Grüße aus Berlin!

Berlin - a city with so much to see and do with its rich history and diversity, is our classroom for the next three weeks! With so much ahead of us, there is a lot to look forward to and to still explore. For many of us, this is the first time outside of the USA, the first time traveling without our parents and for others, the first time to be on a program like this. 

With arrival day being over and done with, and all of us settled in, we have started exploring our neighborhood by doing what Berliners call a Kiez tour, as well as learning the ins and outs of the global institute, G27, where we are staying. On top of this, we also had a very informative city tour where we learned more about the history of Berlin and also how to get around with public transport. Here follows a few snapshots of the different places we saw while exploring the city and G27:

This was a session with our assistant program coordinator, Rachelle, where she discussed the importance of our health and safety during our stay here in Berlin. Rachelle gave us really good tips on how to navigate the city and take good care of ourselves. We even learned about 'the Berlin face' that we should make in order for us to fit in and look like locals - this looks a little bit like not caring too much, not looking around too much and looking kind of annoyed. We're not there yet, but let's see how our 'Berlin faces' look by the end of this week! 

Here we gathered outside in the courtyard at G27 to get to know one another by playing a game. Our group is very diverse which makes for great conversations about learning more about different social and cultural differences among one another while being abroad. 

Here we are on our Berlin city tour in front of the famous Brandenburg gate - one of the iconic spots of the city. We decided to capture this fun moment to remember our first time out in the city that is now our home for the next three weeks. The sandstone Brandenburg Gate was built in the years 1788 to 1791 to designs by Carl Gotthard Langhans. The idea behind the gate was to control what was coming and out of the city - a sort of old school customs. 

Here we are at our visit to the Jewish memorial near the Brandenburg Gate to commemorate the atrocities against Jewish people during world war 2. In 1999, after lengthy debates, the German parliament decided to establish a central memorial site, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The competition to design it was won by the New York architect Peter Eisenman. The memorial was ceremonially opened in 2005. The memorial consists out of 2711 concrete slabs of different heights. The exact meaning behind the memorial is not very clear and it was intentionally envisioned to be open-ended to leave space for visitors to come up with their own interpretations. The space was in many ways haunting and had a heaviness to it that captured the dark past of Germany. This was a great place to visit since it brought together the realities of the past with something tangible to remember it by. 

After our visit to the Jewish memorial, we noticed this piece of the taken down Berlin wall placed on a sidewalk. This piece of wall reminded us of yet another part of German history which divided East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. In 1990, the wall was officially taken down and the demolition was complete by 1992. Thousands of people on both the East and West side had fought for this and lost their lives while doing this. Families, friends, and lovers were separated through this wall. The graffiti on this piece of wall reading 'Peace Now' then makes more sense when keeping the history in mind and what the people of Berlin wanted and eventually got through the demolition of the wall. 

This concludes our blog post for today, but do not fear, we will be sure to post more during the trip to show you what we get up to and what we are learning. With so much still to come it can only get even better!

Until then!