the pit in my stomach is finally gone.

i still have worries, get nervous, feel lonely, think too much, but it feels different. it feels like the aches of everyday life rather than some insurmountable pain.

my german is getting better. katja commented on it the other night. also irene, a girl from my class, said it seems natural for me. sometimes, if i'm speaking in english i accidentally use german phrases. other times, i realize i'm hearing german without having to translate it in my mind, but am just understanding it rather. all of these things are thrilling to me. i read everything. i read signs. i read food labels. i read the personals and flyers. i read t-shirts and bumper stickers and graffiti. what i don't understand, i try to infer or write down to discover later. when i am somewhere new and am unsure of how things work, i watch the person ahead of me. when i am walking in a new area, i note the street names and turn around often to see what it should look like walking back. i write notes about everything- moments i want to remember, phrases i hear, names of people i meet. i am inundated with an entire world suddenly. while my surroundings used to simply surround me, now they are a part of me. i am constantly looking, watching, listening. i feel aware of the world in a way i haven't for a long time.

one funny thing i've noticed is that most germans do not listen to ipods while walking or riding their bikes. whereas in san francisco, at least every other person travels around with a white cord coming out of either ear, here people seem to be listening. i am trying to follow this example and occasionally remove the noise from my ears to listen. just listen to the world here and see what it has to say.

the world is saying so much.

it has all been surprising. this whole experience is a surprise to me.

while i envisioned myself, lying on my bed crying every night, i've barely spent any time at home. monday i met up with my old san francisco neighbor gerardo, who now lives in berlin. we went to a cafe in rosenthaler platz and had beers and shared experiences of being an ausländer* (per lindsay's request, i will provide translations for those, die nicht deutsch sprechen können. please refer to the end of the entry for said translations) here. we talked for hours and i realized, yet again, how precious it is to be near someone who knows you, even casually.

and then yesterday i had my first, completely unprompted invitation.

irene, jacob, and leda asked if i'd like to go to the komische oper* with them to see requiem- a theatrical adaptation of mozart's requiem.

i was elated.

the theater was ornate, baffling, incredible. as was the opera. it was not so much an opera as it was a wild collection of various types of media. there were actors, singers, film clips, tv screens, an orchestra. i couldn't understand most of what was being said, but i almost liked it better. to witness just through sound and facial expressions, through tempo and body language. it was vibrant and terrifying. they were obviously discussing death, religion, mortality, christ, society... laudy topics i could feel their emotions toward. i filled in the blanks with some combination of my own feelings on the topics and the feelings they suggested through their actions. at the end, everyone applauded for an endless 7 or 8 minutes. everything was concurrently awkward and lovely. scary and moving. strange and familiar. it was, indeed, komisch. komisch suggests something both amusing and odd at the same time. i felt this. i felt it through the language, even though i didn't understand it.
afterwards, i ate a pretzel and went to christian's cafe.
we drank beers and talked. we bought tickets to a concert next weekend. we are friends.
i came home late and fell asleep with the sun again. the sun is my new lullaby.

i think, of all things, i am realizing how strange and singular we are. i wake up in the morning and don't wait for anyone. i am not expecting any calls. i barely notice i have a phone. i am my own day.
i am reconstructing my ideas of friendship. it is wonderful to realize that friends enhance our existence, but do not define it, that i require no specific other person to get through the day, that i am, in fact, enough. to love, then, is a gift. 

i do not always feel good. i do not always feel okay. i don't expect that i ever will, as life moves in unexpected ways. today i fainted in the bathroom. i think i am just overwhelmed. i came home early and am wearing my new ugly house pants that germans like and will maybe watch german tv. and it is all okay. it is all a part of the experience. i am excited to see what happens next. what i will read. what i will see. what i will hear. what i will uncover. what will reveal itself to me.

wortschatz (vocabulary)

ausländer- foreigner

komische oper- comical opera/ strange opera