Reflections on the language, city

Language is a really bizarre thing when you think about it. Sometimes I just casually listen to people talking here without really paying attention to the words and think about how different and strange it sounds. Barely a week ago German was something I spoke for three hours a week in class and a little bit in the afternoons while doing homework, but here I'm just swimming in it. And while it has gotten a little more normal, all of the "kkkh" and "cshhh" and "ooaah" and "uuueah" and "eearrrh" still sound foreign.

Then again, sometimes it comes really naturally to me, and I can almost speak it with the same easy, natural flow as I speak English. Most of the time when I'm walking by myself from place to place I just switch off English entirely and think in German. I also sometimes find myself structuring my English sentences in ways that would probably make more sense in German than in English, if that makes any sense. And I'm sure from the other side of the language gulf English sounds pretty weird too. I met a German a couple years ago who said that when Americans speak English it sounds like we have a hot potato in the backs of our throats. I have no idea where that comparison comes from, or how it even makes sense, but just goes to show ya.

Occasionally I get really frustrated with my skill level. This afternoon I was talking with Rose and Katja, and I had to excuse myself to go to my room for a little bit and lie down cause my brain felt like it was going to burst. I was also really hungry, which probably had a lot to do with my frustration, but there's just so much I still have to learn. Katja corrects me right and left when I make mistakes, which is really helpful, but there are dozens of little errors I make with gender and case (probably the hardest things about gendered languages like German) that end up slipping by uncorrected. And while it's getting easier and easier to talk to Rose and Katja, I still get nervous when I talk to professors. I just seize up and lose about a third of my vocabulary on the spot when I try and speak up in class (which is much more often than everyone else. I guess none of my fellow students share my enthusiasm for the material. Or they don't understand the questions. Or they're too nervous).

Some things I like about Berlin:
-The deposits on bottles are huge here. You'd get about 8 cents in a handful of US states for a returned bottle of water, but here you get 25 Euro cents back for a bottle of water/Coke, much more for bigger bottles. Every three Cokes is a free Coke!
-The machines in the grocery stores that they use to determine your deposit are reaaaally cool too. They have entirely too much technology for such a simple task--all sorts of spinning wheels and conveyor belts and lasers and crushers and receipt printers--but half of the fun in returning bottles is seeing the bottle collectors in action.
-Alexanderplatz (the place I live near) is just really awesome. Earlier I made a judgment that it didn't seem like I lived in a very pretty part of Berlin, and while Alexanderplatz ("Alex," as they call it here) isn't exactly pretty, it is probably one of the coolest areas of the city. It's one of the cultural centers of East Berlin, and there are always tons of people out there, and on weekends there's always live music and street performers and all sorts of stuff. It's sort of like the Commons, except supersized and more urban.

Some things I don't like about Berlin:
-You have to pay 1.50 Euros (almost 2 USD) for a shopping cart at the grocery store near my homestay. Really? Really? That is highway robbery. I'd sooner use my backpack to shop for groceries (which I did) than pay to use a shopping cart.
-Nobody accepts credit or debit. The only places I've seen people using their cards to pay for things have been in grocery stores. Literally NOWHERE else. Really? In this day and age?
-The bottle caps here drive me insane. On American bottles there's the cap itself and then that little ring on the bottom that holds the cap to the bottle. Here the cap and the ring are connected on one side, so whenever you take a bottle cap off the dongly little plastic ring stays attached, and that is just not ok. All of us here spend at least five minutes after removing the bottle cap trying to rip off the plastic ring.

Taking a day trip to Potsdam on Saturday, but otherwise the weekend remains open.