This week at my internship, I continued the project I have been working on. It was pretty much finished on Tuesday, so we set up a meeting to show the head of the Business Development team. On Wednesday we showed the tool and got some modifications to make to it. I worked on and finished the modifications on Wednesday and Thursday. The next steps are to make this tool for other types of surveys that Vencon produces. Throughout working on this project, I have developed many skills. I knew nothing about VBA before starting this internship, so I have come a long way for being able to finish a project. I have even learned new things on Excel that I will be able to use in future classes and jobs. Aside from hard skills, I have developed soft skills from my internship and living in Berlin. I have become better at communication and punctuality. Since the office is very diverse, English is not everyone first language. It is important to communicate exactly what I am trying to say so there is no confusion. This is the same for everyday life in Berlin. Almost everyone in Berlin speaks English very well, but it is still important to make sure to be punctual when communicating.
On Friday there was a monthly VenConnect event in the office. This event was a pot luck and everyone brought food from their home country. The office is very diverse with people from all over the place, so there was a lot of different food options. I did not bring anything because America was already being represented by two people in the office. I ate food from Germany, India, China, Spain, Lebanon, Nepal, Ghana, and America. My favorite was the hand rolled dumplings and homemade sauce from Nepal.
For the weekend I took a trip to Munich. We left at 6:30am on Saturday and got there at 11. This time on the train there was not a problem with our seats, because we reserved them. The train was not full, so there was no need to pay extra and reserve our seats. We went to the hotel to drop off our bags and then went to get lunch. After lunch, we checked into the hotel and got ready for the rest of the day. We went and walked around Marienplatz. There was a big stage set up there for a Pride festival. The area was very crowded, but I assume it is not always like that. After walking around there, we took a tour of the Residenz Museum. This was a palace right near Marienplatz. This reminded me of the Sans Soucci Palace in Potsdam. There were so many rooms to walk through. Many of them had gold fixtures on the walls and ceilings to create a design. There were also many paintings that filled the walls and ceilings. Some of the artwork was made on tapestries and I thought those were the most impressive. After that tour, we walked around the area a little more and got sausage at a stand. We then went to a restaurant at Marienplatz to have a beer and watch some of the concert. We walked to a park after where there were many people hanging out and just enjoying the nice weather. We ended up going to dinner at a German restaurant and I got sausages again.
On Sunday we woke up early and went to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. We spent almost 4 hours there doing an audio tour while walking through the camp and the museum. After Dachau, we went to the Nymphenburg Palace. We did not go in but it was very impressive from the outside. We then went to a German restaurant near there. We went back to Munich and walked around the main area again because it was less crowded than the day before. We ended our day going to another German restaurant for dinner. I really liked Munich, I think it had more of a German feel to it.
For our train back to Berlin, there were some problems that resulted in the train being delayed. We did not know what was happening because they were only making the announcement in German. Eventually someone sat with us and he was telling us that there were people on the track and that is why the train was delayed. The train ended up leaving an hour after it was supposed to, so we did not get back to the Berlin station until 2:15am. We seem to have bad luck with the trains, so hopefully that will stop.