Guten tag from Berlin!
This blog is now moving on from my India experiences to the next chapter
of this adventure- a year in Germany.
Today marks one week since I arrived, and I am loving it so far. Since this week has been a whirlwind of new
experiences, new people, and a new job, I figured I would provide my top 5
highlights from the week (sorry for the length- it was a busy week!!):
1. Bambinim: This year I will be working at
Bambinim, a center that offers Jewish programming for families with young
children (ages 0-6). This week, I
attended 4 different Bambinim classes.
The kids did arts and crafts, sang songs, baked challah, and played
games. The classes are divided into German, Israeli,
and Russian families (each on a different day), and the teachers speak to the
kids in their native language. Of
course, I was only really able to speak to the Israeli kids, but since they’re
so young and speak basic Hebrew, maybe my Hebrew will improve this year! Here are some photos from the Israeli class:
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Aleph Bet Bingo |
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Shabbat candlestick holders |
2. Bee-keeping for Rosh Hashanah: Liora (the other
JSC Germany fellow) and I decided to go to a honey harvesting event in the
spirit of Rosh Hashanah. The event took
place at a beautiful urban garden. We
went to the beehives and took some sheets of honeycomb (they leave most of it
for the bees), scraped the wax off, put the sheets in a centrifuge, and then
filled jars with the final product. We even picked some apples from the garden
to have with our honey to have a real Rosh Hashanah celebration. The people were really nice, and there was a
woman there who went to UCLA- small world! Here are some photos from the day:
3. Soccer tournament: I got an email from a sports
club saying that they needed extra players for an all-day soccer tournament,
and since I miss playing, I agreed to go.
They told me there would be other girls, but out of the 100+ people
there, I was the ONLY girl. The teams were all intense- they had matching uniforms and cheering fans, and they were playing dirty. But my team was relaxed and just wanted to have a good time, so we just laughed at the competitive players. The boys were of course stronger than me, and these 2 guys kept shoving and elbowing me, so I shoved them back and managed to score 2 goals on them- suckers! I made friends with the 3 guys on my team, and we got free beer at the end (so typical- everything in Germany involves beer).
4. Alternative Shabbat: Last night, I went to an
alternative potluck Shabbat, led by a group of young Jewish Berliners. When I got to the place, I was looking around
for the group, and a random guy came up to me and just said, “Follow me.” I followed him up a staircase to a dimly-lit
room, where people were sitting on the ground around some candles. We sang Shabbat songs, accompanied by several
instruments, including some weird accordion-piano thing, and then we had
dinner. It was definitely an
interesting, alternative experience!
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On my way home, I stumbled upon a bunch of people watching the Bayern-Chelsea game outside! |
5. Exploring Berlin: Anna, a German girl who works
at Bambinim, has been great about showing us different areas. I didn’t realize what a cool city Berlin
is! It’s so artsy and alternative, and
Liora and I keep saying that everywhere we go, we feel like we’re in fairy tale land. Everybody is outside, taking advantage of the good weather, and people sit together at outdoor cafes and beer gardens until late at night. We checked out a few beer gardens already. In one of them, a fox walked right in! A few days ago, Liora and I did a
free walking tour of the city to see all the touristy sites, which I really
enjoyed. There is so much history here-
you feel it everywhere you go.
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Brandenburg Gate |
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Holocaust memorial |
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Berlin Wall |
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Tree huggers! |
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At the park near my apartment |
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Beer garden in the park! |
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Prost! |