schule tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I am so excited! I'm hoping to get into a Latin class instead of French- I really know about 3 words in French and I would not receive a passing grade, guaranteed. But it's pleasant to listen to, I suppose, so if I do get stuck in French at least it will sound nice, even though it won't make any sense. Simon is taking me tomorrow morning to help me get set up with classes and such- Daniela is working and Sebastian is going to Vienna- I don't know why.
This weekend was really good, starting with Friday being the official last day of language school!!! A couple of the other students, including the funny French-speaking Swiss guy who sat next to me and kept asking questions because he was even newer than I was to the class, said goodbye to me and wished me luck with my next 9 months. Oh yeah, and I have been here A MONTH!!!!!!! That is so crazy to me, I don't really know how it all blew by... Anyway, on Friday night I went out to Potsdamer Platz with my liasons, Ulrike and Sofie. Sofie is around my age, and she spent the last year in Brazil with AFS, so she doesn't speak much English but she seems very nice. Ulrike is really nice too, and I also met her boyfriend. We had dinner in the Sony Center, and I had my first German beer, which was actually a mix of beer and sprite, which sounds gross but it wasn't. Plus it wasn't too strong so I drank the whole thing. We wandered the mall at Potsdamer Platz for a while because we were going to see a movie but it didn't start until later. Then we walked over to the Brandenburger Tor and it was all lit up and very pretty. There was a demonstration against the war in Iraq- apparently there is always a demonstration there. We said goodbye to Sofie, who had a friend staying with her so she couldn't stay for the movie, and walked to the Kino. I payed a ridiculous amouount of money for M&Ms, a mistake which I will not be making again (pre-movie candy shopping at the market is clearly a necessity). But they were good, and we saw Julie and Julia in German! I understood most of it and it was quite funny, but I think that was because I'd already read the book, so I knew what it was about, and Meryl Streep makes me laugh even if her voice isn't coming out of her mouth. That took a little getting used to, but it was fine.
On Saturday I slept in (I didn't get home until almost midnight) and then Judith came home from Dortmund with her boyfriend Vincent. The three of us walked to S. Frohnau to Vincent's house and sat with his mom and talked for a few hours. She had chocolate chip cookies- even drier than Chips Ahoy, but you take what you can get here! Vincent's younger sister is in my class at school, but she's in France right now... I don't know why that is. But I met his other sister who's 13, and she seems very nice. So his mom was nice and we ended up playing this memory game with pictures from the Berlin national art museum, which was funny... Judith clobbered us, of course. She and Vincent left after dinner because apparently Judith is going to Zurich for her fall break, and her train left last night.
Today Daniela, Sebastian, Clara and I went to the Technik-Museum. We were going to go to the Judischer museum but there was a long line, and I'm kind of glad we didn't because I would really like to spend some time there without an eleven-year-old, I think. The Technik Museum was cool actually- it had all these hands-on exhibits with optical illusions and sensory stuff and displays about how things work. In the technology building it had old trains and rowing boats and sailboats, as well as sewing machines and typewriters and looms. It showed the history of a lot of machines, and we saw a demonstration about paper-making. That was pretty cool, although at that point I was getting really tired and my legs felt like they were going to melt a little bit. Luckily we left soon after that, and at home we watched a German tv show about a German exchange student in Texas. It was really funny for me, because she lived in this mansion of a Texas home with a pool in the backyard, and her school said the Pledge of Alleigance every morning, and the host mom gave this whole speech about how boys and girls can only be together in public areas. To nearly all of these things Daniela looked at me for an explanation. 'You say the Pledge of Alleigance every day?' 'American houses are so BIG!' 'You're not allowed to be alone with a boy?' So I had to debase some more American stereotypes and talk about how Massachusetts is a verrrrry different place from Texas. I think the thing she thought was the most bizarre was that girls and boys aren't allowed into each others' bedrooms. 'Hier es ist kein problem.' (Here it is no problem.)
After that little episode I skyped with a majority of my extended family gathered at my grandma's house for the annual chicken sacrifice. It was really fun to talk to them all! All of the kids gathered in front of the screen and had a fun time looking at themselves.
Well, that's all for now, I think- sometime this week I will try to post an update about my first week of SCHULE!!! I'm pumped. Gute nacht alles!!