Days 3 and 4: Einkaufen für Schuhe

My German is getting a tiny bit better. Each day I'm learning new words, making new friends, and remembering more of the German I had once learned.
The weather, too, is a bit more tolerable by the day. I'm forced to walk at bare minimum for about 20 minutes outside each day, but am spending much more than that walking around either alone or with friends, exploring the city, eating, and more.
On day 3 I went alone to Zoologisher Garten and finally found a nice store to get a backpack and some shoes that weren't getting wet. I was lucky to find a backpack at a not-entirely-insane price of 27 euros (nearly all of anything approaching a decent size being 50 or more) and some shoes that I won't name the price, but were significantly less than the insane other prices offered elsewhere often exceeding 150 euros. I did, however, neglect to try them on because I am stupid. I would not remember I am stupid until trying on the shoes the next day.
Shoes are something most people take for granted. Sure, many women love to buy shoes, but once you're wearing them you tend to not worry about them too much. Unless they hurt.
Boy oh boy did these shoes hurt. From perhaps five seconds after putting them on to the time I returned home and blissfully took them off I was severely uncomfortable. I thought of nothing else but to remove them. I did remove them, in class, so I could concentrate on German.
After class I met with some friends to go to Zoologisher Garten for shopping and I was thrilled to go. I could return the horrible shoes! We made plans to meet soon after, to give us time to return to our places and freshen up or whatever, and I put my old shoes back on and got the bag and receipt and such I needed. We met up and went to Zoologisher Garten, which was an area with a zoo and plenty of stores. We stopped by first the store where I got the Horrible Shoes and I returned them, and got a new pair that I actually tried on. The result was a very happy me. We spent the next few hours wandering around stores and then stopped by Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächniskirche, which was very beautiful and full of historical goodness. Next we wandered to Brandenburger Tor (gate), a very famous landmark. It was a bit of a roundabout way we took, and ended up walking a long ways on Juni. 17 Strasse.
The walk to Brandenburger Tor was fun in that I have recently decided to model my way of living after the famous Arctic and African explorers of old, who had great big mustaches and pressed onwards in spite of sickness or cold and so on. I can just imagine them now, with no supplies and a half-frozen team, smiling in spite of it all and wiping off those little round glasses they seem to always wear, and speaking in a booming but friendly British accent that "We're nearly there, lads, don't give up now!" That's what I want to be. I'll admit I used to be a bit of a complainer when younger, and that's just no way to live. Not when I can live up to so much more.
So as we were walking down a very lengthy road and the Spainard with us started complaining about the cold, I bucked up and smiled in spite of the horrible cold I am unused to. I reminded him we were on an adventure and that we could see our quarry off in the distance, and how much fun we were having. He reluctantly agreed. And so we pressed on, the cold unable to affect me as it once may have. And my feet rather comfortable in my new shoes, which I might add were even less expensive than the ones I had bought the day before.
We made it to Brandenburger Tor and took some rather ineffective pictures in the dark before each heading our own ways, and I fell asleep very soon after coming back, even foregoing dinner. It seems being an explorer can really take it out of you.