Well, I have now been living in Berlin for just over two weeks. I am currently doing my third semester abroad, where I will be studying in Berlin, Germany until December. I have so many thoughts already about my experience here that I will separate this post into categories.
PROGRAM:
I am studying at CIEE Berlin Open Campus. This is basically an American program that created a campus in Berlin for American students. This experience is totally different than my past two abroads. There are no students from other countries which I find disappointing. So many people came here with people that they already knew. Unfortunately, a lot of the students are typical sorority girls and fraternity boys, however I have found some really nice people that I have become friends with. This program is very what I like to call "hold your hand-like." I was used to so much independence during my last two abroads that this program was a bit of a shock. It almost feels like I am not in another country when I am at Uni. All of my courses are in English and the only students in my courses are American. The teaching style is exactly like W&J courses. There are some very nice things about this program though. There are many excursions to different locations around Berlin which are free and provide students with a great opportunity to meet other students. There are also numerous people who I know that I can go to if I ever need help.
HOME STAY:
I was one of the fortunate 6 out of 132 students that is doing a homestay. I am living with a wonderful family in a quiet neighborhood in the district of Schöneberg. I am living in a traditional German apartment that was actually bombed twice during WWII. Therefore, the floors are not that straight and the wood creaks all the time. These factors just add character to the apartment. Living in the apartment is myself, my host mom, and her daughter who is almost 16 years old. I have my own room which I really love. Both my host mom and sister are very sweet. We speak only in German so this is great practice for me. I am learning new words and they correct me when I make mistakes. Since I am not getting German language exposure at my Uni, I really value this experience. My host mom provides me with breakfast and dinner every day. I prefer to make my own breakfast so eggs, bananas, and blueberries are always in the refrigerator for me to use. Dinner is something different every day. I feel like I am a bit of a picky eater when it comes to this family. At home, I generally eat the same thing every day. Now, I am trying a bunch of new foods, prepared in all different ways. I guess this is a good experience :) I live only about 20 minutes away from my Uni. I just have to take the U-Bahn 4 stops.
COURSES:
Now time to reflect on my courses... So my education here is a Trimester program. I have 3 semesters, taking two courses in each semester. Each semester is 6 weeks long. This semester, I have a course about German Fairy Tales and a course about Monuments and Memorials in Berlin. Overall, I am not thrilled with my courses. Let me start with fairytales. I do like the teacher. He is from Germany and this is his first course ever teaching in English. I guess what I do not like is all the reading that we have to do. Easily 100 pages of reading are assigned every night. Now when reading this, I also have to take notes in order to be prepared for discussions for the next class session and I also have to gather pertinent information for a reflection essay due each week. With all this work, I easily spend 3 hours on just this course. Additionally, a lot of the reading that we do is secondary literature that has to do with the structure or themes in fairytales. I feel as though we are not doing much about the fairytales themselves. My second course about monuments and memorials in Berlin is just annoying. The teacher is way too intense for me. He takes participation way too seriously. I feel like that is all I am worrying about the whole class. Participation is like a competition the entire class time of which student can shine in the spotlight with an intelligent answer in front of the teacher. It just seems a bit insignificant to me. Also the theme of the course is not what I expected. I wanted to learn about the various monuments and memorials in Berlin, learn about what they stand for, the architecture, and the location in the city. Instead, we have been digging into other themes. For example, last week, we went to the Topography of Terror which is a museum outlining the heinous acts of the perpetrators of the Holocaust. First, this is not a monument or memorial. Second, we had to do a group presentation about one perpetrator of the Holocaust. This presentation would fit nicely with the Holocaust studies course that I will be taking next semester, but does not fit with this course. I have had enough already and just want to be done with these courses. I will say that I really enjoy how all the courses here have excursions to different locations around Berlin. For fairytales, I went to see a play called "Schatten: Euydike sagt." This play was absolutely fantastic. Basically, a play was going on but there were also ten or so camera men and women filming on the stage. Above the stage was a large screen where the shots from the camera were displayed. A seamless film could be viewed. The intricacy and the talent was just amazing. I though that it was also very interesting to see how footage for an actual movie could be shot- camera angles, lighting techniques, etc. For my memorials class, we go on an excursion every week. I already mentioned the week 1 excursion to the Topography of Terror. Week 2 excursion was to the German Resistance Memorial. I am really not enjoying these excursions. The teacher talks so much and we always have some kind of project to do while we are there so that we have no time to actually explore the monuments and memorials. Overall, it is great to have Berlin as our classroom. One does not get experiences like these at home.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT:
Berlin is an absolutely huge city. While living in Vienna, I got very used to public transport. I also fell in love with Vienna's public transport and I will stand by my opinion, Vienna still has the best public transport that I have used in Europe. Now Berlin's is not bad. There are 9 U-Bahn Lines and multiple Street cars and S-Bahn lines. There are also Buses but I prefer not to use buses. Since I am doing a homestay, I was provided with a month card for public transport. I am super thankful that they gave me this because a month card here is 81 Euros which is extremely expensive in my opinion. I use the U-Bahn every day to go to Uni and go home. The U-Bahn stations are very dirty and the U-Bahn cars are not much better. Additionally, the wait times are much longer than I expected. The street cars are only in East Berlin and I am living in West Berlin so I have yet to use a street car here.
