categories. 1=A/Very Good : 2=B/Good: 3=C/Sufficient : Here is how I did:

Listening: 1,5

Speaking: 2

Reading: 1

Writing: 1,5

Grammatic: 1

I had no idea that I would get that good of grades, so I am actually feeling confident. I never would have earlier considered myself good at Grammar, so that makes me smile.

In order to boost my lowest grade in Speaking, I have decided to not speak any English for the month of July. That means… Diane’s gonna have no friends! Haha just kidding… I really want to be able to speak well, and it’s my last month to do hard core practice so I can talk nothing BUT German with my dad when I get home… right dad?

Today in our last class, we had a little goodbye party. Everybody was supposed to bring something typical of their own land. Not really wanting to give up my Mac&Cheese just yet, I bought these suckers:

Yes, I am amazingly creative.

One of the other American girls made Guacamole. I am ever thankful… I LOVE GUACAMOLE. Yummmmy! (Look closely to see me sneaking a bite of it)

We also had lots of German, Swiss, Japanese… well, we had a lot of food. Another American girl brought Gushers and Fruit by the Foot… it made my day.

And speaking of which, if you are a lame American, you don’t know that the Europäische Weltmeistershaft is going on (FUßBALL! SOCCER!) But Germany is doing very well! We are in the semi finals along with Turkey, Russia and Spain!

Germany plays against Turkey tomorrow, and I am sooo pumped to see this game

It’s going to be awesome to see this in Berlin, because Berlin has the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey… so either way there is going to be a LOT of action in Berlin! It might get dangerous!

When Turkey won last Friday against Croatia, I went to the busiest part of the city and had fear for my life… the Turkish were so happy to win that there were crazy drunk Turkish people everywhere. So I have decided to watch the next game in the comfort of the Mormon church with my friends.

Here is me and one of my mormon friends, Kajsa. I like them, they are nice people. :

oh and last but not least, I dyed my hair. It’s now a great darker brown color. I decided that there are enough blond Americans… and Germans… so I decided to make change!

Here are the obligatory beauty shots:

Ok enough pictures of me!

Well I move away from Berlin on Sunday. It’s definitely a bitter sweet feeling - I am SOOO excited to go to Bremen, but i am SOOO sad to leave Berlin. I am going to do well with this change though, I know it.

Well have a wonderful week everybody! I am assuming my next post will be in Bremen… we will see!

Love, Deeds

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Hey there world How’s it going?

I had a wonderful weekend. I only have two of those left in Berlin, and it makes me very sad to think that I am going to be moving in a few weeks. But I am almost feeling ready to go back to the USA.

Kind of scared about it though… I currently have three REALLY good options of where I want to live after Germany. I find it funny because most people have trouble finding options… I have trouble deciding between the ones I already have. So prayer would be a wonderful thing for me - I have no idea where i am wanting to go.

I have a picture that I forgot to post last week. Here is me, Hiroyuki and Narja at the Neue Nationalgalerie. I think we are a piece of artwork, don’tchya think?’

I’ve been craving Teriyaki chicken since I’ve come to Germany, so I convinced Hiro to take us to a Japanese Restaraunt. The chicken still wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff we get at home (waaa ) but it was nice to hang out with good friends.

On Thursday was Narja’s birthday, so we went out to Indian food and drinking Caprihinas

We also went shopping in order to prepare for her birthday party. Here is us on the way back to my house:

Yes! I found a greek man of my very own!!!

The next day, In our class we had a small birthday party… which means CAKE

I threw a small party for Narja in my apartment. My hostess was gone on a trip, so we had a few friends over, made Twice-baked Potatoes and Pizza, and had fun drinking beer, dancing, and talking.

The next day, we cleaned the apartment and made a big breakfast together.

So yup, life is going well. Here is me being all happy. That’s a real smile, folks. It’s no longer going to be a smile in 2 weeks when I have to leave Berlin. Waa.

I’ll be home in a month and a half… it just seems so weird. I don’t feel like i’ve been here for as long as I have.

Well, until next week!

Much love,

Deeds

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Hello world…

SO let’s just say I had quite the weekend.

I kind of realized that my days in this wonderful city are limited, and so I went on a cultural explosion.

Five museums. Yes folks, five.

I will have reviews of all of them in my art blog by the end of the week, but here is the quick overview:

Museum #1: Neue Nationalgalerie (Been here before, but it’s a good collection of 20th Century Art)

Museum #2: Bode Museum (Sculpture particularly from the renaissance. They also have a great big huge coin collection)

Museum #3: Berliner Galerie (The only criteria for art in this museum is that it is artwork that was produced (actually physically made) in Berlin. Oddly enough, my favorite work in this museum was created by an American.)

Museum #4: Käthe Kollowitz Museum (Kollowitz is a female artist who portrayed the hard life of WWI and WWII from the eyes of a woman. Her son and her grandson both died in one of these wars)

Museum #5: Altes Museum (There is a particularly good ancient Egyptian collection that will be there until next year.)

This star of this exhibition is obviously Queen Nefertiti…

but I personally liked the slaughtered cow sculpture:

and I couldn’t help but think of my mother when I saw the cat gods.

But I really do recommend all of these museums to anyone who finds themselves in Berlin.

Anyways…

I’ve also been hanging out with cool people. Here is me and my Japanese friend Hiro:

And my Brazilian friend Paulo:

I also managed to finish another painting. It’s called “Berlin”. I will also write something about it in my art blog by the end of the week.

On Saturday night, my hostess had an Argetinian band over for a party. There were about 10 of them, and they were really really good Tango dancers. It was fun to be a part of this party

And here is my hostess and her boyfriend. I really like them

Yup so it was a busy weekend.

Oh and as I was on my way to the Berliner Galerie, I found this:

It made me a little sad. Someone was having a hard day.

Anyways I was incredibly sick yesterday, and now I’m a little better but not all the way.

I’m going on a day trip to Potsdam this Saturday, and on Friday I’m throwing a birthday party for a good friend of mine (Narja, the Brazilian girl.) So I will report back in a week!

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Ok first of all… I think I’m dying. It’s officially 85 degrees… about 10 degress over what I usually can handle (yes, I’m a heat wimp!). I am pretty sure I almost passed out in class today which has no air conditioning… either that or I was about to pass out from too much German.

Or because I had to give a presentation today. I did my presentation this time about Abstract Expressionism, my favorite art movement. Here are some examples:

Hans Hofmann

Mark Rothko

Kline

Frankenthaler

So yay that that is over with

As I said last weekend, I went to München this weekend. Here are the photos:

Marienplatz

HB beer hall! “Unser zwoate hoamat” (Bayerish for “Unsere zweite Heimat”) which means “Our second Home”

The Germans are very protective over their beer.

I also went on top of the Olympiaturm. That was nice.

Ok… well this is a boring post… but the heat in this room is making me feel like i’m going to faint if I think any longer.

I promise to do better another day.

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