My last American experience was a very loud Newark airport employee cow herding passengers through the airport security in a very Northern Jersey ghetto-fabulous way.
Getting to Germany was actually fairly seamless. I ran into some Rutgers kids who were on the same flight at the airport. At Tegel (Berlin airport), I realized that I packed like 2x as much as anyone else. I know it’s only 6 weeks, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t bring as much as you can. There’s no reason not to, and I’m presumably going to save a lot of money not buying toiletries and laundry, and things like that. Anyway, luckily got to split a cab with someone and it ended up being a decent price and totally worth it. The cab was the first “this place is cheaper than London” experience and it was good. Also got my first Haribo gummy bears at the duty free shop in the airport. Sooo good. Those will ruin undoubtedly whatever diet I end up going on.
Speaking of food, um, wow. So Julie (my roommate) and I went grocery shopping the first day we were here and we made the mistake of going to Aldi. Aldis also exist in the US. You will find them in basically all the bad neighbourhoods. They are also here the very discount market. They are almost scary. The selection was terrible and the setup awful, and just weird in general. And not even weird in a “oh, everything is German” because, well, obviously, just weird in general. Hard to describe other than just ghetto.
Luckily, this is not the only type of store. There is a Kaiser’s right across the street that is a normal store (so I’ve been told, I haven’t gone in yet), and I’ve been told the prices are “normal.” Not discount, but not expensive. I guess the idea is to go to Aldi’s for everything you would buy at Kaiser’s if they have it and then get your actual selection and real food from Kaiser’s. I do feel though that the general selection will be very different from
The whole grocery experience here is very different, though, even from England. I went to another store downtown after one of tours yesterday just to buy some milk because it was one of the few left open on Saturday evening, so I’ve sort of got the gist. They don’t give you bags, at all. Not like in London where they encourage you to buy reusable or bring your own. You have to pay around 10 cents for a plastic bag. I sort of like this, but I’d rather get rewarded for bringing my bags rather than not having the option. I get the idea, though. Also, in order to be more efficient, they don’t wait for you to bag your items at the end of the till, you put them back in the cart or basket or whatever, and then take them over to a counter and put them in a bag. I like this system. It definitely makes the line move faster. You also have to pay a Euro for a cart around the store. You get the Euro back if you return it, but still, kind of annoying. There’s really no need for that. People aren’t likely to walk out with the cart. I assume.
Like I said before, I’ll probably be comparing almost everything to London. I notice that I’ve been doing that already with people here. I hope I don’t come off as that obnoxious girl who acts like she knows everything about Europe. I should probably cool it but it’s just one of those things where I liked London so much and miss it so I like to talk about it. It is legit interesting to me how much that was in London wasn’t really a London thing so much as a European wide thing. I’ll mention these as they come along. I have even somehow equated European living with driving on the other side of the road and often catch myself looking the wrong way. Hopefully this will stop soon because frankly, it seems kind of dangerous. And kind of stupid of me.
Speaking of crossing roads, they have these super neat cross walk people (like, the walk / don’t walk people in the US, the little lighted signs) all over what was East Berlin. They were so popular that when they started replacing them, there was this huge uproar so they had to bring them back and now they’re actually spreading across Berlin. They even have a few gift shops throughout the city specifically dedicated to these crosswalk figures.
I’ve noticed since I’ve been here that my ankle seems to have gotten better. I think the few days I had at home of not really doing anything seems to have been just what I needed. It was really the longest period of rest I had had (meaning just not walking or doing much) I had had all semester. I hope it lasts. If not, I guess it’s good to know that it probably will be better once I just chill out this summer post-Berlin. My teeth are also much better, they’re still doing some post-wisdom teeth shifting, but I can deal with that. The actual extraction sites seem fine, and I’m eating more normally with every meal. That whole issue I had with the antibiotics has also seemed to pass, which is good. Not something I really wanted to deal with for much longer.
Our apartment here is super nice. Perhaps not as nice as say our kitchen in London, but sooo much roomier and I only share everything with Julie. The furniture is nice and we get a TV with more than 5 channels (although they are pretty much all in German, expect for CNN and a new non-dubbed MTV shows). The kitchen is somewhat lacking, but has what you really need. There is no microwave though. Apparently microwaves in Germany are like a serious luxury thing. No one here really has them. They kind of don’t believe they’re good for you, and don’t think the kinds of things you make in a microwave are healthy / safe. Can’t say I really disagree with them, but it would still be nice to have them. I guess all that popcorn I preemptively brought with me will have to go to Steven or something. Shame. But other than the lack of microwave, it’s good. We are on the 4th floor (aka 5th floor in the US) and there is no elevator. You can only imagine how awesome that was on moving in day with my suitcases. Being on the top floor, along with all the stairs in the metro system, and having classes on the 3rd floor will inevitably all contribute to me getting fit. Hopefully.
