another day in paradise

whew. what a day.

i was laying in bed playing solitaire on my ipod when i heard the house phone ring this morning around 930. i jumped up and ran into the living room. it was jp asking if he could stop by in 10 minutes to pick up some things from his suitcase. sure! no problem for me. crap - put away laundry, pick up, clean bathroom and do dishes in 10 min. jp seems to be late a lot, so it worked out. well, no, thats not totally true - the apartment wasn't that bad, so it would've been fine if he had just showed up at the door. except then i wouldn't have really been dressed well, but thats besides the point. once he got here he wanted to practice piano. since i wasn't using it for once, i told him it wasn't a problem.

jp left right before i did. i got on the U bahn (subway, T, metro, underground) to meet jen for lunch by her work at potsdamer platz - about 20 min on U bahn and one hour by foot. jen had texted me earlier this week warning me that there was construction on the u bahn so they were using buses once at alexanderplatz. i live close to alex platz, but i got on the stop before which is a block away from my house. once we got to alex platz everyone got off the train and i remembered what jen had told me. since we were underground, and had to go to the street to get on the bus, i just followed everyone around me. when we got to the hardly-marked bus, i asked someone if this was the bus to go to potsdamer platz. yes, he told me. i got on.

i was busy listening to a podcast about chuck, the best tv show, when i looked up to see that we were going BACK to alex platz (where i had just gotten ON the bus). ??? i looked around and realized the majority of the bus had gotten off at the previous stop. that's when i noticed the sign that explained that the bus was just for four stops and after four stops, we could get back on the U bahn. riiight. that's the problem with living in a country where you dont understand the announcements made over public transportation. i had to call jen to tell her that i was going to be late.

in any case, i finally met up with jen and her friend from work for lunch. i had a delicious salad - i asked them to put balsamic dressing because i didn't think i would like the coconut dressing that came with the salad. it wasn't until i got the salad and realized that there were two dressings on when i realized that when i asked for the second dressing, i didn't technically ask for the balsamic dressing INSTEAD OF the coconut - i just assumed they would realize i didnt want TWO dressings... so i got balsamic AND coconut. mental note: learn how to say "instead of" in german.

after lunch, i went to see nights in rodanthe. i went because 1) it was playing at a convenient time but mostly because 2) gavin rossdale sings the theme song. i'll write some other time about my connection with gavin. so i had a feeling that i was going to be a sad movie, but thought i could handle it. about 2 minutes into the movie i saw two words that made me rethink my choice of film: Nicholas Sparks. shit. "there's no way i'm not going to cry," i thought. i munched quickly on my popcorn hoping the salt would dry me up so i couldn't cry. not that this has ever worked before, but i thought i would give it a try. didn't work. not that great of a film, but a bad film doesn't mean i won't cry.

anyway, i walked home and stopped at dussman to get the book that stefan wrote. i picked up two german cds, as well. i was running behind in time so i jumped back on the S bahn (above ground vs. U bahn which is underground) and got home in time to quickly check my email. i then went to jen's to have dinner and make apple crsip which i will blog about next monday on mad tasty. on my way to jen's i stopped at a mexican restaurant, frida kahlo, and got chicken quesadillas for me to eat. i think someone forgot to tell the germans that 'queso' means cheese in spanish. i don't think there was much cheese on the quesadilla, but it was good none the less.

the clock read 1045 when i got home tonight. despite being tired, i watched all of my podcasts so i don't get behind. i sure do love AC360.

well, only 2.5 more days in berlin. sob! will write more about those thoughts later...