Diane’s World

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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Guten Tag, Welt!

Wie gehts?

It’s time for Diane’s weekly update.

I had quite the weekend. It started out with a dance on Friday night at the Mormon church. Yes, mormons dance… how come Presbyterians don’t dance? Anyways, Friday night was absolutely hilarious. I wish I took pictures to show all of you the wonders of people semi-ballroom dancing to horrible 90’s music, but I will resist. Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely loved it.

On Saturday morning, Narja and I went to the Berlin zoo. It was AWESOME! I loooovvveee the zoo. I took over 100 pictures.

First we saw the big cats. Every time I saw one, I thought directly of my mother’s cat, Katze, and wondered what would happen if Katze were in the cage with the other cats. Sorry, Mom… I don’t think Katze stands a chance.

And then there were more animals!

Some black bear was just hanging in the tree (if you look closely enough, he has his tongue sticking out )

And I got to sing the Kookaburra song to a Kookaburra! And it didn’t attack me! (haha, Mom!)

Find the monkey in this photo! (She stayed like this for a looonnggg time… it was kind of creepy.)

And here is the famous “Knut”! The polar bear that was born in Berlin!

And I discovered very weird ice creams… like BumBum. My friend Narja titled this photo “Do not feed the animals” Gee thanks. :

and then I discovered the most amazing animal of them all: The Brazilian Female

Yup… she’s in Front of the elephant. The elephant is pretty cool too.

It was a great day.

Besides that not much else is new. I am going to München this weekend, so good stuff in my next week’s post!!!

Much Love,

Deeds

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Hello world.

I am playing A Perfect Circle “The Noose”. Enjoy - this is one of my top 10 bands. If you didn’t know and if you care, the lead singer is also in the band “Tool”, and other members are former members of the bands “Nine Inch Nails” and “The Smashing Pumpkins”. So yes, it has to be good.

Sorry I haven’t written for a while. I ended up giving my parents their own personal email last week of what I was doing because I unfortunately had no time to update my blog.

So I guess that means I owe you all a mega post.

(Prepare for this one, kids!)

I have started a new course. New teacher, new classmates. The only thing that stays the same for me is that I am living in the same house with my wonderful Chilean Gästgeberin (hostess).

My class this semester is very young. Most of the people are college aged, and it’s nice to have a youthful class. My classmates come from Brazil, Thailand, Japan, Switzerland, South Africa and America.

There is a large group of students from Brigham Young University… which is in Utah. Which, yes, means they are from the Mormon religion.

Being a non-Mormon Christian, I have been spending a lot of time with the BYU people. They are very fun to be with, and I am attempting to learn all I can about their religion, including attending their bible studies and reading this book:

It has been entertaining so far, but I am not prepared to share my mind about it quite yet.

Well, except to also say that I have also been studying the Bible right along side of it, and I never realized how rich and deep the Bible was until I started reading the book of Mormon. I guess what I mean is I read 1 Nephi (the first book of the Book of mormon) and then read 1/4th of Jeremiah and large chuncks of Isaiah in the Bible right afterwards… the language expertise in the Bible never seemed so rich and exquisite until now.

One things I give HUGE credit to the Mormon Church is their use of Water Fountains in the church buildings:

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, for some reason Germany doesn’t believe in Water fountains. And didn’t quite notice how much I missed it until I used this one.

Anyways, I prefer not to comment more about the religion just quite yet. I hope to become a lot better at apologetics and strengthen what I believe. We’ll see what the next month and a half brings me. Prayers are very welcomed.

Anyways, on a lighter note.:

I was walking down the street the other day, and some girl stopped me and asked me if I would be a hair model for her. So, I got a free (yay!) haircut that usually costs 59Euros just because the girl was finishing her training as a hairstylist! Yay!

Here is the new ‘do (a better picture than the one above a least. And I JUST took this picture… you are so lucky… or something:

and another:

Short hair… I know. Oh well, it grows back.

Also, Last week was Berlin’s Karneval des Kulturs (Translate that yourself, non German Speakers)

It was good. I went with three Brazilians. Here is me and two of them -Paulo and Narja:

Me love Brazilians.

And Brazilians love me:

Hee hee!

They have a funny culture that includes sporadic dancing in the streets:

Ok…

Yes, I will remain a boring america.

I’ve had quite the cultural week. On Last sunday and monday alone I had Swiss Chocolate, Indian lunch, Greek dinner and wine, Italian Coffee, Turkish Tea, Spanish Wine, German Breakfast, Arabic Lunch, French water, Brazilian alcoholic drink that I can’t pronounce… and I think that sums it up. I enjoyed celebrating the multi-cultural atmosphere of Berlin.

Anyways.

I might travel this weekend to Düsseldorf… I haven’t decided yet.

And I am definitely going next weekend to München…

So I have a lot of exciting things happening in the future.

But for now, I must study my book of Mormon and my German… I have wayyyy to much to do.

Send love, people, send love!

Deedles Marie

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