CULTURE:
I must be critical in this section as well. Overall, I do not enjoy the culture here. First, the city is way too large for me. Second, Berlin culture is centered around night life here. Just from talking with other students who enjoy going out here, I have learned that Berlin is crazy. Night life is a main priority for many people here. The night life starts way later than American night life. There are numerous clubs, and even some famous clubs that have hour long waiting lines and are extremely hard to get into. From what I have heard, the night life scene is concentrated with alcohol, drugs, and sex. I just find this purely disgusting and have no desire to take part in this. Another way that I can characterize Berlin culture is very carefree and judgement free. People are very chill here. They do not dress fancy and preppy as they do in Vienna. They also do not stare at me in public transport because my shoes look different than theirs. I have not felt judged at all in Berlin. Berlin is also very hip. This is hard to explain. The style here is very different. You can see all different hairstyles, clothing, tattoos, and piercings. Smoking is also a huge problem here. I thought that Vienna was bad with smoking but Berlin might be just as bad if not worse. Public drinking still amazes me here. It is so normal to see people with beer bottles at 9:00 in the morning. Regarding walking, most of my friends and family know that I walk insanely fast... well the Berliners walk even faster than I do. Unfortunately, I can already tell that I do not fit in here. But Berlin still has so much to offer.
LEISURE TIME IN BERLIN:
Yes, I am very busy with school, but I have found some time for leisure. I must say, that Berlin has soooo much to do and see. I do not believe I have even seen half of what is on my list and I have been here for two weeks. One of my favorite sights that I have seen so far was the Berliner Dom. The Berliner Dom is located on Museum Island in the middle of the city. The inside of the church is stunning, filled with intricate sculpture and gold foliage. I was able to climb and circle around the top of the dome to get some pretty amazing views of Berlin.
I have also been to the Brandenburg Gate, East Side Gallery- a long stretch of the Berlin wall that has been turned into an open-air art exhibition, Checkpoint Charlie- the best-known crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War, and the memorial to the murdered Jews. I also enjoyed going to Potsdamer Platz, a very modern part of Berlin. My favorite attraction there is the Sony Center which is a huge metal umbrella covering a bunch of restaurants. Apparently the covering is lit up at night so I would eventually like to go and see this display.
There are also tons of parks in Berlin. I have been to Treptower Park so far, which I found to be very beautiful. I would love to explore more of the parks in Berlin. One of my favorite things to do in Berlin so far is track down Buddy bears. Buddy bears are statues of bears that are found all over the world and were created to foster peace and inclusivity. There are hundreds of these bears scattered all over Berlin. I have been on a mission to find as many bears as possible. So far, I have found 23 bears. This is an excellent way to explore Berlin by foot. These bears are often hidden and one can only find them by walking around. I have made a small group of friends here in Berlin so it is nice to go around the city with them and see all of these sights.
Overall, my time in Berlin is going well so far. Look out for my next post about my weekend trip to Dresden!