First Week/First Month

Written September 13, 2017: Hello everyone, I'm not dead!!!!

Yes, I arrived safely in Berlin. My flights were fine. I went from Kelowna to Toronto to Frankfurt to Berlin. I realized I had to check-in in the Toronto airport and check-in plus pick-up my luggage and re-check that in at the Frankfurt airport. Lordy lord. I was glad that I booked flights that had longer layovers (3 hours in Toronto and 2 hours in Frankfurt) so I could adjust myself to do that. Unfortunately, the flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was delayed 1 1/2 hours because of weather and the plane arrived late from the previous flight. I missed my Berlin connecting flight, but was able to get on a new one...after sprinting from various terminals in the Frankfurt airport twice, whew! I was so tired, but ready. It was weird because I still hadn't grasped the fact that I will be in Berlin.... for a year.... and I'm on the plane to go there. My mind was in denial even on the flight from Toronto to Frankfurt.

I met some nice people including a Canadian girl from Vancouver, a woman from Montreal and a German mother and her son. I attempted to speak German with them and they were very kind to me, maybe out of pity, but nice nevertheless.

Here is a picture of my breakfast on the plane. I was surprised to see Roggen Brot. Half of the breakfast being bread, cheese and meat made me smile, ah Germany I have arrived!

Written today:

Due to the craziness that is life, I did not get to post the first part of this blog post. But I shall re-update you because it's been 1 month since I have arrived!

Again, I'm doing fine. The first week was difficult, but now I have settled into my life in Berlin. My dorm room doesn't look like the empty and stuffy room it was when I moved in and I have officially bought curtains (I went over a week without one and it doesn't help that everyone can see into my room... but oh well). I have personalized my room with various storage bins to keep me organized (with two of the large ones storing food, ha), patterned duvet cover (thanks Ikea), candles, a cute glass bottle with an old flower in it (both taken from a Vietnamese restaurant I went to in the first week) and a string of pictures brought from Canada. There are 2 houses in the dorm area that are dedicated to exchange students and I happen to live on the 1st floor of the biggest house out of the 2. Germany also counts their floor levels differently. For example, if I were in Canada, the floor you enter on is called the 1st floor, whereas it would be called 'ground floor' in Germany and the 2nd floor in Canada is called the 1st floor here. Needless to say, understanding floor levels is confusing especially when exchange students discuss what floor they live on. Overall, the dorm life is nice, minus the loud parties that keep you up. I enjoy being able to shut my door when I need some alone time, but am 30 seconds away to 5 other floors of people to chat with. Certain floors are known as the 'party floors', but thankfully my floor is shared with 6 other girls. We have no guys on our floor like the others because two of my roommates are Muslim and have to always wear a hijab in front of men, so it's easier for them to live with all females. My room mates are great! We all get along well and whenever there are issues we all communicate and problem solve. We all enjoy socializing, but we also cherish our alone time so usually our floor is quiet, which I enjoy. It's nice to come home to a place that is peaceful.

School started last week. It's alright, but because of the national holiday, Reunification Day (when Germany united again) I didn't have school until Wednesday and attended only half of my classes. The classes are small with some classes having 5-30 students depending on the subject. The school and professors seem nice. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to school, so I usually leave 1 hour before class starts so I can be on time. The German stereotype is that they will arrive 15 minutes early to the scheduled time and that seems to be pretty true - even the Germans in my classes agree. I take my classes in English, but the school requires that their local students take at least 2 classes in English, hence why I have Germans in a couple of my classes. There is a saying in German, 'Akademisches Viertel' or 'Academic Quarter' in English, where it is tradition to start class 15 minutes later than scheduled and end class 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Not all teachers do this, but a lot do. No one is sure why the Germans have continued to do this, but supposedly because "it's tradition and the Germans wouldn't know what else to do" - my Communication professor. I also took a 2 1/2 week Intensive German Language Course when I first arrived. It was fantastic and my teacher, Dr. J, was amazing. She was patient, kind, taught us slang and informed us of the cool must-see places in Berlin. She used to be a professional baker when she lived in the US (she is American) and she baked us cookies, brownies and bought us traditional German food on the last day of class. Our class was huge because everyone heard it was the best class, but we all learned well and had a great time. I met some really great friends in that class and some are even in my German class this semester- it's going to be awesome!

I think one of my favourite things about this first month are all the interesting and diverse people I have met. There are over 200 exchange students this semester. Some are ERASMUS students (European Union), exchange students (overseas, like me) and Master Program students (dang, go them). There are only 2 Canadians in my whole school; me and a guy named Brett who goes to the same college as me in Canada. At Orientation Day at the beginning of September, every exchange/ERASMUS etc student had to introduce themselves and where they come from on a microphone. I made the embarrassing decision to ask the room of 200+ students if there were any Canadians. There was dead silence, except for 1 girl from France who went on exchange in Montreal and I think she may have raised her hand out of pity. Since that day I have been "the Canadian girl who asked if there was anyone from Canada and got no response". Meh, not the worst thing and at least people remember me. Aside from that, there are people from countries who I never would have met in Canada. There are a lot of Turkish, Spanish and Argentinian exchange students. I have never met anyone from Turkey before and can't remember the last time I met someone from Argentina. There are students from South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United States, Australia, Britain, Japan, France, Brazil, Portugal, the list goes on. It is so amazing because everyone has their own cultural norm, behaviours, thoughts, religion and their own story! I have so many opportunities to experience new cultures and try to understand someone's country. I have already learned so much by talking to others that I probably wouldn't understand if I just read it in a textbook.

I have been trying to explore Berlin as much as I can and posting pictures too. I feel so lucky to live in a place where there's so much history everywhere. There's so much to see and do that sometimes it's best to just get off at a random train station and walk. That's one of my favourite things to do alone and on the weekends. Plug in the ol' headphones with an audio book and you are good to go!

I will end this blog post with a couple things that I have noticed are different from Canada.

Differences

1. Dogs everywhere. In the grocery stores, clothing shops, banks, in the subway, they are everywhere!! But usually really well behaved.

2. The clouds in Berlin move reallllyyyyy fast. Maybe that's why the weather changes so quickly. One minute it's raining buckets and the next it's sunny and you need to take 3/4 layers you're wearing off.

3. Gelato is EVERYWHERE and people eat it at any time, even early in the morning. That is a cultural norm that I definitely can go along with.

4. Currywurst is a staple Berlin food (look it up!! but it's essentially sliced sausage with tomato sauce and curry powder usually served with fries with mayo). You will also see people eating currywurst at all times of day, including at 9AM (I literally saw a man scarfing down a currywurst at 9AM, alrighty sir)

5. The Germans are really into croissants, pasteries and bread. In almost every subway station and on the street, you will find a bakery where you can buy a croissant for .80 euros!! How more people aren't super obese here, I have no idea!

6. Everyone is into brands. You will see people proudly wearing shirts, pants and shoes that show off popular brands such as Hollister, Nike, Adidas.

7. Germany is one of the only countries where you will see someone eating bread on a bike using no hands (I also witnessed this). Mad props to that person. They obviously know what their priorities are.

8. Berliners also don't wear helmets when riding their bikes. Berlin and Amsterdam are known to be the 'Bike Cities' so a lot of people bike everywhere. Don't know how I feel about the no helmet thing... Bread+using no hands+no helmet=Scheiße (look that word up if you don't already know it).

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But thank you for following me on my journey and looking forward to keeping you updated!