restless

i can't sleep at night.


In other news.

Customs seized my package. They want me to travel an hour away by bus to Ludwigsfelde to pay duty on my used personal belongings and some homemade nobake cookies that are going stale as we speak.

I was paid. It is a nice feeling, not worrying about money as much. I bought a blanket at Galeria Kaufhof, it is soft and blue and warm. It makes the nights much better. Plus, tomorrow, I can buy an alarm clock that will actually wake me up in the morning, since the travel alarm I have now just isn't quite strong enough. I also convieniently checked my account balance just before leaving for berlin. I'd planned on window shopping, walking around Alexanderplatz and the Haeckescher Markt, just looking. But I could buy my blanket and some soap from lush and not feel too guilty, since I actually had money in the bank, sooner than I'd expected. I bought a small chunk of one of their new soaps, Sultana of Soap, it smells great. I only got a tiny peice though...I like having a lush so nearby. I can get tiny samples of each soap, a new bar each month, try them all. It's a nice treat for myself. Sometimes, I am easy to please.

I am also slowly meeting people. It's kind of weird. There are 2 other american girls, I've met one of them. But there are a lot of foreign students, and they're all VERY interested in me, but only very briefly, when they find out that I am an american. They all want to know what I think of europe, how it is being so far from home, why I chose to learn german, and oh you speak so well. I say thank you, I ask the questions back, oh what are you studying, why did you choose potsdam, etc. and then...they kinda drift back to their group of 20 other french students, or 13 other polish girls, speaking their native tongues. Even the three irish girls spoke irish with each other, not english. And i mean the celtic language compleately unrelated to any other language in the world. how secretive of them.

But meeting people is coming along, slowly but surely. There are a lot of nice people. They're all genuine when they talk with me, we exchange where we live, it should be fun, we'll see each other, first at the bus stop on a regular basis, then at the erasmus parties and bar nights, then eventually we'll be having parties in the kitchen, drinking coffees together, them filling up the ashtrays. It's just hard right now because I don't have my group like everyone else does. Right now, the french hang with the french, the russians with the russians, poles with poles, even the two belgians are joined at the hip. Unfortunately, the one of the two americans I've met doesn't speak german and therefore doesn't come out much. She lives with a canadian girl, who also speaks no German. I don't have any way to contact them, they live in another part of town, and they never come to the organized events because they're all in german and they just feel lost. But maybe next time I run into them, we can organize a trip to IKEA.

Wednesday through Sunday I'd like to take a trip. I have these days free, before I go back to teaching school. Where should I go?