berlin, its cold

So being in Berlin is very interesting. It is not a exceptionally beautiful city nor is it really ugly. it seems to be just a city. it is very obvious where in the city the russians occupied, mainly because the architecture. It is winter and there are about 5 hours of daylight during the day and if you happen to miss even one of them you feel cheated. I find myself hungry all the time, and it takes me a couple of hours to wake up in the morning. i think this is somehow related to the temperature and the daylight. today the sun came out for about an hour and everyone looked like meercats warming their bellies in the sunlight. eventhough the sun showed its face only slightly above the treeline it felt amazing. This woman actually almost pushed me to get a better view of the sun. It snowed like a foot a few days before i got here and it hasnt melted yet. the snow is begining to turn brown from some mysterious brown water that i guess is just a part of living in the city. I also am learning how many layers it takes before you are warm/looking stupid. yesterday i was borderline looking stupid and today i was borderline cold. i think i have only reached equilibrium one time.

i have been in search of coffee all the time because of the constant tiredness i feel, and yesterday i found coffee for 1 euro. i think that was quite a score. today we went to a coffee shop that was ultra trendy. there were a bunch of students with their macs in there studying something. mario hates macs and he seemed to believe that they were doing something unproductive. nonetheless the place was nice, two stories, had food, was warm, and im guessing lots of power outlets. afterwards i went to a couple of sight seeing places, i got to see the US embassy with guards all around it, and we ate at an australian resturant. The food was really good but i dont think the waiter liked us.

Interesting facts about berlin/germany

-the letters z and y are swapped on the keyboard. at first i was very confused but now i realize it completley. i have not yet heard or seen a german word with a y in it. yet all of them seem to have a z. its like another vowel to them

-people arent that polite, though they seem to follow the rules by the book, like crossing the street, letting people pass, general traffic rules, general other unwritten rules, they seem to have skipped manners class. we were walking on the sidewalk a few days ago and generally its a large sidewalk but because of the snow it was very narrow. this woman with a stroller was coming towards us and like normal people we let her pass. but of course she didnt say anything or even look up. i think she may have even given us the stink eye. and this has happened many times with different people. i have been given the stink eye alot on the train, where in most societies it is acceptable to push because people are always taking their time, here no way. if you push someone you are in no way forgiven. even if it was by accident.