Sleepless in Berlin | Dutch Diaries Week Two
I’m consistently amazed at how many activities can possibly fit into one week. Between the four day study trip to Berlin, settling into Maastricht, and navigating orientation and my new campus, it feels like I’ve been here for multiple months instead of just two weeks. I’m not even sure how I’ve had time to sleep, so it’s a good thing that I love being busy.
Of course, it did take some time to recover from my trip to Berlin (a city that deserves a separate blog post all on its own), but my time in the city was well worth the sleep deprivation. Throughout our four days there, my fellow exchange students and I toured an impressive four museums in addition to the German parliament building and the city streets for two hours on foot. With visits to the Stasi prison, a concentration camp, and sites of book burnings and other tragedies, I was exposed to the sobering history and able to understand it on a more human level than ever before. For that reason alone, my time in Berlin will forever be one of the most important experiences I have had. It was made all more important when I learned that my ancestors, immigrants from Prussia, lived not far from the city (once the capital of the Prussian Empire).
Even more, when the city’s history is juxtaposed against the vibrant cultural center for modern artistic innovation that it has become, the city gives off a vibe of inspiring resilience. It’s a place like no other that I hope to return to. You see, even though it felt like we saw everything and did everything we possibly could have (and more) in the time we were given, I know I only saw a fraction of what Berlin has to offer.
… We did try the famed Berlin currywurst though, and I can confirm that it lives up to the hype.
Upon returning to my home away from home in Maastricht, the whirlwind of activities didn’t slow down. In the past five days, I’ve been bombarded with all kinds of orientation activities that have dominated my time (again, I’m not really sure how I find time to sleep). From fairly unnecessary and dry lectures on how to look up an article on a database, to learning how to learn in the problem-based learning style rather than the traditional classroom, to food trucks, pub-crawls, and everything in between, this week has been a rollercoaster.
I’m definitely excited for classes to start and to have a little more time outside of structured programming to explore my new city and continent… and go to my new church.
Even if it doesn’t have a congregation, it is still technically a church, right?
