*Please keep in mind that this is written by an extremely biased student*
When I called my dad the other day, he pointed out that I had been in Berlin for at least part of 3 months. The time is flying by. There is such a strange sense of pulling in me where I want time to go faster so I can see my family and get back to Furman, but at the same time I want time to go slower so that I can stay here forever and explore every nook and cranny of this city. But exploring every nook and cranny would literally take years. I have never been in a city this large for this long. But the longer I am here, the more and more I love it. As a small town girl, Greenville was a thriving a city to me. Wait I can get food after 10pm? Wait? Really? That’s crazy. So if Greenville is a thriving city than Berlin is a whole entire world, one that I recommend everyone at least visit for these 10 reasons.
- Largest Chocolatier in the World. Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way first.
- 3 Euro döner. So in the 7 weeks I have been here, I have done some traveling, and everytime I leave, I am forced to remember why Berlin is famous for being a backpackers city. It is wicked cheap. I can get some form of sausage on the street with a roll for less than 2 euro, unfortunately I never quite know what I am eating. And you can get döner, which is Turkish meat, in bread, with vegetables and sauce, but that isn’t describing the essence quite right (see below for picture), at every corner for 3 euro. This place is amazing.
- The trains actually make sense. I have ridden public transportation in 3 cities, so far, the non-Berlin cities had less than 10 lines, Berlin has 18. But it makes sense, for one reason. All of those lines cross through a ring line that surrounds the city. So on that ring you can get to which ever train you need. The Germans are so smart.
- The German language is not scary. People keep telling me that it sounds scary. Trust me, when you understand what they are saying, it is not scary. If my host mother is any indication is is most likely, “Haha, that was very wrong, and if I didn’t know English I wouldn’t have understood it, but German is hard. Here try this candy I bought for you at the grocery store”.
- But even when you come here you won’t need to speak German. Sometimes this upsets me because I came here to learn German and then I have to remind myself that this is a good thing. Think of all the tourists who can’t speak German, it’s good that the Berliners are literally so eager and ready to speak English to you and then ask which state you come from, in which you have to respond “Ohio”, and their excited faces turn to confused faces because they have never heard to that corn-ridden state. But they love that they can speak English with you.
- Germany is in the center of Europe, and you can get to almost all-major cities round-trip for less than 50 euros. The options are overwhelming, until you consider hotel prices, then they are underwhelming.
- They have the coolest escalators. I don’t know if it is because they are environmentally friendly and don’t want the escalators to waste energy when they aren’t being used, but they are motion censored!!! It freaked me out at first, but now I have learned to run and jump onto motionless escalators and act like it’s totally normal, and I totally just expect it to move. (which I do now).
- Things are open not only past 10, but past 2 in the morning. Now I have actually never confirmed this statistic. I really enjoy my sleep, but my host mother often comes home well past 2 from a night out with her friends, and if drinking isn’t your thing, the largest bookstore in the city is open 24/7, so that is always a 4:15 am option.
- Looking for a place for live music? Literally walk outside your door. Street music is just as popular as the techno music in the clubs and you often see crowds gathered around complete bands that have set up on the street.
- It’s a never-ending, constantly entertaining mix of old and new, organic and elegant. You can do anything you want in this city. It is made up of so many neighborhoods, each with an entirely different vibe, yet each neighborhood has the essence of being complex and made of many pieces. 25 years of German Unity happened October 3rd and this city remembers the mistakes, remembers the pain, and it comes together through all of this and is able to create an entire city that is extremely powerful.
I spent the summer in Greenville, and as I was leaving I had immediate doubts. Going abroad for two semesters in a row seemed like the worse idea I could ever have. Facebook, Instagram and Skype can give you just brief moments where it seems like you never left, but afterwards makes you miss your Furman family so much more. I am eternally thankful for Berlin, for being as dynamic as it is, so that it can properly distract me from everything and everyone I am missing at Furman. And I have a bad feeling that I might come to miss it was well when I leave.