On Saturday morning of January 12, I woke up extra early, I was super excited, and of course, as you can imagine, crying! I sat in the car with mom, my little sister Lili, and two of my family friends who had offered to help with driving because of the snow and because they were experienced travelers.
I arrived in Berlin on the Sunday 12, 2019 tired and ready to take a shower! I was excited, but lacked sleep, and had to deal with airport shenanigans. I remember having to be in two different lines; one for EU citizens and one for outsiders. The route felt longer than the plane ride from Cincinnati to Newark and from Newark to Berlin. What was so good was the fact that the luggage claim was at the end of the two lines, so I didn’t have to do much looking. Now that I had my bags, it was time to look for the train station, or so I thought!
I spend about 15 minutes talking to my mother, complaining about getting lost even though I had asked for direction. After talking to mom, I got some sense back and went on about asking for direction again… This time, a different person told me how to reach my destination in details. The man gave me a map and circled three locations; the first marked location was the bus station, then the U7 line that would take me to Gneisenaustraße. I purchased my ticket, with the help of strangers who were waiting for the bus. When I arrived at the train station, I had to go up and down the steps with my two heavy bags. I kept reading the map; which I’m horrible at by the way, probably the reason I got lost!
First time on a subway, not sure how anything works. I started asking people for direction, in the hope that they understood English and when that didn’t work out I started pointing at things. Thankfully, there was a girl who spoke English and was able to help me get to my place. When I got to the ciee institute, I was exhausted and ready to pass out. I sat on the table trying to read the Welcome folder and the next thing I knew, I was waking up from an uncomfortable nap on the table. I showered, then slept pretty much the whole day and didn't get to eat anything until the next morning since most shops close on Sunday in Berlin. On Monday, I met up with two other interns along with two ciee faculties for orientation.
In the orientation, they pretty much covered most things we needed to know to get around Berlin; from how to understand and pay for the U-Bahn to local restaurants as well as the grocery stores. They gave us a tour of the building as well as the neighborhood which took me a week to comprehend.
