Day 4

                Over the past two days I’ve spent most of my times nailing down the necessities I’m going to need for my time in the city such as the nearest grocery store, coffee shop with wifi, a cell phone, and subway line. Basically, I searched for food, fun, communication equipment, and travel arrangements. I still have yet to find the nearest Laundromat, but that’s for the weekend when I actually will need to do some laundry.  The grocery store that I first walked into confused me for a few minutes. In the US there’s a sort of....pattern that all grocery stores follow. You’ll have shelves that go across the store, with milk products and meat along the back. At the three stores I’ve visited so far there is no pattern; a little un-German, if I might say so. I guess it’s because space is at a premium here, so they optimize every inch.

                So far I’ve visited Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Tor. Potsdamer Platz is quite amazing, and is filled with malls office buildings, and fantastic architecture. Supposedly there is some controversy over how it was designed and built, but I was blown away.

                The Brandenburg Tor (Gate in English) was also amazing. A block from it is the Reichstag. Another direction and you’ll be in the Tiergarten. Another few blocks in a different direction you’ll find yourself at a prominent university. I’ll be working right in the center of all of that.

Day 1

I'm in Berlin!

             Berlin, or rather Wedding, a region of Berlin where my apartment is located, has too much graffiti. Back in Rochester, or even in Minneapolis, there is nowhere close to this much graffiti. It’s on the trash cans, the walls, and many other little nooks and crannies. Beyond that, I find the area to be quite pleasant. There were cobblestone paths, nice people, and an assortment of interesting and old buildings. My apartment doesn’t have a connection to the internet, but I assume that’ll only make me more productive, and I like productive. I can get internet, but I’m going to see if I can live without it. Probably not, but like the mighty King of Rohan before the Pelennor fields I say why not and plunge into things wholeheartedly. Hopefully the metaphor will stop there.

                One thing I was quite surprised about is the lack of English. I remember going through Germany and finding only one person who did not speak English, and she was off the beaten path. Here, my taxi driver did not speak English, the pharmacist at a small pharmacy didn’t speak English, and quite a few other people did not speak what I assumed was the lingua franca. Actually, it has been nice, because my German has been more than sufficient for the task at hand. I always say my German is not so good, but I’ve received compliments on it (which made me quite happy inside). I assume when I go to the inner city around the Tiergarten I will find a lot more English speaker.

                The plan for tomorrow is to go to the Tiergarten and find a few things I need. First, I need to find an internet cafe to get on the internet and post some things, send in homework, etc. I don’t know how long a walk it will be, but I do know the direction. That’s good? Right? I assume it will be a few miles that I’ll walk every day. God bless the U of M. It has toughened me up for long treks through the barren tundra.

                My flight into Berlin was like all flights: long and cramped. My flight to Berlin was rescheduled, and nobody told me, so I arrived in Dublin thirty minutes before my flight to Berlin had set sail. Well, if one is to be stuck in a foreign country, it is a good thing that they at least they speak English. After arriving in Berlin I decided to take the train as I’d probably do a good bit of that while in Berlin. Unfortunately, I took one going the wrong way. Ultimately, I still had to take a taxi, and it was about the same cost as it would have been at the airport. Well, the ticket was only three Euros....oh well. I assumed that B3 meant platform 3...wrong.

                My apartment is nice. It came with a little water heater for making tea, and that made me quite happy. It also included cups, plates, a blanket, a pot, a pan, and some toilet paper. Thank God there was some toilet paper.

                Well, tomorrow will bring adventure and fun. Hopefully, the effects of jetlag will have worn off, and I will be able to truly fanboy out when I see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Tor, and get my phone to work. That last one won’t be a fanboy moment, but it will be nice.