Halfway Done Orientation Week

It’s Wednesday night, but I guess first off I should say I successfully arrive Monday morning as planned. Though I have been fortunate to travel a lot in my young life, this is nonetheless my first time traveling to a new destination independent of my family or a group of classmates. Although I suppose one could argue I ended up traveling with a group of classmates because I found I was on a flight with a number of other IES bound students. Our trip was uneventful, and upon arrival at Tegel Airport we successfully coordinated two large taxis to take 10 of us to the center therefore drastically reducing our fare per person (score one for thriftiness!).

Over the first couple days at the IES Center, a fair sized building in the Mitte (Middle) region of Berlin, there was ample time for the foundational information of “Where are you from?”, “Where do you go to school?”, “What is your major?”. Today we had a more formal Who’s Who sort of drill in the IES Center which filled in the gaps for those that I hadn’t crossed conversations with yet. We have a really solid assortment of different colleges and hometowns represented and many different backgrounds. For example, travel experience ranges from students who had never travelled abroad before to students who already cross oceans to get to their school in the U.S.

As for Orientation, we’ve gotten an Academic tutorial, including our tentative schedule (more on that when it is finalized after next week’s shopping period). I have German SIM card in my phone now, so I now have a +49 number. We’ve filled forms for our residence permits (riveting stuff I know… but we are guests…). Basically, we’re integrating into IES’s structure, and that takes time and you probably don’t care to read about getting our login for the IES desktops so I’ll leave it at that.

A few other thoughts before I sign off.

My homestay parents are great. We dance around between English and German in our conversations and it is nice to get back into the groove of speaking and return to the feeling where you are not even cognizant of the fact that the person speaking to you has switched from your native language. Granted then they say a word that I don’t recognize and I am swung back into realization that I am FAR from fluency.

Public transportation is a wonderful thing… thank goodness for lowering one’s carbon footprint.

Im trying to find as many vegan/vegetarian places around (Food that comes out of the ground is a wonderful thing, eat it please, because chances are if you are reading this I want you to live a long time, thank you). I have found a couple near the center and one just down the street from my Homestay. Additionally, in case you didn’t know, I love hummus. So for those that know this, you will not be surprised to hear that I have already found 3 hummus places. Though with the tight orientation schedule I haven’t had time to find the one co-owned by an Israeli and Palestinian.

Today, we visited the German Historical Museum. I continue to be affirmed in my choice of Political Science as a major. Something about reading about isolated nobles making societal rules in medieval times just gets me thinking about the peasants who, like Aaron Burr, probably just wanted to be “in the room where it happens” (If you don’t understand the reference, you may just have to listen to the entire Hamilton soundtrack…).

Tonight I found a basketball club team to play pickup with and hopefully join their league when it begins at the end of September. I was one of three newcomers. There was a young Frenchman who just finished his Masters and began working in Berlin on Monday, and an Argentinian who has been in Berlin for a year but only just found this club network. We are hoping to be able to get some pickup games going in parks in the city.

It is far too late so I will just throw some pictures in and sign off.

The main building of Humboldt University, our IES partner though we take no classes there

A plaque commemorating an apartment where David Bowie lived just around the corner from my hosts.

Found the Hummus, maybe they supply the Friends?

In case you got to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 10th step and needed to be cautioned that there was a next one… Don’t embarrass yourself in front of Mr. Marx

Sounds good to me… (Bonus selfie in door)

And for those who weren’t convinced by the reflection in the door that this blog is actually mine, here is a selfie in the German Historical Museum with my direct ancestor Charlamagne. Questionable ethics, but at least he had some dope facial hair…  It’s genetic