Deepshika Arasu
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Graduate school is fun. So I feel because I haven’t started formal classes yet. It has been two weeks since I set foot in Europe and it has been crazy!

I have been anxious about coming here, mainly because of the language difference but also because of the cold that will possess the place. When I first landed, I realised you will need a euro coin for a cart. My friend and I went around trying to find someone who could spare us some change but thankfully an operator there saw these two flustered brown kids and opened up two carts for us. I was also might scared of spraining any part of my body while lifting my 24 kg bags, and by pulling in some inner residual strength I managed to load them on the cart.

Once outside Tegel, the first Uber guy canceled on us. We should have known that when two people decide to move across a continent, an UberX will not be enough to fit all their possessions. In any case, we found a taxi at the stand and were all set to go.

My friend and I chose to stay at House of Nations, one of the alternatives to Stundentenwerk because the latter had waiting times of 2–3 semesters and our course mandates only two semesters in Berlin! HoN is a good option for short term stays, it is quite like booking a Tatkal ticket, if you don’t have the knack for it you should find someone else to do it for you. Trust me, you don’t want to be sitting in an expensive Airbnb in Berlin waiting for some accommodation to at least go through.

For the first couple of days, I stayed in an Airbnb off Seestrasse. My host didn’t speak English and I didn’t know a word of German so we gesticulated, Google Translated and relied on basic Human emotions to get through it. My first culture shock was the concept of housschoe. It’s this German concept of wearing veetu chappal basically. I didn’t have any on me, why would I waste space on shoes?? Anyway, she was really disappointed and gave me her daughter’s pair. Well, it was cute and I didn’t really mind it. Soon enough, we started bonding. She offered me coffee, I found out that she was from Russia and that her husband was Pakistani. She complained of his short stature but seemed to love him all the same. It was adorable how she told me her children spoke good English and we discussed languages and their difficulty levels. When I was leaving, she offered to take me to parks and some berry-picking activities. In the same AirBnb, the other room was occupied by an India male from Delhi. He was looking for a place to stay and that it was infinitely harder to get a place as a non-student. I am not looking forward to find accommodation in Berlin later in life.

I had an entire orientation program and a mini vacation in Paris after this which deserves a whole separate post.

Oh, oh and Berlin is vegan friendly! There was a vegan market at Alexanderplatz, where we basically made a dinner out of all the free samples. We also bought some stuff, because it was so good. I just hope none of the products end up setting allergies to common products. Sometimes, knowing too much about your body’s working is a bane. Only sometimes though. For most of the other time, you are constantly in awe about its complexity and elegance.

Berlin you’ve been good for these two weeks. I will definitely need German to better understand you.

Tschüss.

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