Wilkommen zu Berlin!

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July 26th 2009

Published: August 2nd 2009

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This is a lovely corner park just around the street from my host family's house.

Hello everyone! I'm back again, and once again recounting various German tales. This time, though, I'm up north in Berlin participating in a study abroad program called FUBiS, which is run through the Freie Universität Berlin. So, my trip in a nutshell: take German classes all morning and early afternoon, hang out around Berlin or do extracurricular activities at the uni, then have dinner/hang out with host family/do homework in the evenings. Of course, weekends will be a whole different story. 😉

So far, however, my trip has been full of airplanes, settling in, and sleep. Apart from a quick sprint through Frankfurt Airport in order to make my connection, the flights were blessedly uneventful. My host mother, Sylvia, was kind enough to meet me at the airport so I didn't have to figure out the confusing network of U-Bahn (subway), S-Bahn (surface trains), and buses that is Berlin public transportation. The room setup is great, and her house is SO cool! She lives in a quiet southwestern neighborhood of Berlin, so I get to explore a side of Berlin I might never have otherwise seen. She has three grown children and is alone in the house again, so she's

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same park, different view

started having exchange students to stay. In fact, there's currently another exchange student from Argentinia staying as well.

I won't put you to sleep with all the boring details of the first two days, since most of it was taken up with getting myself lost and found again, meetings and handouts, and plenty of naps. I'll post some pictures later once I transfer them to the computer. Unlike previous posts, I probably won't be updating every day (especially when I've just been doing normal, school-related type things) but I'll update every time I do something extra-cool!

So, I'll end this post with a few first impressions of Berlin:
1) This city is huge! How will I ever find my way around?
2) (later on) The public transportation system is very straightforward. Maybe I will be able to find my way around.
3) This is one of the greenest cities I've ever been in-there are wonderfully old trees lining every lane I walked down!
4) For becoming a smoke-free city, there's still a heck of a lot of cigarettes around.
5) How can you not love a city filled with children, families, and dogs having a wonderful time?

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