Well, it’s been a while, but my last blog post has arrived. I will be leaving Germany on Saturday morning, and that will be it! I enjoyed my last couple of weeks in Berlin, but the city was also swamped in a heat wave of proportions that Europe isn’t necessarily meant to accommodate. A single ride on the U Bahn was probably hazardous for my health, due to all the heat accumulating down there. So, this made for a sweaty (for lack of a better term) long weekend, as I tried to push through and enjoy my last few completely free days overseas.

I took last Friday off of work, so last Thursday night I had some overpriced Mexican food and walked a bit of the Tiergarten at night, and saw some gorgeous views of the Brandenburg Gate.

On Friday we woke up late and spent a few hours in the Tiergarten to sunbathe, and experienced even more painfully hot transportation. Sorry most of this post is about the heat, but my first major heatwave in a country with limited AC and ice cubes was no easy feat!

Saturday was fun because I went shopping at cute European shops like Zara (which I know is in the US too but not near me), Pull and Bear, And Other Stories, and others. I did go a bit overboard with spending again, but this being my last major opportunity to shop in Europe, that is somewhat expected. We also ran into the Berlin Pride parade, and I had the privilege of being sprayed with water and champagne by the LGBT community! That night we had dinner at an American diner, which is cool because I haven’t had Heinz ketchup in over two months (thrilling evening, I know).

Sunday was a day at the lake, Müggelsee, featuring a lot of sand and SPF 50. Yes I reapplied every hour, but still got a nasty burn on my stomach. Don’t ask me how, guess the heatwave got to me.

On Tuesday we (meaning all of the Pitt students) had a farewell dinner with Britta, our program manager from Intrax. She put a lot of hard work into finding our internships, as well as showing us around and having us do cool things during our orientation week, so it was very nice to meet with her one last time. We went to a restaurant by the Spree River called Freischwimmer, and I tried a sort of German version of Swedish pizza, called Flammkuchen. The heat wave continues to be strong, but it was worth it sitting outside since it was such a beautiful location.

This week at work was actually rather busy, which was surprising because I thought it had been winding down the previous week. Maybe my co workers realized they won’t have the help of an intern next week, so they may as well give me tasks while they can! I also worked on compiling all of the tasks I had done during my internship into a concise description to give to the HR department, so they could write a letter of recommendation. Just about everyone suggested that I get this from Awin before I leave, so hopefully it pays off and helps me get a paid internship next summer! (listen, I can dream okay). It wasn’t too hard to do, as I was encouraged to keep a daily log of my daily tasks in a OneNote file, so I simply lifted them from there and added my own descriptions. I was advised to make it as concise as I could. If you haven’t noticed… I’m a wordy person so that was a bit of a struggle.

Ironically, I finally feel totally capable at work, and no longer like the new weird American intern. I guess it takes me two months to adjust to situations, that’s about how long it took for me to feel at home at Pitt! But of course, I must go home very soon. This was my first full time, 9:30-5:30, 5 days a week job. It was an adjustment but now it feels pretty normal, so it’s very strange to me that I’ll go back to having little structure next week. until classes start. I’m involved in my sorority, have a job in the mailroom during the semester, and I’m thinking of joining a pre-law fraternity this semester (in addition to classes), but my life still won’t be this structured. I also won’t be around so many people who are a bit older and appear to have their life and emotional health somewhat in order, but the good news is I think they rubbed off on me. I finally see what life may be like after college, and it honestly isn’t as scary as I thought. Granted, I wasn’t paying my own bills and my room was cleaned by the hotel I’m staying in, but I’ll actually get paid in the future and probably won’t share a tiny room with another person, so it’s a give and take. I’ll miss the superb transportation, new and different cultures, everyone I’ve met, all of that. But, my time at college is only halfway done, and I have a degree to finish… so you can bet I’ll back pulling my hair out in Hillman with an Americano at 2 AM in no time 😉

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland. Du warst fantastisch 🙂

UPDATE (AUGUST 3rd): My co-workers decorated my desk (and one of them gave up their desk because I was moved around the whole week) on my last day, which was also my birthday 🙂