Ay yo!  I can't believe it but my first month in Freiburg is already finished.  This past month was a whirlwind of German speaking and people meeting madness, and I loved ever minute of it!  I had my last day of class before the actual semester starts on Friday, and it was actually kind of sad.  I met some really great friends there.  On Wednesday, in class, we watched some comics made by Loriot, a famous German cartoonist.  One especially funny one is about a old couple that are bickering at breakfast about a hard boiled egg that is too hard.  You can see it here: (warning: non-german speakers will probably not think it is as funny) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V13tFp-M1No  So, after watching this sketch our teacher gave us the text and we paired off to act it out.  Pretty fun.  Then, as the story goes, I must have zoned out.  When I snapped back to the class room, our teacher was asking for volunteers to perform the skit.  No body was budging; no body wanted to do it.  So, of course, I gave in.  No biggie.  I picked my friend Katie to do it with me, thinking that it would just be in front of our class of 12 on the last day.  Well, turns out I was wrong.   Friday rolled around and class finished up early because we had a closing ceremony with all the other classes from the Sprachlehr Institut.  On the way to the ceremony, Katie says to me, "Alena I cannot believe you volunteered us to do the skit in front of everyone at the ceremony."  Haha.  Good one.  "Wait, what?!"  Yes, it is true.  But, it actually went alright.  People laughed, at least.  It probably helped that there was free champagne (which I happily partook of before going on stage).  


So, now we have a break for all of April.  Such a long time!  The break would not typically be this long but because Easter (which also happens to be my birthday this year) is late, so they added another week.  On Monday I will be going to Berlin, staying in a hostel there for three nights, then going to Prague for another 3 nights. After that we will come home for two days, then leave again for Italy.  I am excited for all of the places that we will be traveling, but I think I am most excited for the first place we are going in Italy.  Its called Cinque Terre and it is a series of 5 little towns on the rockjaggedy/mountainy northwestern coast.  We will ride a train into Levonto and then hike our way down to La Spezia, making stops at the towns in between.  Super stoked.  After that, its Rome, Florence and Venice.  I guess I'll be getting in touch with my true, Italian roots ;)  Then home!  I am sure I will be completely dirty, smelly and and tired of cheap, street food by the time I get back to Freiburg...


I suppose I will be talking to everyone in a week or so.  tschau!