Here begins the reflection of another beautiful, but hot, week in Berlin. As temperatures rose to the highest they’ve been all summer, I’ve been cooling off by staying mostly indoors and hanging out in various parks. That being said, I did get around to doing some cool things.
On Wednesday, I went to the ballet with my fellow Intern. The ballet was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and was performed in a somewhat contemporary style. I thought it was very well executed and quite fun to watch. Ballet plot lines often tend not to make much sense, so it was nice to watch something where I was familiar with the plot and could laugh along with the jokes.
The highlight of the week was a trip to the Baltic Sea. Germany has a program called the Deutschland Ticket, where you can buy a monthly pass for around 60€ and then use any public transportation within Germany with it. Since we had bought the Deutschland Ticket, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we had it and take a trip up North. The trip was about 6 hours, and consisted of three trains and a bus. The bulk of the journey took place on a train ride from Berlin to Rostock, and it was absolutely torturous. In our effort to escape the heat by traveling to the Sea, we accidentally found ourselves standing in a stuffy, un-airconditioned crowded train for three hours, creating worse conditions that that which we had hoped to escape from. It seemed that everyone had the very same brilliant idea to get away from the city during the hottest days.
Once we reached our ultimate destination, Born auf dem Darß, it was a big relief. We went swimming in the sea, which was quite clear and still, but filled with so many jellyfish. Despite this, it was very nice to get away into some nature. We also did a lot of biking, and even visited a lighthouse (as seen in the picture below).
However, the train troubles continued on our way back. About half-way through our train ride back, it suddenly stopped due to issues with the electricity. After a bit of a wait in the heat, everyone in the train got off and had to get on to another train. And then, at my stop at Berlin Hautbanhof, I learned that the S-Bahn was not running there, and had to get on an alternative bus. All in all it was a very chaotic day of travel. Though, I came to learn what Germans were talking about when they were complaining about the train system. Coming from a. place with little public transport, I couldn’t conceive of what the people at my company were companying about regarding the trains. Frankly, I thought they were just being dramatic. But now, having spent an extended amount of time trying to get somewhere on a long train ride, I completely understand.
As for my internship, I really appreciate my supervisor’s leadership style, and I think it really falls in with mine. He really supports us, and wants us to take on work that is personally interesting to us. I also like that he does not micromanage us, and gives us space to work on our tasks in our own way. That being said, we do have daily check-in meetings, and there are times that we have a quicker turn-around on assignments. Though, our company does not have a strict publishing schedule, so deadlines tend not be very tight, which really helps with the casual feel of the company.
However, I am really learning the importance of organization, and of naming things properly/managing files when it comes to my own application of leadership. Our Microsoft Teams page is a bit of a mess, and it can be hard to find the correct file, especially when everyone has their own convention for naming things. In this sense, I believe that a big part of leadership is purely setting consistent standards and making it easer to work together.
That’s all for this week. See you again later!