Transitions, whether big or small, always bring different emotions; sitting on 8-hour plane rides and walking through different airports always signal change. It didn’t fully hit me that I was in Germany until I saw different posters in German in the airport and saw different style buildings and classy cars while going to St. Michaels Heims on a public transportation.
One thing I expected more of that I did not find in my first week in Germany was their willingness to carry out conversations in German with us. Most people in Berlin spoke English pretty well, and it was clear that some people were more comfortable in English than in German. I first expected for people to just laugh at our broken German and help us along the conversation whenever we would try to order or buy something from the store. But rather, they were able to quickly realize that we were not fluent in German by our accent and immediately spoke English to us instead of speaking German, giving us a weird look every time we try to talk in German to them which caught me off guard. It was as if they found us trying to speak German with them more offensive since we knew English.
Other than that, Berlin has been a good calm city. The development of the city and the public transportation system reminds me of Korea but the less intense and less rushed atmosphere reminds me more of Africa. I definitely missed the environment that wasn’t as time based and that functioned at a more relaxed pace. The public transportation system was set up pretty well too where we could go around the city and find our way home without much problem which I wish was the case in Grand Rapids as well.
One thing I’d have to say I miss the most is Korean food. A lot of the food here are more bread, meat, and cheese based not rice, broth, and other side dishes. I did find some noodles at the grocery store so maybe I’ll take some of those sometime during the 6 weeks here.
Overall, the first week has been quite long, but very good. Learned a lot of new things and now I feel like I’m starting to get comfortable with the environment here. The next 5 weeks will probably fly by really quick compared to the first week here.