First days of work

Started my job on Tuesday and I am liking it so far. On my first day I met my boss, Judith, who is a Ph.D. student working at/with HafenCity University (HCU). Here is picture of where HCU will be when its all completed:

It looks pretty lame now but in a couple of years its suppose to be done. They also said it was going to be done in 2012 when they started so who knows when it will be completed... But this year Hamburg was titled the European Green Capital! I don't know about you, but I was pretty impressed. I got some information about tours they do to show why they got this so I will definitely be doing that!

Back to business: Judith also advises students and does lectures for some classes. She is nice and really helpful with getting settled here and starting work. In the afternoon on Tuesday we tried to get some errands done but were completely unsuccessful. We started at the post office so I could register in Hamburg and she needed to get a new passport. We got there and received the number 215 and 216 while they were on #176. So we sat down and filled out some paperwork. After a while we were told by a woman sitting by us that she had already been there for 2 hours and still had about 20 people ahead of her. We thought we could go to the bank and try to open an account but once we got there we were told I needed to be registered in Hamburg to open an account. So back to the post office we went...only to find out there were still about 25 people ahead of us. We declared Tuesday a bust and went our separate ways home.

On Wednesday I sat in on some presentation that students were giving that Judith had to evaluate. They were all in German but I was just interested to sit in because the students were about my age and I wanted to see what type of work they were doing. After that we went back to the office and celebrated Judith's boss's birthday that was last week. Here, if it is your birthday, you supply champagne and I think usually some type of food. So I got to have some champagne at lunch!! I was pretty stoked but didn't want to seem like a totally newbie so I contained my excitement. After lunch I actually got to start working! Judith explained to me what her dissertation is about and what type of research she is looking at. Right now I am reading articles about spatial strategic planning. It is some cool stuff and it actually makes sense to me. I'm definitely improving my reading of articles skills and boy did they need some work!! I have never been good at that kind of reading and I definitely think this will help.

Today was more reading and summarizing of the articles. I finally made an appointment to get registered so hopefully I can open a bank account soon. HafenCity University seems like an amazing school! They have different levels of degrees in Urban Planning, Urban Design, Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering, and (my favorite) REAP, which stands for Resource Efficiency in Architecture and Planning (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

That is basically what I want to do which I have never been able to put a title on. I am really excited to be working at this school and Judith said she can help me set up some meetings with people if I want. I will probably do this I just have to get my mind straight about who I would want to talk to first!!

Until next time:

Keep it green,
Brianne

Back in Hamburg

Hello all! I'm back in Hamburg after visiting my friend Maya for a view days in Stuttgart. I had soooo much fun there and was sad to leave. After arriving we got ready to go out on the town. We went to a beach bar, then got dinner, and ended the night at a pub, Biddy's. We had a good time even though we got tied up in other people's drama and got rum and coke spilled all over me without an apology. The next day we did some shopping and then a photographer came to Maya's parent's house to do a photo shoot. I got to watch Maya, her sister and her mom get their hair and make up done and get their picture taken multiple times. After that eventful day, we decided to do something a little more relaxing on Friday so we went to the zoo. It was a very nice zoo and a lot of the animals were active. We saw the monkeys go a little crazy and some llamas stalk a couple of dogs walking through the neighboring park. Here's one of my favorite pics from the day:

During the day Saturday we took it easy so we would have enough energy for the night. It was Maya's sister's  boyfriend's birthday and we wanted to have a good night!! Which we did!!

We started at the club that the party was taking place and then went to a big, ridiculous dance club thingy. It had 5 rooms that each had a different theme and we ended up dancing in the room that played hip hop music from when I was in high school. We knew it was a good time to end the night when they played the opening song from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Then came Sunday when I had to leave and come back to Hamburg. :( After a long train ride, I thought it would be beneficial to get lost multiple times since I was carrying my 80 pounds of luggage. But that was just a warm up to the 5 flights of stairs I was to climb to get to the apartment (once I found it).

Today I'm just hanging out and resting before I start work tomorrow. I'm glad I get to start working again so I can have that structure and something to do during the day. I hope I'm prepared enough for the job and that I don't get too confused with everything on the first day. Fingers crossed!!

