"Tut me leid, my deutsch is nicht so gut.."

The above phrase translates literally to "I'm sorry, my German isn't very good" but what it meant in my case was, "I'm sorry, I've taken three semesters of German and shouldn't choke under pres sue, but apparently I am choking. So don't hate me and my country." I spent a lot of my time mumbling this shamefacedly to every German native speak I attempted conversation with. But at least I attempted right?! Most of my group mates don't know any German at all so I give myself kudos for knowing a little, but man, I know what I want to say, yet when I say it Germans look at me like I'm on crack until I repeat it four or five more times and then they repeat it, correctly, pointedly so, like, "oh finally, I understand your infantile nonsense, stupid American" and I tuck my tail between my legs and cry. This exact instance occurred several times today.

I hate orientations. One thing I hate more than orientations are icebreakers. Needless to say, both occurred today. We did "two truths, one lie" and I was proud, mine were "my least favorite food is pickles," "I was born on an air force base in the Philippines," and "If I were on the show 'Made' I'd be made into a country music star." Unfortunately, while I thought these were tricky and probing, we had just filled out German VISA applications and the girl sitting next to me said, "I saw on your passport you were born in Ohio." Damn. But mine wasn't the worst, Li, an exchange student from China, said two facts about himself and then said, "wait, do I have to make up a lie for my third one?" Um....fail. Just another reason why icebreakers are awful.

If the icebreakers weren't painful enough, we also had to listen to two horrible slide show presentations; one on safety with tips such as"avoid public urination and skin heads" and another on the metro, which was basically a map. Fascinating. But one great thing was that we were all so bored we talked and got to know each other better during these little outings. I met this girl from Colorado, originally from Texas, named Jessica and she seems very cool and interesting. She's a senior and this is her last semester, and since she doesn't have to go back she's just planning on moving to Berlin. JEALOUS.

After grueling orientation minutia, we had dinner as a group at a Thai restaurant. I had a good chat with a guy named Sam from Fargo, but was blocked from talking to too many other people since Andrew and Allie were too busy talking about common people they knew from New England prep schools. I'm telling you the East Coast is INCESTUOUS. So Sam and I, both being from the Midwest, made fun of both them under our breath and said things like, "Will you be taking summers in the cape this year or in the Hamptons?"

After dinner a few of us went to a bar/hookah bar and just hung out. I had a really good conversation with Andrew and Jessica, although I was sad I was separated from some other members of our group who went the wrong way or something and probably went to another bar. This was the time when I did my most apologizing for my German. The waitress spoke no English, I speak bad German, and no one else in the group of 7 spoke a word, so I was translating, pointing to Limes, ordering SoCo, and hoping everything came out alright. In the end I left her a bigger tip than is typical in Europe, I was so ashamed of my idiocy.

Tomorrow we have the whole afternoon off to explore so I think some more German fun is getting ready to unfold.