Another week in Berlin has passed by and we are getting closer and closer to the end of the program. Time has seemingly flown by rapidly at certain points and I cannot believe that we only have two weeks left! This past week I went the Tiergarten in Berlin and the Soviet memorial with my friend Jeff. Both sites were really cool and I had a lot of fun. Unfortunately we ran into some transportation issues on our way back. One of the train stations was flooded out from the heavy rainstorm last week and it completely screwed up the normal routes. Speaking of which, we apparently got the most rain Berlin has gotten in over 100 years (assuming I read the headline correctly in German). Some of the streets were flooded so badly that cars were up to their skirts in water. The division between the streets and sidewalks on certain roads were so deep underwater that they were no longer visible and there were even some artificial “waves” coming up on some sidewalks every time a car drove by.

Additionally, the internet at the hotel has gone down indefinitely. Depending on just how long that is, things could get interesting. Considering I will be traveling to Amsterdam tomorrow and travel is clearly not an excuse to miss assignments for this class, I decided to submit this blogpost from my place of work. I would normally do so on my own time as we are supposed to, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Hopefully the internet comes back before the end of next week so we can successfully submit our upcoming assignments without having to do so from our internship placement locations!

The basic line of business the firm I intern with is involved in is supply chain monitoring/security. I do not know exactly where the devices we sell are produced or from where the various raw materials to produce said devices are procured. The devices are loaned out to customers upon an order request. The devices are then hand-selected off of the shelf, prepared with new batteries, tested, packaged, and shipped to the customer. There are some safety concerns with the lithium batteries based on European Union policies. We have to fill out a form as part of the packing process each time we send a device to a customer so that we do not break any EU rules/regulations. We also have to put a “dangerous goods” sticker on the outside of the box to conform with EU policies. As far as required skills go, a little bit of basic training and practice should suffice. I do not think the tasks necessary to complete the shipment fulfillment require any real skill. I caught on pretty quickly and had no prior experience with any of this, so I think that says a lot.