First Week of Berlin

Hallo liebe Leute!

It's officially been a week since I left my home town to catch a flight to Berlin, Germany. To describe my experience so far in one word, it'd be "shocked". The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Germany was that there was a lot of greenery and TONS of people. When I first arrived, the weather was very humid and hot, something I did not expect as the weather app on my phone had said that it'd be raining instead. When I first arrived at the CIEE center, it was hard to process the fact that I'd be spending the entire next month with the people there. I'm so grateful to have met tons of people from different parts of the US including California, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. What united all of us was that we were here together to learn and immerse ourselves in the German language and culture.

The part about this whole week that scared me the most was seeing my host family for the first time. Think about it. A stranger that you've never met before is suddenly going to live with you for a whole month. Isn't that...weird? Nonetheless, after a week after living with them, it's been a great learning experience so far. I've been able to experience the German diet (which has a lot of bread) and even learned how drying machines as popular here compared to America.

There is so much to do within a 1-mile radio of Berlin than there is to do in my San Jose. I've been able to apply my German wherever I go, and it's just crazy to think that I'm actually using a new language that I learned in high school only. German isn't my native or first language, so it's just crazy to be able to use it. I have the greatest German teacher at CIEE, and she's been able to give me fantastic review about the language and has helped me think in the language. I can even feel myself always thinking in German.

I've been able to see a lot of the famous places in Berlin so far, including the Brandenburger Tor, the Technikmuseum, etc. I've tried so many new foods and have check a lot of them off of my bucket list, including döner, currywurst with fries and red and white sauce, schnitzel, potato salad, and so much food. What I love about the different food of a culture is that it is able to bring people of all sorts together. You don't have to understand the language or know certain information to be able to experience cultural food. This feeling of unity and diversity arises when you try new cultural food with people you may have never met before. In addition to that, I've seen a lot of Vietnamese restaurants around the city, something that's makes me quite happy to see as it reminds me of home.

Furthermore, I've utterly surprised at how efficient the public transportation is here in Germany. Back where I live, public transportation is so unreliable, and one wouldn't be surprised if a bus was twenty minutes late. I've been riding the U-Bahn and Tram primarily to get to school and around the city, and I think that the public transportation is something that I will miss very dearly when it's time to pack my bags.

Attached to this blog are photos from my first trip if you are intersted in viewing them. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

Bis bald, und tschüss!