So today my plane arrived in Berlin. I left North Carolina in the mid afternoon yesterday (after waiting 3 hours for my plane to be allowed to take off - problems at the airport in Newark made us wait), and then transferred in Newark for my flight to Berlin.
The trans-atlantic flight left late afternoon, around dinner time. The seats were better than I was expecting, but still not comfortable enough to get any substantial amount of sleep in. The had a meatball dish for dinner - it wasn't that bad. After dinner I watched a few movies on the tv screen they had in the back of the seat in front of me. The sitting around me were all german natives, so I got to warm up my german a little before getting to Berlin.
All in all the flights together lasted about 13 hours.
I landed in Berlin at the Tegel airport, a smallish airport in the northwest part of the city. The airport itself is in the shape of a circle, with all the gates coming off of it like flower petals. Getting through customs didn't take long, there were only 3 people in front of me in line. After that I just had to get my checked baggage and then go find Mrs. Thiermeier.
I am staying this summer in my own apartment, however I will be eating most meals with a host family, the Thiermeiers, who live in the apartment above mine. They are good friends with one of my friends (Timo) that lives in Berlin - Timo was the one that set all of this up.
Mrs. Thiermeier is the mother in the family, and she said that she would pick me up from the airport. After a few minutes I found her, and we headed in her car to the apartment.
It's not a long drive from Tegel to the apartment, only about 20 minutes. On the way we passed a lot of older buildings (apartments, businesses, shops, among others), and everywhere there were tons of trees. Apparently Berlin is supposed to be incredibly green.
We finally got to the apartment. I was really eager to see it, as I hadn't even seen a picture of it up till now. When we went inside my first thought was "I wonder which room is supposed to be mine". We went through the entry way, and there was a large foyer on the other side. On the right were two rooms: the kitchen through the first door, and another room through the second. On the left was an office through the first door and my bedroom through the second door. The bathroom was connected to the foyer as well.
I was shocked to find that the entire place was mine for the summer. I had been expecting just a single room, and I got 4! Also, to my amazement, the guy who owns the apartment is apparently a music teacher at one of the high schools, and he keeps two grand pianos in one of the rooms - one of which is a 7-foot steinway! He told me I could practice whenever I wanted, which is perfect as I need to practice every day.
My room itself is also pretty large. It's about 15 feet square, and 12 feet tall. As you walk in there is a desk right in front of you, to the immediate right a place to hang up clothes. Further in on the right is a large futon. On the opposite wall next to the desk is a TV with cable and a dvd player, as well as a stereo. My bed is located in the loft, which you get to by climbing a tall ladder next to the futon. The room also has a door and window that together take up the entire height of the room, and both can be opened in various ways to let in air.
After I got settled for a bit, we went upstairs to the Thiermeiers' for breakfast. On the way home, we had stopped at a grocery store, and bought some bread rolls, butter, fruit and juice for breakfast. The rolls were really amazing! They were all made fresh that morning and had unbelievable taste.
Timo came by for breakfast as well. After breakfast Timo showed me around a bit, and took me to go buy a month-long subway/bus pass. To get to the store, we had to take the subway (the "U-bahn" (lit. "under train")) several stops until we got to a BVG store (BVG = Berliner Vekehrsbetriebe = Berlin Traffic Company), in which we could buy the pass.
When we came back, I was pretty wiped out from the traveling and ended up crashing for a few hours.
By the time I woke up it was already dinner time, so I came upstairs and ate. Dinner was really good. We had a salad and chicken cooked in a creme sauce with bacon. Yum. For dessert we had a kind of sweetened lemon creme/yogurt.
All in all the day was very full, and quite exciting. I still can't believe that it worked out that I could live in Berlin - it was honestly the last thing that I expected to work out. But it did, and here I am. Now to take advantage of the opportunity.
