A Rollercoaster of Ups and Downs This Week

Monday was a little bit of a wash, even though I made sure I didn't sleep till 3 pm again. It was storming in the morning, but mid-afternoon I headed over to a nicer part of the city called Penzlauerberg I think. There was a guitar shop over there, but as I assumed, it was closed. But I got to get outside and walk around for a little bit, and it was nice while I was out. I got back to my place and then the skies opened up with some cool thunder and lightning, but that also meant I wasn't exploring any parts of Berlin on my day off. Monday night I skyped with my mom and my sister which was very nice... I miss everyone at home a LOT. It's good that I was able to talk to them, because right around the stroke of 11 pm, my internet was like "Hey, for no reason we just logged you out...log in again!" So I'm sitting there, very skeptical-like, and tried to log back in. "Login war fehlgeschlagen" - Login failed. Incorrect user name and password. So I try again. and again. And I'm getting more and more pissed off each fehlgeschlagen-ed login. Finally I'm like, Level 5 pissed (www.twitter.com/OGOchoCinco/status/7633188144). I abandoned all hope and was just upset with the entire country of Germany for making me leave my family and friends, and then taking my only way to connect to them.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings the one guy for this building has office hours...7 to 10 am. So I made damn sure I was awake, went down there, introduced myself, and let him know what was going on. He said he'd talk with IT and the problem would be fixed "By 3 pm." No problem, I was going to be at work until like 7 or 8 pm. So I went to the university, and most of the day I didn't have much to do...so I edited Steffen's paper, since English ist not his Muttersprache. I definitely understand what my German teacher goes through when he has to read all these essays and they come back with so much red on them. I used the "Track Changes" feature in Microsoft Word...to give you an idea, in addition to the notes it saves in the margins, it added 3 pages of annotations of things I changed. The paper from 5 pages and I think it took me more or less an hour a page. And I'm not saying my German is any better, not even close. I'm just saying...at times my head hurt and I just had to get up and walk away. I'm sure it would be no different if the roles were reversed.

So I got home Tuesday night, sat at my computer, tried to log in, and BAM...nothing. So of course, I'm very pissed. Then I spot a piece of paper on my floor...it has new login and password information. Great, except "It works not today it works after tomorrow at 10." Great, that is exactly the 3 pm that I was expecting. And of course, in bold at the bottom it says "Only one PC may be logged on." like I brought 5 computers and was logging them each in. So I didn't do much Tuesday night except play some computer games. Rousing fun, and something I definitely couldn't be doing in the US. Oh right! I also broke my headphones Tuesday night, so I asked Nadia where I could get more. She said I should go up two subway stops and there will be a big store I could get some in. Well, she lied. IT WAS A BIG MALL!! Hello America, I could literally hear God Bless America in the background. There was a Saturn store inside the mall, which is 100% like a Best Buy except with a gray and orange scheme as opposed to the blue and yellow. I have definitely found the place to knock out some shopping.

Wednesday was another day behind the computer just titrating sample after sample...I think I got through like 20 samples the entire day. It was lonely, boring work. But I talked with Oli a lot throughout the day, and found out Thursday we'd get the day off because there was some big conference that Steffen had to be at. So THAT was cool, Matthias and Andreas invited me to check out a museum that they were going to. They have definitely been very nice and friendly to me, though that doesn't help much at night when I'm just chilling in my apartment. At least the days are cool.

Wednesday night I got home and wanted to try my internet, since I had to leave before 10 am. Of course, NOTHING, and now I'm in an internet cafe, paying for internet on top of internet I already paid for, except this one actually works. God it is infuriating. Luckily, since I have the day off tomorrow (not going to the museum until after lunch) I am going to talk with "Herr Redder" again. And by talk I mean say, "Hey, so this internet still doesn't work. Lucky for you I'm not going anywhere so you need to call IT now and get this fixed in the next 5 minutes, or I will throw sauerkraut all over your suit." ...something like that.

I had found this ad on Craigslist (they have that for Berlin! Awesome) for a Rover travel guitar...hit up google images, it was so cool, the case is the size of my violin's case, but the guitar has a full sized neck...just a smaller body so softer sound. And I am not trying to go play a concert with this thing. It came with a case and a strap and it was dirt cheap, so I couldn't NOT buy it. I am very very pleased. It more or less made up for the German lying to me about my internet being fixed.