Smokestacks and a Few Krans
Schöneweide is where we are living. It has many of the things that make German different from English, like the umlaut and the w-pronounced-as-v element, and I incorrectly pronounced it Schöneveede for the first few days. It’s pretty industrial, and there are quite a few warehouses and smokestacks in the area. Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen most of them in action, but that might be because I’ve been out and about. The air isn’t cloudy and it doesn’t taste weird.
The community seems to have accepted the industry characteristics in fun ways, though. There’s a cafe connected to the Spreepolis apartments where we’re staying called Kranbar (Crane bar, like construction cranes) and a cool coffee shop with an old crane on top called Kranhaus. There’s also an interesting hook machine that is long out of use, but has been left up anyway. I don’t mind it at all. It looks pretty cool and the area it used to service has become a park.
The Spree is the river that runs through Berlin, and you can see it when you walk out of the apartment, and from the rooftop deck. There’s a path next to the river that’s ideal for running, and there are also a few bridges, including a pedestrian bridge, over the Spree that are a short walk away.
There’s a grocery store called Lidl less than a five minute walk from the apartments, camped in an old warehouse. It has pretty much everything my roommates and I needed, and the bread is really good. What you can’t find at Lidl you can find at a bigger supermarket by the Schöneweide train station, about a fifteen minute walk away (but also accessible by tram!). One thing to look out for is that you need to bring your own bags to most stores or buy bags there. There isn’t nearly as much free plastic bagging here as there is in the USA. Germany is very particular about recycling. I’m all for it – I think it’s great for a whole country to put a lot of effort into separating glass, plastics, etc.
My apartment has a double bedroom and a single bedroom, and we share a common area and a kitchen. Don’t be surprised if the single and double are the same size! But also don’t be discouraged by that. I’m in the double and it’s not bad.
My roommates and I get along well. Adjusting to a new living place tends to bring people together. We spent a long time trying to figure out how the stove worked and found out that everyone was having the same problem! One of our TAs had to send out a picture with instructions. It’s pretty comical looking back on it.
It hasn’t been difficult connecting with other people in the program. Most of us met in Logan airport before we left Boston (a few international students flew to Berlin from home) and we all got over the jetlag together. For the first few days we all took trains around Berlin to wherever we were going (the studio, museums, etc.) as one giant group, and shuffling around the traincars helped me become familiar with almost all the other Northeastern students here. Hopefully I’ll leave with a bunch of new friends!