Until next time:

Keep it green!
Brianne

Scheiße and Giggles

The past couple of days have had their ups and downs, hence the title of this post. My last few days in Berlin were uneventful. Simone helped with my luggage to the train station and saw me off. I was nervous on the train because I thought I might be in the wrong place and have to move, which would have been difficult with all of my stuff. But everything was fine and I enjoyed my first long-distance train ride! I arrived in Hamburg safe and sound. Yesterday was a holiday so I did some sight seeing. To start my day off right, I had a nutritious breakfast:

After that delectable meal, I did a self-led tour through a historic church St. Michaelis. I went all the way to the top of the spire and saw an amazing view of the city. After that, I met up with some girls who are also working at HafenCity University this summer. One of them, Katie, has been here in Hamburg for a little bit so she was our tour guide. We walked around a lot of the city and saw some really cool things. HafenCity in itself is RIDICULOUS!!! The architecture for each building is really different yet it all works together. Here is one of the buildings:

Even though it is amazing aesthetically, some of the locals aren’t too happy about HafenCity being built. I don’t know too much about it but I plan on doing some research as to why this is. HafenCity University isn’t actually built yet so I will be working at their temporary site but I did get to see where it will be built. I hope to be able to come back someday and see it all finished.

At the end of yesterday I was pooped so I planned on today to be a relaxing day. That kind of happened…I started my day at about 6 in the morning by being woken up my a wild boar that was let loose in my room. O wait, that’s not a wild boar you say but a man snoring?!?!?!? You had me fooled. I was going to get up early anyways because I had to go to work to sign my contract but I wasn’t going to get up THAT early. I also realized how loud I can be when trying to get ready quietly. After all of that excitement, I set out on my journey to find where I will be working for the next 10 weeks. So I got on the train and of course, I was heading in the wrong direction. So I got off and found out that there is construction being done on the line I need to take so I had to get off again and find the bus that is used to compensate for this. But I finally made it! I found the office perfectly fine and signed my contract. I was supposed to meet with one of my co-workers but she got tied up at home and couldn’t make it in. After all of this I waved my little white flag, came back to the hostel, watched a movie and took a nap. I’m going to try to get to bed early tonight because who knows when I’ll be woken up by the wild boar again.

Tomorrow I leave for Stuttgart to go and visit my friend Maya!!! I am über excited and can barely contain myself!!! 

Until next time:

Keep it green!

Brianne

Moving on

I was very tempted to title this post "I dislike cats" but I decided not too. For those of you who are unaware of why this is currently important, stay tuned. I think mentioning it in the first line is much more effective. Anyway...this was my last week in Berlin…I had a really enjoyed my time here but I am super excited to go to Hamburg. I was talking to Simone about it yesterday and she said that Hamburg is nice because it is by the water and there are less people. I’m leaving on Sunday by train and should get the Hamburg at about 3:30pm.

The last couple of days I’ve gone to a couple more museums and just hung out. On Tuesday I went to a display called “Topography of Terror.” It mostly is about the history of the Nazi party and also includes an overall history of Berlin. There was so much information and a lot of pictures.

Funny little story: on my way to the Topography of Terror I got off the train at the wrong stop. I didn’t realize it until I had walked around for 20 minutes trying to find the museum. I was getting mad because I couldn’t find any of the streets on the map, which was because I’m blond and didn’t know I was in the wrong area. Oops!!! Haha. On Wednesday I went to the Museum of Design.

It is based in an old design school that included classes for architecture and art. It was very modern and different and I spent most of my time the architecture portion.

Yesterday (Thursday) I came home after my language class and had to do laundry. I’m glad the cat that peed in my suitcase has good timing and I was going to do laundry anyways. So there cat!! You’re not going to get the best of me!! Other than that I had just planned on hanging out for the rest of the day. In the afternoon Simone asked if I would like to join her, her friend, and her friend’s kids for dinner. I graciously accepted and had a very nice time. We had potatoeswith yogurt sauce, sautéed fennel, and salad. It was all delicious! Most of the time during dinner, I just sat back and listened to everyone else talking German. I could only follow the conversation by body language and a few words I knew. After dinner, Simone’s guests left and we sat at the kitchen table and talked. We discussed the financial situation of the U.S. and Germany, office politics, family, and some other things. By 11:30 I was tired so I said guten Nacht and went to bed.

Today was the last day of my language class. I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it. I learned more grammar than actual words but my teacher made a good point that you can learn the language on the street but you can’t learn the grammar there. After class we all went to a Biergarten and hung out for a little while.

As I said before, I am really excited to go to Hamburg on Sunday but I’m even more excited about going to Stuttgart on Wednesday and seeing Maya!!! We’re going to have so much fun together and will be nice to see a familiar face.

This may be my last picture from Berlin (tear) so I wanted it to be pretty (yes I took this and if I can say so myself, its not too shabby!).

Keep it green,

Brianne

Ach...

So this weekend was kind of a bust. I tried to go to a museum thingy on Saturday but since it was the weekend the Tram was running differently. Long story short, I didn't make it in time for the English tour. I did go today but more on that later. Since all I ended up doing on Saturday was walk around trying to find something to do/take up time and having no luck, I just stayed in yesterday because I didn't want to deal with the hotness and mostly everything is closed on Sundays anyways.