It’s hard for me to comment on Berlin weather thus far. There have been some really sunny / quite warm times, some rainy times, and some cool times. I imagine the days will get warmer and warmer and rain will threaten less and less. It’s hard for me to say if it’s nicer than London. All I’ve heard about London lately is how nice the weather has been. This of course is just my luck. I think the weather in Berlin and London is sort of comparable, only it gets colder here in winter and in general rains less at all times.
To get ourselves oriented to the city and as part of orientation, we had a boat tour yesterday (there was also a bike tour option, but wasn’t particularly feeling up to it after wisdom teeth and complications) and did a scavenger hunt (schnitzeljagd) today. The boat tour was OK. It was definitely longer than it needed to be, and obviously also you can only see things near the water. Fortunately, there’s a lot of stuff near the water. It’s more difficult to get yourself oriented to where you are in the city from the water though. You keep twisting and turning and when you think East is to the right suddenly it’s behind you or something. Also, most importantly, the tour was in German. Our professor that went with us (who is awesome… more on him when the class starts) did some translations for us and also gave us some behind the scene / just for us info that was good, but it made the whole thing a little more tedious. All in all though, it was nice to be outside for awhile and I did learn a lot.
The scavenger hunt was interesting. I don’t really feel like it was the best way to get oriented to Berlin because you’re in a hurry and spent most of the time going in between places on the s-bahn and only a few minutes at each station. I do now know where some of the important stuff is and definitely have a better understanding of how to use the S-bahn. The U-bahn and both of them together is another thing, though. We were the 4th ones to arrive, but the only group to get all the questions right, which somehow only got us to 3rd place. The group that came in first had a bunch wrong, but got there really quickly. Seems kind of unfair to me, but whatcha gonna do. We got really nice maps, which is good, because I actually didn’t have a big full one of Berlin. That will help with at least planning things. I’m not really the type to whip out maps in the middle of the street while looking for something. I’m also not one to go about screaming “tourist,” so it’s sort of the same thing. It was still cool to get them all right and win something. There was also a quick little first person to raise their hand quiz the other night as part of orientation and I got 2 questions right (36 people, 15 questions… not bad). They were what year were the Berlin Olympics and what was the last time Germany had the world cup (asked in German). I won two chocolate bars. Not great, but like I said, winning stuff is always good. Clearly, I’m doing brilliantly so far.
Orientation has been going pretty well. They really have their stuff together. The phone we got came preloaded with some money and is really nice (it was new). The rates are terrible, but I imagine I will be using it a lot less than I did in London. Haven’t used it yet though, although Steven did give me a call the other night J Even when we moved in, there was a thing of dish soap, hand soap, and a sponge along with a bunch of maps and info handouts waiting for us. They took us out to dinner on Friday, bought us lunch today, bought us our metro cards, and have a ton of activities and outings that are heavily subsidized planned. I definitely feel like the tuition is really getting put to good use here. Not so much in London, maybe, although in fairness, a lot of it probably goes to housing there. In general though, they really seem to have their stuff together. It will definitely be a good 6 weeks.
The only thing that’s a little iffy for me is the awful commute to class. Classes are held at the Technische Universität (haha, the Imperial College of Germany, sort of… here we go again!) which is waaaayyyy in the West. It’s about a ½ hour + commute, and classes start at 9am… ick!! I feel like that could have been worked out a bit better. But I feel like that’s just how it goes. Classes in the morning will be a good thing though because it will get me up and out and I’ll be able to go and see more in the afternoon. Classes 1-5 in London really kind of shot the day when things opened at 10 or later. Hopefully I’ll have lots more time to see and do things in Berlin, which is good because I’m here for such a “short” time.
The German thing. Yeah… Like I said before, it’s been tough. I’ve been listening hard, reading what I can, asking a lot of questions, but things just really don’t seem to stick as easily. I’m hoping that that will change once I start taking it formally in class. Here’s hoping I guess. We’ll find that out tomorrow.
More once classes start… Tschuss!
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