Jut!

They (yes the omnipresent they) are laying down a new square right outside my window and were using a “random pounding machine” this morning to really get those cobblestones into place. Basically it sounded like a jack hammer and I slept through it for a couple of hours. Eventually I had to drag myself out of bed if I was going to go on a neighborhood tour this morning and by ten I was already with a group heading to Prenzlauerberg.

The tour guide – a very interesting man who has lived in Prenzlauerberg for the last 35 years – told us so much random stuff about his neighborhood that I’m not quite sure what I will remember in a couple of days. But his focus on “Straßenmöbel” (street furniture) included a picture collection of the chalk signatures chimney cleaners leave; he also pointed out like five different kinds of street lamps as well as public toilets.

The tour ended with in a visit to a currywurst stand for THE Berliner Currywurst. The stand’s location was excellent – under the U-Bahn tracks and with busy streets on both sides and a huge line of people was still waiting for their fix. So maybe I ended up being 15 min late for class, but I have now had a very typical Berlin experience, talked to some of the people standing around and met yet another couple of cool people from the Goethe Institut – today it was an Australian dude who’s planning on staying in Berlin and an aspiring French film actress.

Once I did get to class I was faced with a day filled with presentations and getting assigned a psychological disorder. I got to be a Kleptomaniac, which was sort of fun but not as fun and entertaining as Mario who got to be addicted to sex. I love my class and learning random psychology vocabulary while stealing neighbors’ pens. By the end of the day nobody had anything to write with. Also Makoto, the guy from Japan, made a super hilarious film about the painting he has analyzing set to some amazing pop music which he proceeded to first turn up and the scream over. His presentation was like a piece of art in and of itself and the whole class was laughing uncontrollably, especially at every tree in the landscape painting getting its own number as a label.

Ok, shit, things are starting to double and float out of focus. I’m going to bed. To be continued…