Bratwurst, Airports, and Graffiti Tours

I was half asleep when the my Lufthansa flight touched down in Berlin. I stumbled off the airplane and was surprised to find the baggage claim in front of me. Berlin-Tegel is a small airport, one of the TAs said with a chuckle.
Thankfully no one’s luggage got lost in transit, so we got our bags and proceeded to the taxi stand. After a hectic minute of trying to split into groups while getting yelled at in German by the airport workers, we all piled into cabs and set off for Spreepolis, where we’d be living for the next month.
On the way to the apartments we got to see some of Berlin. Not a lot, but enough to give me a general idea of what the city is like. I don’t know what kind of expectations I had, but they weren’t this.
Most of the buildings are 5-7 stories tall and very quaint-looking. There are many balconies which some of the residents have decorated with flowers, and some buildings have ivy growing up the walls. Nearly all the streets are tree-lined. I didn’t think Berlin would have as much nature as it does.
Berlin is also not afraid of colors. I’ve seen buildings in nearly every color, unlike many other cities I’ve been to where the selection is grey, tan, brick, or glass. There’s a building right in front of Spreepolis with cherubs and clouds painted on it, and on our second day here we came across a building with giant metal flowers around it.
Another thing I noticed was that graffiti is way more common here than it is in the states. There’s graffiti everywhere, and there are even graffiti walking tours of the city. I saw multiple people spray-painting words on the same wall in broad daylight. Until that point I thought graffiti was a dusk or nighttime activity, but maybe that’s just me.
The final element was food – I didn’t think the food choices would be as diverse as they are! Sure, my first dinner was bratwurst, but my second dinner was Thai chicken curry. There are three Vietnamese/sushi (for some reason those two are combined here) places on my street alone and pizza, indian food, and kebabs are all within walking distance. There’s also a Lecker Burger, which translated means Tasty Burger (like in Boston!)

After giving us the weekend to get acclimated, the faculty met us at our studio today for orientation. We played the game where everyone goes around the circle and says what the people before them said before adding their own thing to the list – a game that I dread because it involves both memory and public speaking, but it didn’t end up being that bad. We went through some powerpoints about living in Berlin, public transportation, apartment rules, etc. before going on a small walking tour of the studio neighborhood (different from the Spreepolis neighborhood). Then we had syllabus day, rather than syllabus week.
I haven’t seen a lot of Berlin yet, but I’m getting there. Today we stumbled across an abandoned airport whose airfield had been turned into a park! This city just keeps surprising me, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.