Today after class I did make it to the museum (?) that I really wanted to go to. It was a prison that was used by the Soviet's after WW2 and then the West Berlin police (Stasi) from 1945 to 1989 (I believe). It was more of a torture facility than a prison though while the Stasi used it. People would be picked up by the Stasi (who dressed in plain, commoners clothes) and then come to the prison to be questioned. They were most likely tortured psycologically and not physically. That was a totally different story while the Soviets used the facility. It was an interesting tour and my tour guide did a very good job of telling us a good amount of facts but not too much where we would be overwhelmed.

I've been here for about a week now. I still really like it and am glad I'm getting to know the public transportation system. On the ride back from the museum today, I was comparing our bus system in Ann Arbor to the Tram system here. I came up with two very obvious differences: (1) The stops/stations are much farther apart here. I accidentally got off the Tram this morning one stop too early and it resulted in an extra 5-10 minutes walking. If this would have happened in Ann Arbor, most likely I would have only had to walk a couple of minutes to the next stop. I would like to know the reasoning as to why the stops are so close to each other in Ann Arbor. I'm guessing the efficiency of the system would be greater if there were fewer stops. Also, (2) the tram system has its own lanes. They operate in the middle of the road, in place of a median. This enables them to stop without disturbing traffic and reduces the amount vehicles on the actual roads. I hope someday we can have a system like this in Michigan, whether its in Detroit, Ann Arbor or even East Lansing (I know but we need change somewhere).

As far as culturally speaking, I am still a little overwhelmed by the language barrier. I feel bad when people come up to me asking for directions in German and I can't do a thing for them. My classes have been going well and I've been kind of hanging out with my classmates outside of class. We're all different so there is a nice mix of people but they like to do different things than I do so we don't exactly click. Not everybody has to be best friends though, right? Haha.

Until next time:

Keep it green!!

Heeyyyoooo!!!!

I'm just hanging around so I thought I'd do my thang.

Wednesday started off with my language course. Slowly but surely we are all learning Deutsch. After class I was walking with some of my classmates and one of them asked "What is your name again? The teacher keeps calling you Brian but that can't be your name." Haha. Whenever Katarina says my name it does sound like Brian but I just told her I'm used to it (Thanks JJ crew). After class we went on a boat tour down the river Spree which was nice. Now this wasn't your typical boat tour where you sit on an open boat in plastic lawn chairs. We got on this really nice boat with tables, chairs, tableclothes, and centerpieces. This is what a top notch German boat tour looks like:

After the boat tour, I took a nice, long walk around the Hauptbahnof. This really was because I was lost but we don't have to tell anyone. Of course once I was lost I had to go to the bathroom but found they charge 0.80 euros to use the toilette so I just held it until I got home.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a bank holiday/celebration of Men. I guess it is a day for guys to celebrate being guys and give them an excuse to go to the beach and get drunk. Haha. Our language school arranged for us to go to the Alliierten Museum.

Once there I realized how much Scheiße Berlin has been through! it was interesting and put me on the fence about museums. Only time will tell if we are meant to spend time together. Once we were done at the museum, we were all hungry and parched so we went to a....Biergarten!!! Thats right kids, whenever you have an excuse to go to a Biergarten, you go. It was quite busy since it was a holiday but it was on a lake which was pretty. To get back to the main part of Berlin, we had to get on the S-Bahn (the above ground rail system) which was a lot farther away than we expected. We all went our separate ways and I headed back to Simone's apartment but first I needed to find something to eat. Since it was a holiday, almost everything was closed. I had to just walk aimlessly about and hope that something was open. Thank goodness I found a burrito place similar to Chipotle. I ate my amaazziinngg burrito then pretty much called it a night.

Today has been a slow day. Went to class, had lunch, went to the grocery store, and now just relaxing. OOOOOOO!!! I did ride the rail system for the first time Wednesday and I'm now hooked. It is pretty amazing. They have three, yes 3, different systems working to get people around Berlin. There is the U-Bahn (the underground rail), the S-Bahn (surface rail) and the Tram (which is like a bus system but runs on tracks). Today I bought a 7-day pass so I can ride which ever one as many times a day I want until by pass runs out. It is totally worth it too. Hopefully someday we'll have something like this in the States. It seems really complex put the people know how it works and deal with it really well. I've only had one incident so far and that was today. I was sitting on the Tram and the man in front of me thought it was the right time to immerse himself in body spray. Of course it went all in my mouth and was disgusting smelling. Then a couple of minutes later he remembered to spray his underarms so I got another wonderful dose of spray.

That's it for now. Until next time:

Keep it green!

p.s. Here a picture of the front of the my language school's office. I lerv graffiti so I HAD to snap a pic. Enjoy.