zoiks!

gosh, is anyone even reading me anymore? i knew it had been a while - and there's been so much to tell - but nearly a month is quite a mess. my biggest excuse is still a lack of an internet connection at home, and then moving, and then, well, spending hours everyday looking from a microfilm reader to my computer, which makes me put it away when i get home. ah, well.

most important things:

- i love my new apartment. LOVE. IT. everything except the second-to-last flight of stairs before i get to the door. it's nice to be high up, for light and quiet, but the stairs are cut irregularly, which does a number on your legs and your psyche. unpredictable stairs make you feel like you're going a little crazy, the first few times.

- mom comes tomorrow morning! we are going to the turkish baths, to the opera, to the christmas markets which are now dotting berlin and providing glühwein and marzipan products to the masses, to brunch with my host family from last summer, and i am so excited. you do realize what a lovely place berlin is when you think of all of the options for visitors. and in the same way that new york is nice during the holidays, berlin is all lit-up and somehow warmer, too.

- i finally found the file i was looking for at the archives. this means i have some chance of finishing something before i come home, though not completely finishing, and it also means i save major bucks - er, euros - on photocopies, and don't have to wait as long. oh, and the stuff i'm finding is good, too. fantastic request from a doctor in the field on the western shore of lake victoria for a proper centrifuge, so he could test blood samples for sleeping sickness. because he was using a centrifuge he made from the wheel-works of a butter machine. ?! colonialism on a shoestring, indeed.

- christmas stars (decorations, cookies, etc.) here are six-pointed, not five-pointed. i think this is weird. Zimtsterne, the cinnamon and nut cookies for christmas which are cut in said 6-pointed star-shapes, are, however, yummy.

- i am ready to come home. we're all getting a little squirrely from the work, and i've been having more of the "why you gotta be like that, Germany?" moments. and i miss you. all of you.

that is all!