I HATE ANTS!

Well, this weekend was nothing but more adventures. It seems to be that it would be too easy to just find something on the first try, so instead I get my exercising walking around Berlin lost. Yesterday morning I had decided that I was going to go to a soccer game to scope out the teams and see the level of play. I woke up extra early to make sure I had enough time to get to the place and I even added excess time because I may get lost. So I get on the train and do a couple switch-a-roos and end up at my final destination, Messe Sud. All I have is a little map on my Itouch that I had emailed to myself so I could find the fields once I left the train station. Even though, I still didn’t know which way to go, so I took my best guess. Soon enough I realize I am by a fairground, so I just follow the fence until I see the road that the game is on, HadlichstraBe, 44. I walk down this road and see lots of field lights in the distance and assume I am going the right direction. It was weird, the whole time I couldn’t figure out if these hut like things I was passing were houses or cabins or something else. They were in the middle of this huge sports complex. Not sure. I finally come to a sign that resembles something of the sorts that I am looking for, so I let myself through some locked gate and walk around. I literally felt like I had just entered an Indian Reservation. I was walking through forests with small buildings randomly throughout, but yet there were soccer fields and then random tennis courts. I saw a couple track runners, and then I saw some people playing soccer from a distance, so I figured it was them, but nope false alarm it was some old dudes playing pick-up. I continue through the forest, hiking in my Ugglike boots again (clearly bad luck), and I see some more people playing some sort of running and scoring sport. False alarm again, it was field hockey. Don’t worry this is only the beginning of the emotional roller coaster. At this point I am a little frustrated because it is about 10:30 and game time is at 11:00, so you would think they would be warming up. Oh I forgot to mention, I saw a girl wearing a warm up from the team that was playing, but I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t know if she knew English and since I was scouting it would be weird if later down the road I join the team and she is like, “Oh you were that random girl I saw roaming in the forest that one Saturday.” So all in all at this point I decide maybe they were playing inside, so I go and start peering into windows of random bubble-like/dome buildings and see if there was women’s soccer being played, but nope just more tennis.

At this point I am sweating because I am dressed for winter and I can’t take my jacket off because I am pit stain Pete beyond belief, so I ask some old couple, “Sprechen sie English? And put together “Regionalliga Fussball?” but I guess asking if they know English means I know fluent German because she just starts talking a million miles a minute in German and I just nod my head because I figured it was too late to pull the go to phrase, “Ich kann kein Deutsch.” I politely head on my way towards a faint whistle blow that I hear, which requires walking through another “Indian Reservoir/forest”  and see a game going on and I am like, “YES, FINALLY!!”, mind you it is five minutes past eleven. Sure enough, I walk up and it is a men’s game. My roomie had sent me with a bag of cookies for the day so I decide to reward myself with one. I find two guys to ask, first if they know (they knew English), and then about the game. They point me back to the first location I was at. Perfect. I head back over to the place I was and I walk in this building and find a girls team. Which by this time it is 11:30. So clearly the game is not happening at 11:00. I go and sit on a bench outside in the forest, but don’t let the team out of sight.  I read/pray for a bit and wait it out. I finally grow impatient and decide to ask some man (later find out he is the coach) what time the game is, which he doesn’t know English so he walks over and points to the two on his watch. I am like, oh just great; I am now two hours early. I decide I might as well wait after all this work.

Soon enough I see the teams going to warm up so I went over to watch them. I pick an empty bench that is not near anyone else, but then I start to have a panic attack that I might be sitting on the team’s bench. I decide to just see what happens until I look down at my boots and there are HUNDREDS (no joke) of ants crawling on me. Like all up my legs, all down my boots, and on my jacket. So not only do I stand out already, I know am standing up doing the jiggley wiggly dance to get all these ants off and swatting viciously at them but careful not to squish them. I literally resorted to marching in place so they couldn’t catch me. Good thing they weren’t red ants. I decide to take a different bench where the ants aren’t as plentiful, but still they find a way onto me. So I decide I need to hold my feet up the entire time (at least I was getting an ab work out). I even had a spider on me, gross! FINALLY, the game starts and I come to realize that I have woke up at 8 and walked miles, waited hours, just to watch a game be played where one team didn’t even have enough people. It was 10 vs. 11 and one team was not good and didn’t even get into the other teams half. I watch 20 minutes and left. I had seen/had enough. Did I mention that to comfort myself I ate the whole bag of cookies that my roommate gave me and didn’t even feel guilty about it? Oh and I think as I was walking to the game, I was the only person that didn’t have a dog on a leash. I know they are EVERYWHERE here, but this was even more than before. On the walk back everyone is carrying large green bags though and I put two and two together and assume it is a dog show or something. Probably would have been more interesting than my morning that’s for sure. So that is what took up 6 hours of my Saturday.

Then that night we pulled an all-nighter with a bunch of the basketball guys and girls for the Final Four. I still have yet to sleep, because I had committed to go to this church this morning, which was interesting. I find out once I get there it is all in German and no English translation. Not to mention the congregation was 22 adults and 30 children (age 0-6). This sweet woman though whispered and translated in my ear the whole time, which led to everyone (20 people) staring at me. I think she thought I had no knowledge of the bible because she was translating John 3:16 in my ear and let’s just say I am unsure if she brushed her teeth this morning. EEK! So that was my weekend. Except the best news is I went to another church tonight in English and it was a Hillsong Church in Berlin. It was sweet, pretty charismatic, but it was in English and the worship was GREAT! All in all, that was my weekend, I stink at being concise. Oh well. Hope you all are doing well, miss everyone!