Berlin Landing

This is coming out a bit late, but I made it to Berlin!

Landed at 2:00 p.m on Saturday, June 16th and made my way to the Mövenpick Hotel with both my parents. They had decided to join me for a little vacation and help me get settled in over the weekend. This is my first time in Germany, and I cannot wait to discover the country, its language and culture, and explore the many hidden gems in Berlin that don't show up on my 'Top Ten' Google list. I am ready for the adventure and am excited to see what parts of myself I find along the way too.

We arrived at the hotel, and spent the rest of the day walking through the streets of Berlin's center. We saw the Sony Center and the Mall of Berlin (classic tourists), but I had a marvelous time introducing myself to this new and unfamiliar place with both my parents by my side. Surprisingly, the city seemed quieter than I had expected. As we walked out of the hotel, I couldn't help but notice how calmly and silently everything moved. There weren't half as many cars or people as I had expected passing us by, which puzzled me as I imagined this city to be bustling with presence. Although I had never been here before, the quiet seemed too suspicious for a Saturday evening in Berlin's city center.

One thing that I noticed an abundance of however was the number of people on bicycles. I think I saw more people travelling on bike than by car in my first hour here than I have ever seen anywhere else. It was really a sight for me to see so many children, adults, friends, families, and couples riding to their destination together by bike. I admired this sight very much, and for some reason it made me feel happy. It was wholesome.

It didn't take long after our arrival for me to realize that I probably should have picked up some German before coming here. Our very first stop was dinner-because food always comes first-and we found a cute little French restaurant not too far from the hotel. And I know what you're thinking, why are we eating at a French restaurant when we just landed in Germany for the first time? Why not go to a German place? The main reason was that both my dad and I don't eat meat. I'm vegetarian and my dad is a pescatarian, and let's just say that the only must-try German dishes for a vegetarian are probably sweeter than I would want for a main course. So we finally decided on the French restaurant.

The realization came to me when the waiter handed us the only "English" menu they had at the restaurant. 😏 I smirk because everything on this menu was in German. I think it was his way of being sarcastic, and I would have laughed had I not had to spend an eternity trying to understand it. I used to think that Google translate can solve all the world's problems until I had to translate every single word on the menu. As strenuous as it is though, this app has been my savior in moments like these. Berlin is the largest German speaking city in all of Germany, and I am sure that this will get me to learn more German than I would have had it been otherwise.

After two nights at the Mövenpick and two days touring Berlin on the "Hop On Hop Off " tour bus, I was ready and eager to get to the place that I would be spending my next two months; and so, come Monday morning, I was shipped over to Teltow in the bright red Ford Focus my dad had rented. Teltow was at the edge of Berlin, and I did not know much about it besides the fact that none of my friends who had visited Berlin knew where it was. But Teltow is home to the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Institute for Biomaterial Research, and that's where I will be doing research on polymer scaffolds for cartilage tissue growth.

As we drove through the city on our way to the institute, I couldn't help but notice an odd and unique air that Berlin contained. There was just something about it that seemed peculiar. I could not put my finger on it, but I knew that it would come to me eventually...