Oh my gosh. You should see my suitcase. Diane would be impressed at how well the rolling technique worked. My Mom is going to be mortified by how much it weighs (sorry Mom...). I'm pretty sure I packed about 70lbs worth of clothes for the next month. Well, I'm hoping that 70lbs is an exaggeration, but unfortunately I don't think I'm off by very much. Getting all of this stuff back to the States will be quite interesting.

I guess I should start off by explaining what in the world I am doing in Berlin with a month's worth of clothes. Back in May I received an award from DAAD that included participation at a weeklong seminar on cultural diplomacy. DAAD said they would cover the costs of the seminar fees, transportation, lodging, food, and a metro card for the week—essentially a free week in Berlin discussing topics very much related to my field of interest—how could I say no? To make the deal even sweeter, Luca informed me that he was thinking about going to Berlin the weekend prior to the seminar with his parents before he headed back to Italy, and they invited me to join them.

The only bad thing about the seminar is that it made my whole moving out and exmatriculation process a tad bit more complicated. In defense of my suitcase that weighs a ton, instead of just packing for my research in Bad Arolsen and a weekend with my parents in Berlin, I now had to pack a week+'s worth of "smart casual" clothes. The weather in Germany has also been really weird lately, like highs in the low 60s, adding to my need to bring as many articles of clothing with me as humanly possible to make sure I had my bases covered for any weather and event I might encounter.

While lying on my suitcase attempting to close it, I repeated over and over, "Luca, under no circumstance is your Dad going to carry this thing." & of course, don't you know it, one of the first things Mr. Patrignani did after Luca introduced us was to grab my suitcase to take it down to the car =/ I tried to insist that he let me carry it, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

I got the first taste of what the weekend might be like once we got in the car. I've heard Luca talk to his family in Italian on Skype, but this was quite different to say the least. I only know the few words in Italian that everyone knows - ciao, grazie, prego, and buongiorno. Luca's mom studied in England, but I don't think she has used English very often since then, and Luca's dad knows more English than I do Italian, but not as much as his mom. Anyway, Luca and his parents would talk in what seemed like a mile a minute in Italian, and then Luca would translate, or at least give me a hint of what they were talking about. Italian is such a pretty language to listen to even if you don't understand what is being said, though, so I really didn't mind that I had no idea what they were talking about. Although on a few occasions I could guess what they were talking about by the "Italian sign language." I may not know how to roll my Rs, but I am able to pick up on the meaning of some typical hand gestures Luca taught me =] They're actually quite useful!

We got to Berlin a little after 1 and went to check into our hotel first. As soon as Luca shut the door to the hotel room that we're sharing behind us, we both started laughing hysterically. Luca had warned me back in May that his dad suspects we're dating, and the fact that we're sharing a hotel room isn't going to help the matter at all. Our suspicions were confirmed when I asked Luca to ask his parents how much my share of the hotel room cost. After some quick Italian, Luca returned and told me that they wanted to pay for the weekend. "He totally thinks we're dating." & then we busted out laughing again. We were in for a hysterical, "lost in translation" weekend.

After we settled in to our rooms we walked down the street to grab a quick bite for lunch, then hopped on the Ubahn and headed for Potsdamer Platz. Everything looked familiar as soon as we got off the metro. I was in Berlin four years ago with my class trip, and it was so weird seeing the same places four years later. At the time, I really didn't enjoy Berlin. I was jetlagged and expecting a typical German city, but Berlin is far from typical German. Potsdamer Platz, for instance, was completely rebuilt after the wall fell. During the Cold War, it was No Man's Land—aka completely barren. Now it is home to the Sony Center, and seriously looks like it belongs in Chicago or Philadelphia instead of Germany. I have learned a lot more about the history of Berlin since my trip here four years ago, and I have really been anxious to return and give the city a second chance. I think the key to appreciating Berlin is to know that even though it is the capital of Germany, it is far from a German city. Berlin is the most international, cosmopolitan city I've ever been to—even more so than New York—and that is what makes it so beautiful.

