Hi everyone! Week 3 is done! I can’t believe I’m almost halfway through my time here in Berlin. It feels like yesterday when I first arrived at the airport and lugged my baggage on the U7 to get to my hotel. I am fully in a groove now with my internship and life abroad, which I am very grateful for. I had a lot of anxiety about not fitting in to the culture here, or running into some challenges along the way. I have encountered some of those challenges in the workplace and in general, but that hasn’t stopped me from having a wonderful time here! We’ll get into that later, but first here’s what I’ve been up to!

We started off Monday with work and wonderful picnic in Tempelhofer Feld to watch the sunset! Tempelhof is the location of Western Berlin’s old airfield. After the field was closed down, the city converted it into a park for anyone to enjoy. We all brought food to share and enjoyed it under the beautiful sunset. The next day, I did some solo exploring once again. I decided to check out a cool vintage clothing store about 20 minutes from my work. The clothes were incredible! I wish I could’ve bought the whole store, but I ended up walking out with 2 shirts that I’m hoping to get good use out of. The next day, I decided to be adventurous with my dinner. I went out and found one of the best Döner Kebab places in the entire city of Berlin, which is Zagros. They’re pita döner’s are so good! I definitely recommend to anyone who plans on visiting Berlin.

This past weekend, my friend Anna and I decided to travel a little bit further outside of Berlin, and even Germany. We thought, why not find a beach to relax at for the weekend? We looked into flights, and SHOCKINGLY, Corfu, Greece had pretty cheap flights. It was a no brainer! We hopped on the flight and spent a wonderful, relaxing weekend on the western coast of Corfu in a town named Agios Gordios. We spent all day on the beach, ate authentic Greek food, and watched the sun set over the beautiful, crystal-clear ocean. This was the first time in my life I was grateful for a sunburn. Here’s some pictures from the weekend:

Aside from my little adventures, my internship has been going pretty well! As a business development intern, I’ve been keeping their social media’s up to date, conducting market research, and creating flyers to market the product to potential buyers. Although I’m keeping myself busy, I still encounter some minor cultural challenges in the office and in general. One of the main challenges is connecting with my co-workers outside of “work talk”. Whenever we’re in the break room, or it’s just casual conversation, everyone around me speaks German. This makes it very hard to connect with my co-workers and get to know them. They speak to me in English, but to each other in German. This is particularly challenging for me because I’m a very social person, so not being able to communicate on the daily is very challenging some days.

Besides work, there’s been some interesting differences in general that I’ve experienced. One of the big ones is no jaywalking. As a Pitt student, jaywalking is pretty built in to my everyday commute to and from class. I’m always in a rush, so I never think twice about it (I always look both ways don’t worry). When I got to Berlin and realized that was a big no-no, that was a shock for me. I find myself waiting at a crosswalk with other people even though there’s no cars on the road at all. I’m still getting used to that difference. Another cultural difference for me was coffee shops in general. Because of my commute, I have to wake up pretty early to catch the train for work. While I was walking, I tried to stop at a couple coffee shops that I found on TikTok. All of them were closed. This was a huge shock coming from the US where all coffee shops open at least 5am. Recently, I find myself grabbing coffee in the hotel lobby or at the grocery store, which is fine but I prefer my iced latte from a cafe nearby.

That’s it for this week! Next week I’ll be discussing some skills I picked up while in-country. Tschau!