Today was my first actual full day here. I slept through the night (thankfully), so my jetlag isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I started the day with breakfast – some Muesli, and apple, and coffee. My host mother, Isabel, ate with me and we chatted a bit.
At 9:30, I met Claudio at the train station, and from there we went to Prenzlauer Berg (a neighborhood of Berlin), where we had a bike tour. The tour went through different neighborhoods in Berlin, and our tourguide, a local here, was able to give us so much extra detail about the different places. I’ve taken German history courses and have taken a tour of Berlin, so I thought I knew a lot, but I learned so much more today. In some neighborhoods (ex: Prenzlauer Berg), the gentrification is so extreme that less than 10% of the people who lived there 20 years ago still live there today due to rising rent prices. There is an old WWII bunker still standing in Berlin-Mitte that was originally for shelter from the war, but later on, it became one of the best known clubs in Berlin. Some years later, the building was sold for 1 Euro to a man who wanted to house his art collection. Today, the art collection is still there, and it is a modern art museum, open to the public. These interesting tidbits are the kind of thing you don’t learn in a college course.
For lunch, Claudio and I met up with another API student, Adam, and we went to a Lebanese restaurant. The food was delicious. Afterwards, we went to the Mauerpark, which is located in the area that was between the wall for East Berlin and the wall for West Berlin, known as the Death Strip. What used to be such a negative and scary space is now a big park that has a huge Flohmarkt (fleamarket) on Sundays. There are so many stands and booths at this Flohmarkt, selling things from secondhand clothing to children’s books to old typewriters. Claudio joked that many people who sell things at the Flohmarkt are on the line between “collecting” and “hoarding” items to sell.
The rest of my day consisted of me navigating the U-Bahn by myself and then relaxing at home with my host family. Tomorrow, I have to take a placement test, and I’ll be able to meet more students.