After looking around Potsdamer Platz a bit, the four of us walked down Ebertstraße to the Jewish Memorial. This is one of the most moving memorials I have ever seen; it occupies an entire square block and is composed of different sized cement blocks. At the outside of the square, the blocks are low enough to the ground to step on or climb onto without difficulty, and as you get closer to the center, the blocks tower over your head. In addition to being a beautiful memorial it's also a very moving piece of artwork, however unfortunately many people tend to see it more as a playground. In the ten minutes that we were walking around, for instance, we ran into groups of young people my age or older playing hide-and-go-seek through the rows or even worse, hoping from block to block to reach the center of the memorial. I find it absolutely disgusting, and I really wish there was some sort of security to protect the memorial from such misuse. It's so degrading to the memories of those lives lost during the Holocaust.

The Brandenburg Tor (or Gate) is a stone's throw away from the Jewish Memorial, so naturally we headed there next. It's crazy thinking that just a little over 20 years ago the gate was completely inaccessible due to the Berlin Wall. After a few photos we walked a short distance to the Reichstag, the house of the Bundestag (Germany's Parliament). The dome at the top of the Reichstag is really impressive and open to visitors, however you have to have reservations. I'm actually scheduled to go there twice, once with the ICD group and once with my parents, so I was totally fine with just seeing the building from the outside today.

We walked back towards the Brandenburg Tor to head down Unter den Linden, the Champs-Élysées of Berlin. We walked all the way from the Brandenburg Tor past Humboldt Universität to the Berliner Dom, and found a place along the Spree for a gelato break. I could really get used to the Italian life style ;) I could totally do without the wasps in Berlin. They are gutsy little b*****s and would not leave our gelato or us alone! I'm pretty sure we picked a table on top of their hive or something, because they seriously kept attacking us.

From gelato we headed further to check out Alexanderplatz and the World Clock. I was amazed by how much this area in particular had changed in only four years. Our class used the World Clock as a meeting spot, but we couldn't actually stand underneath the clock because at the time, it was the where all of the punks hung out. & when I say punks, I mean the type of people who shave their heads in public. The atmosphere in Alexanderplatz today is totally different. The punks are replaced by local musicians, the buildings surrounding the platz look much less "Soviet style," and the area itself is much more cheerful.

The weather was getting even colder and we all wanted to change into something a bit warmer for dinner, so we hopped on the Sbahn and headed back to our hotel. Berlin's metro is so incredibly easy to use, and is much cleaner than the one in Paris. If you're going to be using it, I would highly recommend buying a welcome pass or something comparable. It's definitely worth it.

Do you remember how I mentioned that Berlin is much more cosmopolitan than German? Well you notice that right away when you're looking for a traditional German restaurant. Luca's mom had read about a district close to our hotel that was supposed to be good for restaurants, so we decided to head there. Unfortunately they were all Italian! I mean, Italian food is great, but when you travel outside of Italy, you don't want to be eating pasta and pizza =] After a bit of searching, we finally found a German Kneipe where we could order more traditional food such as Spätzle, which is what I ordered.

The whole dinner conversation was pretty hilarious with the mix of Italian and English, but the most hilarious moment by far happened after Luca showed us this weird blister/wart thing he had just noticed on his hand. Luca's dad leaned over to me and asked, "Are you sure you want to sleep with him tonight?" Luca told me my face was absolutely priceless, and he wished he had gotten it on camera. He quickly changed the topic in Italian and whispered to me, "I'll explain later." After we got out of the restaurant, he told me that in Italian saying that you're sleeping one someone has no sexual connotation, and it takes awhile of learning English to catch on to the fact that in our language, it definitely definitely does. That made us both feel a bit better, but we're still pretty convinced that he thinks we're dating.

No crazy diskotheks for us tonight. We have a full day planned tomorrow, beginning at the Berlin Zoo, so we're staying in and watching True Blood, which we probably would have done regardless because we are both addicted and in love with Eric ;]