weekend.

i'm trying to decide wether to stay in, or go out tonight, but am tending towards an early night with some reading, chocolates and a glass of wine. which means i'm going to have to blow off my plans with an old friend i haven't seen in about six years, but fact is that i don't think i can make the trip into the city without passing out on the train (something i've come very close to all day).
last night i met up with this girl sarah, who used to be an aupair with a family in the area. she ended up staying in berlin after her time as an aupair and has been living in the city for about three years now. we went to a great thai place for dinner and connected right away. felt great having someone to talk to and just have a good time with. afterwards we ended up at this random "s-bahn ring party". --> berlin has a big subway (u-bahn) and lightrail (s-bahn, not really a light rail but that will work for now) network and one of the routes goes in a circle around the inner city ( http://www.vbbonline.de/download/pdf/liniennetze/su_berlin.pdf ). it's called the ring bahn. now the goal of a ring bahn party is to make it one full lap, however when you're on the train a die (dice sp?) is rolled and that's number of stops you stay on for. then you get off and have to find either a bar (kneipe) or a late-night liquor store (spaet kauf) and get a drink (or more). then everyone gets back on the train and the steps are repeated. we were in a group of about forty (most being international students, so everyone was very open and eager to meet people). Anyway, I made it about halfway and then decided that it was late enough, and i was drunk enough to make my way home.
so that was my night.
this morning i got up early to get my hair cut and colored (it takes a lot longer than i imagined to get to certain parts of the city, for some reason the buses and trains aren't timed very well. if you want to follow along on the map, my nearest station is Nikolas see at the bottom left of the B area, and i was going to eberswalder strasse, top right (on the red line) of the A area.) Anyway, my hair is now redish brown, not sure how i feel about it yet. afterwards I treated myself to a late breakfast in the prenzlauer berg area, then went to see my grandfather in tempelhof (Alt Tempelhof, bottom center in B on the purple line).
finally got back home around 6pm, and immediately passed out. woke up about an hour later for dinner, and now i'm ready to go right back to sleep.
Jesse gets into town on wednesday! i'm really excited!
ok, enough for now, this is getting too long.