First Day at School

Anonymous After arriving in Berlin and getting settled in with my host family, I think I could really get used to Berlin. When I first arrived, the map of the transit system alone was enough to scare me off. But after some evaluation of the map (for example reading it) things started to make sense. So after you feel like a master at the S-Bahn and U-Bahn system, it becomes important to become a master at German!!!!

Today was the first day at the Euro Center. It was a very interesting experience. There were students from Brazil, Switzerland, France, Peru, Italy, and the U.S. In fact, a Swiss student who is staying with my host family is also attending Euro Centers. We took a grammar and writing test to help us be placed in the right class level. After that, we had an hour of class and we were done for the day. Needless to say, I don't really know if I am in the right level yet, but the feeling I got from the first hour was that is was going to be a lot of learning and a lot of fun!!! I can wait to get started.

After school, we visited the Schwules Museum. This is a museum about gay/lesbian history and Germany. It was very interesting to follow the timeline through museum and see how the centers of gay/lesbian movement shifted among European countires, and the U.S. It is often overlooked by many the amount of oppression that this group of people has faced throughout history.

I look forward to getting to know my classmates better. In the next few days, we have some visits to more museums planned. After a celebrating the new year, learning the public transit, and going through only one day of school and museum tours, I feel like we can only begin to imagine the amount of opportunites Berlin has for culture, art, and history. Here we go Berlin!