Last Days in Berlin

On Wednesday three of us made a meal together before heading to Stammtisch for the last time. Nelly had had enough of always being the one to come up with and prepare a dish, so she insisted that we males do something. When I described my Mom's green spaghetti dish, they sounded interested, so we gave it a try. It wasn't quite the same; rather than pesto Nelly improvised something with fresh basil, garlic, and something else, and the noodles were flat, not round. The essentials were all there, though: spinach noodles, spinach, olive oil, mushrooms, feta cheese, and of course dried tomatoes. Nelly and Erik really enjoyed it, and Nelly made sure to emphasize that my mother should be very proud that her dish impressed a Frenchwoman.

The next day and a half were test days for me. I took the Goethe-Institut's Zentrale Oberstufeprüfung (central upper-level exam), which consisted of writing an essay (250 words in 90 minutes), listening to an interview and answering questions, reading and responding to an article, grammar exercises, and an oral report and conversation. Out of possible scores of very good, good, and satisfactory, I scored "good" overall with "very good" in the grammar and the speaking. So now at least I have an official record of my German skills, in case I ever need it.

After the oral part of the exam on Friday, Nelly, Erik, Fabrice, and I went to Wannsee, a lake near Berlin popular for getaways, and picnicked. We had bread rolls, baguettes, cold cuts, broccoli, and of course a bottle of Bordeaux wine. It was a really great and sunny day, and the scenery was beautiful. Fabrice kept feeding the ducks from the lake, who then kept following us, so we even ended up making friends with some of the locals. Unfortunately I lost all my pictures of this day for some reason. Also unfortunate is the fact that this beautiful lake was the setting for the infamous "Wannsee Conference", where the Nazis distributed their plans for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem". On our way out we stopped by the house where this happened, which is now a museum.