A Long Day

Guten Tag!

This morning’s worship was once again beautiful, though we did have some difficulty with the sermon being in German and the translators having difficulty keeping up. Our speaker was very fast and didn’t seem to realize that our reactions were going to be delayed until the translation comes through.

I have noticed that they can’t be bothered to keep everything to the schedule. This morning, our legislation session was supposed to be and hour and 45 minutes long. We started 45 minutes late. We only made it through half the legislation that was the goal. The body passed legislation calling for action on climate change, passed a piece of legislation about genocide in the Congo, and tabled a legislation about killings in the Philippines for translation purposes. They called a session for tonight at 9 where we are to deal with legislation about homosexuality and homosexual marriage. These three pieces of legislation were ones that I strongly wanted to be present for. This afternoon was set for excursions, and mine got back extremely late at 9:20. I ran upstairs, got my stuff, and went to the session, just to be told by Kara (who thinks she controls us all) that she filled our spots, so we can’t go in. I am so mad. So upset. I just told Ben, who was also on the excursion with me and is an elected voting delegate. He has gone to try his hand at getting in.

Well, we didn’t get in. We went for a walk instead. Now that I am calm again, I am going to tell you about the rest of the day.

This afternoon was our second excursion. I went on a steamboat trip through Berlin. On the two hour boat ride, we saw many different types of architecture, the back of the Berlin Wall, the Berliner Dom, and several other cool things. As we were waiting in a lock to go down a level, we pulled out granola bars and fed tiny birds from our hands. At one time, I had four birds standing on my hand and several more flying at it. It was a lot of fun. After the boat ride, we went to Charlotteburg Castle. We went inside and saw the reconstructed castle (reconstructed from the bombing in WWII). After the castle, we had dinner and evening prayer at the International United Methodist Church, called the Church of the Resurrection, in German.

This evening, Ben, another girl, and I went walking to calm down some. We walked a lot and eventually sat down at a little restaurant. I went in to buy some apple juice. All that I had left was a 20, so I handed it to the man. He took it, looked at it, and said “Was ist das?” (What is this?). I was very confused and said “zwanzig” (20). He looked at it closely and said, “Israel?” I had handed him 20 shekels. I borrowed some money from Ben and had a good laugh because of it. Apparently, you should always look closely at your foreign currency ☺

Well, I am off to post this and go to bed.

Gute Nacht!