A random assortment of information

Today I got my itinerary for the trip to Paris, and people on the train must have though I was crazy because the whole time I was reading it I had the biggest grin on my face.  I cannot wait!  I'll need to stock up on sleep before I go so that I can spend the maximum amount of hours of the day exploring.  I also plan to eat crêpes and lots of cheese every day, which will do wonders for my frame.  Which brings me to my next point:

I'm going to join the gym on Thursday which I'm really excited about.  I originally thought it was a dumb idea because that was precious time that could be spent exploring Berlin.  But, on second thought, for my physical health (thanks, German eating habits) and mental sanity (physical exercise is mental is also mental exercise. I miss it!), I've changed my mind.  I just have to wait for Ryan to take me to register on Thursday since I can't communicate with the German public.
The gym is called "McFit" which we found really interesting, because a name like that would never fly in the states (because of McDonalds).  Even though there are McDonalds here (...a lot of them). 

Last week I mentioned to my German professor and John, one of the directors of my program, that I was going to make banana bread muffins.  One of them asked me to describe the difference between a cupcake and a muffin.  I started in German, and got confused.  So I switched to English and was still stumped.  I've never thought about it before.  I challenge you to take a good 60 seconds and try to verbalize the difference between the two, without using any America-specific references such as brand names, etc.  You may think "well that's easy, one's desert and one's breakfast".  But that's cultural - why is one for breakfast?  Because our society decided that it'd be an acceptable breakfast food, even though it'd be fine for desert, too.  Tricky!  (Or maybe that's just amusing to my sociologically trained brain - sorry if I've bored you with that paragraph). 

On another note, it's great having Lucy and Lis over here on the same continent/time zone as me.  It's so helpful to share our experiences with each other and be there for some good emotional support.  By seeing everyone's photos from being abroad, we all kind of build up an idea of all of the fun it will be, but never really think about the really difficult and frustrating aspects that we encounter almost daily (nor would we listen to anyone who told us there will be hard times.  Let's be honest, it's even taken me 1 month to admit this on my blog!).  But luckily we're all going through it at the same time, so we don't feel like we're the only person struggling with aspects of life-in-a-culture-you-haven't-studied-for-years.

Mom told me that I should treat myself to one of the (very precious) peppermint patties she sent me, so happy valentines day to me!  

yum yum yum yum yummmm 

Tomorrow I get to have my first experience with the German healthcare system (eeks!) so I'll report back if anything culturally noteworthy occurs!