Die klugste Nacht des Jahres

Saturday night was "die klugste Nacht des Jahres", which means "smartest night of the year". This meant that there were events relating to science and academia scattered all thoughout Berlin from 5pm to 1am. There were lots of events at the Free University, so I went with my Korean studies major friends and my Philosophy major friends to attend the events at their respective institutes. My Korean studies major friends were performing in a Korean play at their institute as part of their language learning. It was hilarious.  Jina dressed up like a man, Vincent had a skinny beard hanging from his chin, they sang, played Korean drums, and threw candy to the children in the audience. I got to meet some of my friend's parents, eat Korean food, and listen to Jan give a lecture about online- gaming in South Korea. The best part about the night was that I felt like these friends were my family in Berlin. I felt honored that they invited me to share that night with them. After spending time in the world of Korean studies I went to a party at the Philosophy Studies Institute to spend time with my Philosophy studies friends. It was a 1920s themed party, so I tried to teach some of my friends some swing dance. Overall, it was an amazing night spent with my favorite people in this city!

On Sunday, I spent time with my future roommates Stephan, Katharina, and Carina! I went over to their apartment (my future apartment) and they gave me a little walking tour of the area. Before we left to explore the neighborhood they were telling me about this bear in a park near-by. I thought they were kidding that it was a real bear, or that I wasn't understanding their German. But when we arrived at the park, I was shocked to see a real live bear! It's just chilling in this enclosed area of the park. Totally strange.  Anyways, the neighborhood seems great. I can walk to the river, three different super markets, and they are really close to Oranienstrasse, which is a really awesome street with tons of restaurants, bars, and clubs. This summer is going to be awesome, I can feel it in my bones! :-)

Photo of the day is of me in the opera house in Dresden. Funny story about these columns -- they are fake marble! Not only are they fake marble, but they are a special kind of fake marble in which the process to create it takes hundreds of hours of labor for each column. Thus, the fake marble is significantly more expensive than real marble. Then why didn't they just use real marble you might ask? The original opera house that was destroyed during the war used fake marble and used this exact technique. Now the question is why did the original opera house use fake marble... that I don't know.

German word of the day today is die Schublade, which means drawer. In this case, I'm pretty sure that German wins the cooler word contest.