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By kaandle

In the States we commonly spend weeks every-other year learning about some part of German history. Specifically, WWII and the Cold War are very prevalent in our history education. The shocking thing about being and living in Germany is how recently all this history occurred.

On the one hand, walking down the street you could pass anything from a memorial to a still standing piece of the Berlin Wall. There is definitely a sense in this country of not wanting to belittle their past since so many monumental events did occur - this topic can frequently be read about in the New York Times travel section where an article will explore the dichotomy of Berlin: old versus new, young versus old, proud versus embarrassed. In the past two weeks however, what I found the most interesting was hearing people's personal stories regarding a segregated Berlin and the fall of the Wall.

Saturday night, for example, a group of us were eating dinner at one of the student's houses, partially in honor of Mardi Gras and partially because his host mom wanted to have a dinner party, when we began to hear parts of this woman's experience in life pre-1989. She lived in the East sector and has been learning English over the past few years, because like so many other Germans who lived in the GDR, she was taught Russian, not English, in school. Before Germany united, she earned a degree in mathematical engineering - a degree that was considered invalid when the GDR collapsed so she had to go back to school to earn a West-legitimate degree. She was a very happy woman who, when describing her current job as a teacher, frequently used the phase "I am free" and emphasized the fact that she never would have met her current husband had the wall never fallen.

Other people have shared equally enticing stories. Another host lived on a West-block that was cut off by the Wall. When it fell, her account of the day was being annoyed by the crowds in her street as she came home from work and for the following weeks being constantly begged by people from the East crossing over to the West side for food and money. Professors from the IES center have shared their memories of how transportation within East and West Germany worked - especially coming from the West to West Berlin, which stood like an island in the middle of the GDR. Additionally, when visiting an old Stasi prison the tour guide suddenly began telling us of his experience as an 18 year old man who made several attempts to escape the East, was captured and imprisioned by the Stasi police, and 8 months later sold to the West, where he was able to start a new life. These summaries don't their stories justice, but they can give a sense of the local variety of experiences with and opinions of this infamous time.

People's willingness to share their stories and memories has surprised me. I feel that I have learned a lot from their experiences and I hope to learn of many more during the months ahead. The fall of the Wall was barely before my lifetime, yet I always viewed the end of the Cold War as chapter of history that had been finished and closed a long time ago. But Germany remains a country where people can identify their origins as East or West and their history is very much alive and not forgotten.

By kaandle

This first week started out rough. The post-Juno snow storm that hit the northeast made getting to the airport a stressful task when an hour ride turned into a three hour one. Thankfully the woman at the check in desk had a heart and let me through quickly and with two overweight bags free of charge. Of course after sprinting through security my flight was delayed as soon as I arrived at my gate. The good news is that from that point on its been pretty smooth sailing.

The week has been filled with orientations about public transportation, living with hosts and traveling through Europe. While most of these sessions have been helpful, what I am most in need of is a crash course in German 101. I came into this whole abroad shebang knowing that language was going to be an huge challenge. I now believe I severely underestimated how different this place was going to be. Please don't misunderstand - I don't dislike or regret coming to Berlin, I merely mean to say I mentally prepared myself for something much different than the reality. Having studied Spanish since 7th grade I have no grasp on German. In hind sight I realize this was very obvious.

On a different note entirely, there are only 19 of us on the program which is great because the group is small enough for us all to get to know each other. However, it is a little strange with us all spread out through the city. I'm really thankful to be in a home stay - my host is a 23 year old university student who is filled with knowledge and advice for a young person in the city and has already introduced me to some of her friends. But with everyone in different neighborhoods there are definitely positives and negatives to the arrangement. Negatively, there can be a lot of alone time with everyone so spread out and since we are guests in other people's homes there isn't really a place for us to all congregate before going out or going to an event. The positive, however, is that we each get to know a different area of the city and help can spread the knowledge to our fellow abroad-ies.

Goals for next week include:

  • not getting lost so frequently on public transportation (or at least not getting lost while confidently leading a group of people)
  • learning some must-have German phrases

Perhaps that's the reason we don't start language classes until the second week - after a week of wandering around we're all desperately ready to learn how to say more than "halo" and "danke schön".

Wish me luck because I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

Stay funky folks.