Pictures, as promised

 Me excited at the airport

 A view from the window of our plane

 One of many construction sites in Berlin

 A unique way of storing cars found at Janet's hotel

 Der Ampelmann

 Das Deutsche Theater

 Everything here is so beautiful and green!

 A casual snapshot of our fellow Bahn passengers

 U-Bahn train from the outside.

 Janet proudly displaying some graffiti

 Der Alex Fernsehturm

 View from the S-Bahn

 One of many dogs casually wandering around Berlin without a leash.

 Ein Stolperstein

 Old East Berlin architecture juxtaposed with the saniert versions.

 Lugging Janet's stuff from one hotel to another

Arrival and Exploration

 Views outside the airplane window as we descended in Berlin.

 Our lovely airplane dinner.


 12 hours later (18 with the time difference), Teryn and I arrived in Germany to this and more gorgeous views. Getting past Passkontrolle and retrieving our baggage was a breeze. We met Janet outside in the lobby, received two free AB train/bus passes from passing strangers, and immediately set off on our adventure for the day.
    We took the bus and the Bahn to the hostel where I'm now posting this from (at 1 AM, no less) to drop off our stuff before heading off to explore the city. We experienced the various stops and connections that we'll be using during the rest of the time here. We spent some time walking around the gorgeous streets of Berlin (the architecture is astounding, and I've yet to see a tree here that wasn't just bursting with the spirit of spring) and getting used to the trickier stops and then had lunch at Café Sur in Schöneberg, where we got to try some delicious Rhabarbersaft and the popular vegetable of the season: white asparagus. The rest is kind of a blur (we're in the process of getting over our jet lag), but I know that we stopped by Morus 14, where I'll be interning after our program, a couple different malls and shops where we picked up phones, towels, and umbrellas, and Janet's various hotels and places of residence before finally taking the tram back to where our hostel is located and crashing for a couple hours.
   Upon waking up, since Janet was still at a ballet located in some Techno club, we went for a walk and stumbled upon a grocery store, where we saw just how much cheaper food here can be (less than €1 for like 6 loaves of bread!!!) and a Turkish restaurant, where I got to enjoy my first (but certainly not last) Döner.
    Once Janet got back, we went to see the Brandenburger Tor, Holocaust memorial, and Potsdamer Platz, all places well worth waiting to visit at night.
  Overall, the day was exhausting, overwhelming, and informative in all the best ways, and I'm looking forward to taking some more time over the next few weeks to take a closer look.  Pictures will be uploaded later.

Here, Have Some of My Pre-Trip Anxiety

Well I have officially lost the ability to make a decision. Two or three pairs of pants? Video camera or digital? Purse or drawstring bag? I spent all day yesterday trying on different pants and crossing out and rewriting items on my what-to-pack list. By the time dinner rolled around, my mom found me lying defeated on my bedroom floor, a different pair of pants on each leg, tearing up about which notebook to bring (or something just as ridiculous). She asked me to decide on a restaurant and I almost had a conniption.
I'm excited for this trip, I really am. But I am so glad I was able to read the Art of Travel, because De Botton untangled the ball of anxiety in my chest and reminded me exactly what I was afraid of. Traveling will not change who I am-I will still be the anxiety-ridden, sarcastically terrified, novice-German-speaker Molly, just on a different continent. And what this reading assured me was that that is ok. Being in Berlin will not change the fact that sometimes I get sad or scared or nervous, and yeah, Berlin is going to be amazing and wonderful and beautiful, but I can't go in expecting paradise. De Botton sums it up perfectly when he describes how no one ever thinks about "the journey through the afternoon." The one filled with plane tickets limp from the sweat of your palms, not entering the correct compartment and dragging your suitcase through the hallway of the now-moving train, not knowing if you're being ripped off by a taxi driver, staring out the window of a car and hoping to god this is not the neighborhood you'll be living in. It's almost-missed flights and miscommunications and awkward back sweat and sleep deprivation.
Have I got everyone excited yet??
But really, this is the reality of travel that I am nervous about it-just the traveling in between places. Once we set our bags down in our apartment, I will be stress free. But until then, the constipated look on my face is called anxiety, and I'd appreciate it if it didn't get caught on camera, thanks guys.
Now I feel like I should talk about something other than my fears (I'll pause a moment here to allow time for Kerry to psychoanalyze those first couple paragraphs)
All of that aside, I really am beyond excited. We've spent a whole semester reading and learning about these different facets of Berlin-Das Kunstseidene Mädchen, Traudl Junge, Micha Kuppisch-all these complex and amazingly different stories, all set in front of the same backdrop. Berlin is basically a confused teenager, just like us, still finding its identity (#salemberlin), and I can't wait to be immersed in it, seeing first-hand all of it's history and growth.
And of course, the theater. I keep telling people that I will be seeing theater almost every night on this trip, and they keep grimacing at me as if to say, "and you're happy about that?" But I really am, and I can't think of a better sherpa to german theater than our very own Janet Hegman-Shier. Reading these plays out loud in Theaterkreis was interesting, but I can't even imagine seeing some of them live. I've been practicing my clapping skills for those long German applauses and everything.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go empty my packed suitcase onto the floor of my room and just completely start over. I've still got, what, twenty five hours until I have to be at the airport? All the time in the world.
I'll see y'all in Deutschland!