When we arrived last night, we had to take a train, a bus and walk a little before we reached the hostel. At the orientation, Dr.V mentioned that there would be a lot of walking to the hostels and to pack light. I honestly thought I did but as we were walking here and I was pulling my luggage I discovered I did not pack light enough. I can be a over packer so I asked my mom to help me out and I still ended up with a heavy suitcase. Advice to any future participants: when Dr.V says to pack light, PACK LIGHT. You’ll be thanking him when your dragging a 40 pound suitcase down the street.
Today is our first full day in Berlin and it is beautiful here but it is so hot! Somehow we managed to end up here on one of the hottest days this summer with temperatures up to 98 degrees. With it being so hot, Dr. V advised not to spend too much time out in the sun. So after breakfast, which consisted of bread, lunch meat, yogurt, and cereal, we went out out to explore a little. We walked to a convenience store similar to walgreens were I made the mistake of purchasing sparkling water instead of plain water. We also walked to a atm where I was able to take out a few more euros. After this little adventure, we came back to the hostel to relax before going on a group excursion.
Along with the Econ class, we traveled to the DDR museum. This is an interactive history museum that focused on life in East Germany after the Berlin Wall was built. The museum exhibits touched on how the government owned all means of production, a “house” where guests could go from room to room and see how Germans lived during that time, and a mock kindergarten classroom. I appreciated how each exhibit was in German and then translated to English as well. This made it much easier to follow along. As someone who generally enjoys museums, I found the DDR museum to be really nice and informative.
