St. Nicholas Day

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One of the holidays I was able to celebrate on December 6, was the day of St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas is a Turkish saint who is known as the gift giver. On the night of December 5, « St. Nicholas » comes to deliver small gifts in shoes. After waking up to such nice gifts on the 6 of December, I can imagine that many children around Germany were able to get double the gifts for their holidays. I enjoyed this holiday very much and I now can share a holiday that my country does not celebrate. I’m always up for exchanging what is new to me!

Rügen, Germany

This past weekend took me to a very popular site in Germany! Rügen is Germany’s largest island and is known as the place for summer holidays not only to locals, but also for outside tourist! When I visited the island, it wasn’t the exact time to be there, but the region’s landscape is beautiful. I can already see why many people come to swim in the Baltic Sea and enjoy the hot weather at this place.

As someone who grew up near a body of water, Lake Michigan, the Baltic Sea was my favorite place to see in Rügen. The waves were strong and the sand was full with seashells, muscles, seaweed, and rocks. The view was breathtaking and I can’t wait to come back in the summer to jump into the water!

I took photos to capture the specialties of Rügen.

Die Hühnergotter

Rugen

Der Hühnergott is Rügen’s specialty and can only be found in Germany’s North and East sea coast. Within a minute of starting search for the special rock I became lucky! The perfect rock consist of having a hole on each side. While searching I sometimes noticed a hole, but then noticed that the other side did not have one.  Die Hühnergotter comes to be a free gift to bring from Rugen and my collection continues to grow though my visits. This special rock is one of a kind and I’m glad I came across its uniqueness.

Rugen 3

No better way to send a message than writing it in the sand! Since I was going to post the photo on social media, I figured I would say hello in a special way and show where I was!

Rugen 4

The weather was very cold and I think you may be able to tell by the way I was dressed! At this time last year I was in Spain so the cold weather is something I’m currently adjusting to.

I hope to show you many more of the places I have been to in Germany next time.

Until next time,

Sam P.

Vorweihnachtliche Grüße vom Schloss Charlottenburg

Wunderschöne Weihnachtszeit!! Vielen Dank an alle, die mit uns gestern auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt am Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin, den eisigen Temperaturen getrotzt haben. 🙂 Wir wünschen euch allen einen tolles Wochenende, einen gemütlichen 3. Advent und freuen uns schon auf unseren nächsten Ausflug.
Eure DeutschAkademie 

Weihnachtsmarkt

Liebe DeutschAkademiker/innen in Berlin, wer möchte uns am Donnerstag zum Weihnachtsmarkt am Schloss Charlottenburg begleiten? 🙂 Wir freuen uns schon sehr darauf.
Eure DeutschAkademie

From Chicago to Berlin!

Hallo! Hello! My name is Sam and I am a student at DeutschAkademie. I was born and raised in the windy city also known as, Chicago,Illinois. To be in Berlin at this time does not surprise me too much, nor do I believe that it surprises my mother. I grew up in a bilingual household, speaking English and Spanish throughout the days. In high school, I studied Russian and studied abroad in Moscow,Russia and I then I finished my Bachelor’s degree by studying in Barcelona. Today, I am in the city of Berlin learning German! I will tell you how I got to this lovely city.

When we travel we often go to places where we have family and friends. After meeting Germans at my language camp in Moscow in 2010, I told them I would one day come back to visit them. Fast forward to 2015, I now had the chance to visit them during my December holiday break! I was excited and nervous to go to a country for the first time where I didn’t speak one bit of the language. My holiday travels with friends took me through cities like Flensburg, Hamburg, Lübeck , and last but not least: Berlin.

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During my first week in Berlin in December of 2014 with the ampelman, the symbol for crossing in Berlin.

