Arrival Week

I flew out of LAX to Texas then To London Then to Berlin Germany.  The Whole process took about 22 hours.  I took a taxi  to the Lindner Hotel in Kurfürstendamm, known locally as Ku’damm.  Ku’damm is a beautiful part of the city known for its high-end shopping, hotels, and restaurants.  In about a stretch of 4 blocks I saw Rolex, Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton stores, among several others. During the Golden Twenties period in Berlin under the Weimar Republic, Ku’damm was a hub of activity day and night.  In between initial orientation sessions I strolled down the avenue while getting my first taste of German culture.  That evening my program’s director invited us all for dinner at a biergarten in Tiergarten, which is basically Berlin’s central park.  The food was delicious and the dinner served as a good opportunity to get to know a few of the people that I will be sharing my time in Berlin with. 

The next morning the small group at the Lindner Hotel transferred to the center where the program’s classes will be held, which is basically a large converted home in Steglitz, an expensive residential area of the city.  After a basic information session, My host family dad came to pick me up his name is also Michael.  I meet my family in which there is a wife, Christina, and  Felix (17).  They also have two other kids Jasmin (22) and Dennis (26) who live in other parts of the city.   Only Felix lives at home.  My family prepared a dinner of spaghetti that night which was simple but great tasting.  I went into the Mitte (center of Berlin) to check out the city.

The rest of the first week mostly consisted of doing touristy stuff during the day and exploring different parts of the city at night.  On Friday the program went on a boat tour on the Spree River, which runs right past such famous sites as the Reichstag building, the e TV tower, and a stretch of the Berlin Wall.  Fun fact about the Fernsehturm: on clear days, the reflection of the sun makes a distinct cross on the TV tower's steel dome.  This effect was called the "Pope's Revenge" because the secular East German government and the tower's designers never desired such a phenomenon.  Immediately after the tour we went to the largest Soviet War Memorial in Berlin, located in Treptower Park.  Created in 1949 to commemorate the 80,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the Battle of Berlin at the end of World War II, the memorial contains the remains of 5,000 soldiers.  I was shocked on how enormous this monument is.