16 May 2018

Today was the first day "out on the town" in Berlin. We navigated the German public transportation for the first time, had our first class, and took part in a scavenger hunt around the city of Berlin.

We all started our day making breakfast at the communal kitchen in our dorms. We quickly learned how strict Germans are with recycling. We later found out that blue trash cans are for paper, green for compost, yellow for plastics, and grey (not shown in picture) for garbage. Additionally, it is typical to dispose of glassware like beer bottles separately.

Ally Cleary trying to figure out which trash can her garbage goes in.

After breakfast, we all headed down to our classroom for the month, which required us to use the U.S. subway equivalent (called the "U-Bahn" by locals) to get there. For many of us it was the first time riding the U-Bahn and were rightfully nervous. Unfortunately, we rode the U-Bahn during rush hour, so most of the carts were almost completely full and it felt like we were being packed in like sardines. Additionally, the was an incident where, in the midst of packing into the train, one of us got separated from the group because the doors closed on them and had to wait for the next train to come. After speaking to the individual, they said they were initially scared but once they got on the next train they found out how simple the train system was and was successful in getting to the correct stop. A few of us waited on them at the stop so we could all walk to the classroom together.

At the classroom, which seemed like a hole-in-the-wall, we learned about what the rest of the course was going to consist of, including the future trips to other cities. We ended our lesson with a mind-mapping session in which we wrote about ourselves and shared these with fellow classmates in order to get to know one-another better. We all went out to eat for lunch, with a group of us going to a Doner-Kabab food cart. It was delicious.

Lastly, for our afternoon exercise, we took part in a scavenger hunt around the entire city of Berlin. It was a blast getting to see the different sites of the city. We used the underground (U-Bahn) and above-ground (S-Bahn) trains to navigate around the city to see sites like the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and the German capitol building among the many other attractions.