I arrived in Berlin on a bus from near Hamburg. To say the least, I was nervous not knowing  any German, though by spending a week with my friend and her family I had already picked up the essential phrases such as thank you, see you later, good morning, and bye. Though I couldn’t tell you what I could find in Berlin. A week into seeing the city, I truly fell in love. I told myself « I would totally live here if I spoke German ».  After seeing many spaces and places, I returned to the city after I graduated.

A month into being here, I began my course with Deutche Akademie. The four week intensive course has given me already so much knowledge of the German language in my first week. I am not the same person I was when I visited in December of 2014 because now I have a sense of what the city of Berlin is like and I can now say some complete phrases in German thanks to learning in my course!

I hope you join me through this journey of being in Berlin and at DeutschAkademie!

Bis zum nächsten mal (see you next time),

Sam

Stammtisch im Dezember

So war unser Stammtisch im Dezember. Danke an euch alle fürs Kommen und die geniale Stimmung. Herzlichen Glückwunsch noch einmal an das Gewinnerteam LUKK. Wir würden uns freuen, die fertigen Häuschen zu sehen 😉 Wir freuen uns schon jetzt, euch alle beim nächsten Stammtisch im Januar, wieder zu sehen 🙂 🙂
Euer TEAM der DeutschAkademie BERLIN

1. Stammtisch im Dezember

‘+++Stammtisch in BERLIN+++

Auch im Dezember gibt es wieder einen Stammtisch in Berlin. Am Donnerstag, 03.12.2015 treffen wir uns ab 20 Uhr im gemütlichen Café Berio am Nollendorfplatz. Wir freuen uns schon auf einen lustigen Abend mit euch und hoffen euch wieder zahlreich begrüßen zu können!

Euer DeutschAkademie-Team in BERLIN

 

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Berliner Unterwelten im November

Vielen Dank für eure zahlreiche Teilnahme bei der Tour durch die Berliner Unterwelten letzten Freitag! Wir hoffen, dass ihr trotz der schwierigen Themen einen besseren Eindruck von den ehemaligen Luftschutzanlagen unter Berlin bekommen konntet und Wissenswertes mitgenommen habt! Ich selbst war sehr erstaunt, dass ein Rohrpostsystem unter der Erde existierte. Was fandet ihr interessant? Danke nochmals für eure nette Begleitung und bis zum nächsten Mal!

So war der 2. Stammtisch im November

Ihr Lieben!! Das war gestern ein gelungener Stammtisch und ein toller Auftakt in unserer neuen Location Café Berio am Nollendorfplatz. Vielen Dank, dass ihr diesen wunderbaren Abend mit uns geteilt habt.
Wir sehen euch bei unserem nächsten Stammtisch Anfang Dezember 🙂
Euer DeutschAkademie Team

Tschüss Prenz und Hallo Friedrichshain!

So, first off, I finally found a flat! It took blasting out what felt like hundreds of emails to get a handful of appointments and thats how I ended up meeting my new flatmates. Sounds simpler than it felt. And this weekend I said:

Tschüss Prenz und Hallo Friedrichshain!

Prenz-F'Hain

(Left: My first Kiez – Prenzlauer Berg. Right: My new Kiez – Friedrichshain)


But back to why you’re probably reading this post. I have to admit I really like the courses. Luisa, our instructor ‘Montag bis Mittwoch’ and Heike, Donnerstag und Freitag, patiently teach us using the least amount of English possible and instead first explain things using the most basic German, which in a course of 10 students with 10 different nationalities can get complicated, to say the least. Their patience and attitude have been great. And we’ve definitely tested their patience, like when we all started questioning the infamous German ‘case system’ (Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dative, Genitiv) on our second week. But they handled it like champs.

Mondays are usually the hardest days to get back into the rhythm of German, so I decided to add a little comedy to the start of my week. If you want to start your week off with some good laughs, head over to Belushi’s for Cosmic Comedy on Mondays.

Cosmic-Comedy

So now that I managed to secure a roof over my head, I can get back to learning German without the added pressure of homelessness looming over my every thought. Bis Bald!