Getting Settled

Guten Tag meine Freunde!

As you may have guessed, I have safely arrived in Berlin! I got here on Tuesday and since then, I've been getting to know this amazing city. I haven't had time to upload pictures yet, but they will come soon, I promise.

Here's the rundown of my living situation: All the students in the Stanford-in-Berlin program live in homestays in different parts of the city. Berlin is basically a large conglomeration of different towns, so to speak, and it's a fairly large area geographically (think like Los Angeles big). My home is in the Charlottenburg neighborhood, which is the area directly north of the Stanford Center. Charlottenburg is an awesome district that has a ton of cafes, restaurants, museums and, oh yeah, the Charlottenburg palace (click on it) is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Pretty chill is an understatement. I am living with a father and his two children, aged 13 and 11 and they are all very sweet and have been extremely welcoming. They are of Turkish decent (the father was born in Turkey) and I got to sample various lovely pistachioed desserts on Wednesday. The children both study English and French, so hopefully they'll help me with my language homework and I can help them with theirs :) I live right next door to La Maison de Danse (the German equivalent of Capezios), a Kindergarten, a Volkshochschule (vocational school), and a large pedestrian shopping area complete with an H+M, Kaiser (like Trader Joe's-ish), tons of little shops, a gym, and the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks.

Our orientation began on Wednesday and, despite the fact that the distance from my home to school looks to be only about five U-Bahn stops (U-Bahn = BART, subway, Metro, etc.) away, it is about at 30 minute commute including walking and switching lines. I definitely don't mind the commute - it's so interesting to people watch on the U-Bahn and get to know the city that way, and the walk from the station to school is beautiful. The Stanford Center, otherwise known as "The Villa," is located in the Dahlem district in the southwest of Berlin. It's a beautiful old house that was given to Stanford by some famous alum. Typical. It's terrifically equipped and very modern and German in design on the inside. Pictures to follow in a later post.

Orientation thus far has consisted of learning about the various course offerings, meeting each other and the faculty/staff, getting tours of the house and the IT stuff, a delicious dinner sponsored by the Bing Family (other famous, rich alumni) and getting us registered at the Rathaus/ Buergeramt which is where I officially became a temporary citizen of Berlin! I have the papers to prove it! This was interesting because the building is literally like a giant beautiful church/clock tower and the inside is exactly like the DMV ( SO. MUCH. Waiting.). My friend and I went together to the Rathaus and stood in line to get a number to wait for an hour to get in another line to finally reach the person we needed to stamp our one piece of paper. Oh, German bureaucracy.

So, I've gone grocery shopping, gotten my German cell phone, unpacked, and am getting ready for my first weekend in Berlin. Tomorrow we are doing a boat tour on the river Spree (pronounced Shpree) with the group and on Sunday we're watching part of the Berlin marathon and then seeing a karaoke show in Mauerpark. Classes begin on Monday!

Bis dann, tchüss! Until then, goodbye!

Doria