Berlin Beginnings

Guten Tag!

Greetings from Germany!

I arrived this morning at 8 AM Germany time, 2 AM Indiana time, after absolutely no sleep since 6:30 yesterday in Indiana. Needless to say, we have several tired and grumpy young people crammed into one hotel.

I haven’t had much time to do anything today. We got back to the hotel, cleaned up, and then after much deliberation, we set out in search of some German food and cheap internet. Our first real exposure to Germany was in the internet café. We entered, asked, in German, if the man behind the counter spoke English, and he did not. Dani and I proceeded to have a half hand gesture and half broken Germ conversation to discover the hours and prices of the internet. We were quite proud of our skills at holding a conversation with somebody who understood less English than we understood German.

We then proceeded to a tiny restaurant where we attempted to order from the man, who once again only spoke German. Eventually the owner came out and helped us order, but he didn’t speak much English either. I had chicken schnitzel on some kind of pita with the hot sauce that I cannot identify.

We wandered a little bit through the small streets of this part of Berlin and were walking through a non-touristy but safe area where people actually live. Even though I did not have time to visit any of the top Berlin sites, I still am happy because we experienced real people in Berlin.

This evening we begin the conference, the Global Young People’s Convocation and Legislative Assembly. We will have dinner, a worship service, and then a discussion about one of the more controversial pieces of legislation. I volunteered to read at the worship tonight. If anything interesting happens tonight, I will let you know, but otherwise, you will hear more tomorrow!

Chao!