Week 12

Sorry for the lateness of this post. I am running down to the wire on my internship, trying to get everything done before Friday while preparing a 20 minute presentation on my experiences that I have to do for the final session. At the same time, I'm trying to get all of my stuff packed before Saturday so that I can take it to the local package store to weigh it and make sure I don't need to ship anything. As you can imagine, this means I'm quite swamped!

Well last week was an interesting one. On Wednesday, my friend Mandy and I celebrated our birthdays by inviting the other interns out to mini-golf. Only four of us could make it, but we had a fun evening. I came in second! After my impressive bowling performance at Ashley's goodbye party a few weeks ago, I've now built myself a reputation as an all-around good sports person. I'm not sure how this happened. I maintain that it was all a fluke.

On Friday, Mandy and I took off for München for the weekend. We arrived at our hostel very late, but had the room to ourselves for the first night. On Saturday, we went to Elly Seidl, BMW Welt, the Olympia Park and Sommerfest, and finished up with dinner at Löwenbräu (they brew my all time favorite beer! Franziskaner Weißbier!). On Saturday, we made our way to the Deutsches Museum where we explored the history of flight, glassblowing, and rode a big ride called the Spacewalker, which put you in a little plane that you could flip while the ride went in circles.

There won't be any more updates to this blog. In less than a week, I'm heading home! So wish me luck on my presentation, and I'll see you all when I get back!

Week 11

Well my internship will be over in two weeks and then I can fly back home. I can't wait! Berlin this past weekend was great, as always. I met up with my old host family on Friday evening in a little neighborhood in Friedrichshain, where they cooked salmon for dinner. Afterwards, we all sat around and chatted for a long time, and watched one of their friends' wedding videos. I didn't tell them it was my birthday, because I didn't want them to feel pressured to do anything, but they remembered anyway and surprised me at midnight with champagne and a small gift. It was very sweet. For my actual birthday I sat around my friend Sam's apartment and played videogames all day. In the evening we traveled to Cupcake Berlin to pick up dessert and then sat down to dinner with a bottle of my favorite wine that I bought at KaDeWe.

Work has been very stressful lately. I think my problem is that both bosses forget that I haven't been working here for years. They give me directions that are extremely vague and then expect me to just know what they mean. I feel incompetant when I am forced to ask them questions constantly. It's even worse now that my direct supervisor in Mainz is on vacation, since I have to communicate all by e-mail with my boss in Jena, who is traveling at the moment. This week I have to finish about five more projects. At the very least, I can now put on my resume that I'm a great multi-tasker.

I can't wait to come home. I miss water fountains, vanilla extract, and pancakes. I don't know how I'm going to get all my luggage back, but I'm ready to leave Germany. I wish this had been a better trip.