This week was a very memorable one. I had the pleasure of going to two separate events hosted right in front of the Brandenburg Gate that were both amazing. At work, it was more of the same: excel sheets and a lot of German. Also, on Saturday I went to a very cool pop up flea market.
The first event I went to at the Brandenburg Gate was a free concert to kickstart the Euros. Going into it I knew none of the four artists, not even a single song. I was told, however, that the headliner was one of the biggest German rappers. Everyone there seemed to be extremely excited for the headliner, Luciano. The first three artists I enjoyed, and the last of the three I ended up knowing a couple of songs from. In this time we were gradually working our way up closer and closer to the front. When Luciano finally came out it was like a switch was flipped and everyone went insane. He was electric on stage and even had pyrotechnics going on behind him. It was an unforgettable sight watching him perform in this electric atmosphere right in front of such a historic landmark. For his final song, he performed a song called “SUVS” which was just him rapping about SUVS. For this song, it somehow got even more hype and everyone was off their feet screaming the lyrics. Even though I didn’t know any of his songs it was probably one of the coolest performances I have ever seen. It certainly is one I don’t know if Ill ever get the chance to see something similar again.
The second event I attended at the Brandenburg Gate was a watch party for Scotland vs Germany– the first game of the Euros. Before the game started there was another German rapper performing, Ski Aggu, who I actually knew some songs from. While not as electric as Luciano, it was still super cool and he was a good performer. It was a great surprise to kick off what would be a great night. Again we ended up very close to the front of the stage which was super cool. Germany ended up winning 5-1 against Scotland, and with each goal, the entire watch party erupted. Everyone would start cheering, jumping, hugging, and going crazy. It was such a great atmosphere, and it was so cool to experience right in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
On Saturday I was walking around more or less aimlessly with the overarching goal of just exploring and finding something new. I ended up stumbling upon this very cool little popup flea market. It was not super big, but had a super interesting assortment of stuff mostly pertaining to history. As someone who loves history, I loved it and spent a ton of time there. On the far end, there were medals and ribbons from the communist East Germany. On the other end, you could find old currency from the Weimar time (I saw bills in the hundreds of thousands). And in between you could find almost anything you could imagine. My favorite section, however, was the map section. The seller had a huge variety of old maps, atlas pages, etc. It was extremely interesting flipping through pages of the 19th and 20th century world. I ended up purchasing a 1909 map of the textile industry in Germany for 10 Euros.
In terms of assimilating to the German culture and specifically German workplace culture, I feel I have been very well prepared for this. I think the hardest part of assimilating into a foreign culture and workplace culture is the language. I have been fortunate enough to have been learning German since 8th grade, so my German has been very serviceable in this respect. While my German is far from perfect, I am learning and improving every day. I think my German has helped greatly with this part of assimilation as it has helped to bridge the gap with many of my coworkers. Many of my coworkers can speak English, but would much rather speak German as its their native language. This has made it much easier for me to integrate into the workplace; however, this does not mean it has been a cakewalk. Every day I push my German skills further to try and communicate as much in German as possible to help with assimilation. Often I make mistakes or speak unclearly, but I see these as all steps in my improvement. Also, I find that I am generally exhausted after trying so hard to speak German while also managing my internship. I know this work will pay off as I not only improve my German, but also better assimilate into the culture.