Ugh, today was the first day back at school after our long vacation in France. I was so out of my routine that Sunday night I couldn't figure out what time to set my alarm for. I think that's the sign of a great break haha. I felt a little better this morning. My host mom is so sweet. She had a cup of that tea waiting for me after my shower this morning. I was running late for school, so I didn't have time to let it cool. But my tongue is burnt from yesterday's tea, so I couldn't barely even tell.
We got our German tests back today. Whew that was a rough exam for everyone it seems. We did so bad in fact that our professor decided to just double the other exams' points. I have to say it's nothing like Herr T's exams in high school. My friends decided to go for Doner Kababs, but I just wasn't feeling it today. Instead Anna and I had pizza. Don't judge...sometimes I just have my Italian cravings...a lot actually. The pizza was pretty good. And desert of course! Their ice cream here is much better than ice cream we're used to. All of their ice creams (or at least all the stands I've been to) are more like gellato or a sorbet. They are so creamy and delicious!
Oh and today in German, I kept smelling something horrible. One of my friends, Trevor, was sitting next to me and I just assumed he hadn't showered or something, so I didn't say anything. And then we switched partners and the smell followed. It smelled terrible. The smell followed me to break. Then I realized it must me coming from me. But I showered, all my clothes are clean, what on Earth is it? I saw the bottom of my shoe and there it was....the biggest, most disgusting pile of dog shit ever!!! It was all over my shoe and where the arch is there was a lot. I went outside and tried to scrap it off. Some came off. This dog must have been huge to have so much poop. There was even corn in its poo. Unbelievable! I would be the one to step in this! I was rather pissed. The smell followed the entire day, nothing I did made the smell go away or the poop remnants. All those neat designs on the soles of shoes....they become the devil when you're trying to get poop out.
For my European Business Cultures class today, we had an outing at Universal Music Studios. The S Bahn stopped and I prayed it was not my stop, but sure enough it was. It looked much like the ghetto and all I had seen so far was the station and the tracks. Well, I was only surprised in a bad way. Everything looked so shady! Everyone I passed on the street looked high and crazed out of their minds. I felt like I was in Paris again, guarding my backpack from the thieves. There was such a difference from West Berlin (or at least the parts I've seen) and East Berlin. You can really see the effects of the division of the wall still 20 years later. I can't even explain it sufficiently, but basically just everything was very dirty and trashy. I'm pretty sure the sky clouded over when I arrived in East Berlin haha. But really, it was completely unbelievable how shady everything looked there.
Yesterday when we were driving through East Berlin, my host family told me that I should see the East Side Gallery sometime. It so turns out that my outing for my class was in East Berlin. So Chris and I checked it out. They left a long section of the wall up. Apparently they paid artists to come paint murals on the wall. Some of them are quite gorgeous and unique! I'm really bad with distance, but it stretches a long while. It all looks awesome! But then there are those terrible tourists who have a fetish with seeing their name on everything they see. It's rather sad to me to see all the scribblings on the artwork. I can't understand why they would want to ruin something so beautiful with their "Mandy was here. 8/8/2010" So stupid, in my opinion. I took many pictures of the wall. In fact, pretty much every mural I deemed picture worthy. I am very glad I got there early so that I was able to see the wall!
I don't know the smell of weed, but Chris informed me that it reaked of it here.
I was really surprised that a big business like Universal Music was located in this trashy area, but then I got to their door and saw their gate. That explains it. The inside was amazing!! It seemed you stepped into a palace compared to your outside surroundings. First we hear from the head of Legal. He talked a lot about what they are doing to stop piracy and illegal downloading in Germany. He said they are aiming to catch enough people so that everyone knows someone who got caught. He said this is the only way they can try to combat the sharing. He said the fines range from 200 to 1000 euros. Which is really small compared to what the fines were with the RIAA came through Purdue and other campuses sending out notices. He gave a very interesting discussion and brought up a lot of good points. When someone asked about selling their CDs for a much smaller price, like 3 euros, he strongly opposed this. In fact, he got quite flustered and franticly said that they wouldn't make any money then.
Next we heard from a marketing guy. He was offering internships, but you had to be fluent in German, darn! He gave us a tour of the facility also. It was beyond nice! They have several dishwashers on each floor. It seems they go around and collect their dishes at the end of the day and clean them for tomorrow. Also, all beverages are supplied for them. It also seems they have a little kitchen on some of the floors as well. I love the style of their offices. There are NO CUBES! They actually have offices and big offices at that. It seems about 2-4 people share an office. I would love this! I hated being penned up in my cube all summer, rarely having human interaction. Also, they have very unique things in their offices. Some of them choose to sit on a huge yoga type ball instead of an office chair. They have a gaming room, a lounge, etc. It's a very laid back culture. It also seems that smoking in the office is still legal. Not a fan of this! We had our tour a little before 7PM. Surprisingly there were pretty many people still working at this time. They told us they usually work 10-7. Can I just say, it just gets better and better the more we walked through the office. I found it interesting that they often sat in their offices with the lights off. Some had a worklight over their computer, but some just worked in the dark. Europe and their energy efficiency haha.
It was a really cool place. He said that between 0.5 and 1 out of 10 artists that they sign actually make them any money. The talent acquisition head is under a lot of scrutiny to find talent, and if he doesn't have any successes he is replaced rather quickly. I was really surprised by this fact. The German office seems to operate almost independent of the US ones. They focus on artists in Germany, whether that be Germany-orienated arists or international artists. I loved walking through the offices and seeing all the promotional materials, posters, CDs, etc. I also really like that they have music playing throughout the whole building. I would equate their workplace to that of Google's.
When I got home, I was telling my host dad about my excursion. He works in software computer sales. He got rather heated about the piracy issue I was telling him about. I got about a 20 minute lecture on it all. Everything from how they don't go after everyone to how there is no gray matter, you're either stealing or you aren't. I wasn't quite sure why he was lecturing me on this. I just sat there and listened and agreed. I haven't illegally downloaded music since I was in the 7th grade. I've ripped from CDs, yes. I think he felt better just getting it all off his chest.
Nothing too exciting after that. Tried to read my text for tomorrow, but got distracted, which is pretty easily done considering how boring it is.
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