Category Archives: Daily Life

Springtime in Berlin and Germany

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The weather in Berlin is fickle, to say the least. Hot, humid and 85 degrees one day; cold, rainy and 48 degrees the next…it’s kind of like Boston, but worse!  Luckily we’ve been able capitalize on some of the beautiful days and do some inside exploration on the not so pretty ones. We live right next to Kollwitzplatz and have enjoyed many an afternoon or evening relaxing in the little park there. We’re also within walking distance from Mauer Park and Friedrichshein Park- both great places to spend an afternoon reading and lounging. We’re both really into the Game of Thrones books right now- Adrian’s on the last book- Dances with Dragons and I’m impatiently waiting for her to finish so I can get at it.

I have been very busy with work and school as well, not that that is anything too interesting to read about… This semester at HWR is very short, only about 4 months in total, far shorter than last semester. Unfortunately, my professors are forced to get the same amount of material out in a shorter time frame, so the weeks and months are pretty packed for me with coursework. I have an interesting slate of classes though, including Risk Management and International Asset Portfolios so I don’t mind. We have been assigned a lot of group work this semester, which can be annoying but also rewarding in its own way.

My internship has been busy as well. I am working at Global2015, a non-profit research organization quantifying the world’s most pressing humanitarian issues. Currently we are putting together a compendium of all the most relevant climate change statistics for the upcoming Rio2012 Summit in Brazil. Our deadline is approaching fast but the work is interesting. I also really enjoy my co-workers, whom are from all over the world, including Spain, the UK, the Ivory Coast, Kenya and of course Germany. I have also been able to put a fair amount of my skills from HWR to use, as I have been working hard on helping to resolve some of the statistical issues with our research.

Adrian and I have been working hard at settling in to our new place in Prenzlauer Berg as well which has proved at times challenging but also pretty fun, P-Berg is by far the most beautiful neighborhood in Berlin; I am now convinced. It really is nice to leave the apartment everyday and be surrounded by beautiful trees and architecture with nice looking people wandering around everywhere. But we are in an old building and noticed just the other day that a large portion of the wall is falling out, just below the window sill. Not good!

The months seem to go by so quickly and we both are really looking forward to our long trip back to the USA this summer, though I know I will miss Berlin while we are gone. Still, we can’t wait to see all our friends and family soon!

Oh Happy Day

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First, I’d like to apologize to the general public for not contributing more to this blog… there is a good reason for that which I am about to explain.

First though, I need to explain something about myself. I have a severe internet addiction. I love surfing the net and do so constantly. There is so much information readily available. One can literally learn about anything instantly, for free from anywhere in the world. From an economics standpoint, the Consumer Surplus humans derive from the internet easily outweighs any other gains we have achieve in the last 30 years, though we dont have a good way of portraying that numerically yet.

Needless to say, when I tried to find an apartment here in Berlin, one of my necessities for the place was a working internet connection. Unfortunately, once we arrived here we found out right away that, to my abject horror, for some reason my MacBook could not connect to the internet here in the apartment a Beymestrasse 1. Adrian’s laptop had no problem, but my Mac could not connect.

For the first few weeks of living here I tolerated internet free life as best I could, but as soon as Adrian left, my problem went from bad to worse. She left behind her iPad, which gave me access to email, but alas, for the week she has been gone, in addition to moping around, alone with little to do here in the apartment, I have been experiencing major internet withdrawal.

Well, dear reader, worry no more. I am happy to report, I have fixed the problem and am now online!!! I am sure no one cares, but I was able manually configure the DNS servers, which for some reason were not automatically being populated correctly. Words cannot express how happy this makes me. My consumer surplus is once again through the roof and you can look forward to more boring blog posts from Berlin.

Dave

Getting Reacquainted with Prague

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I made it to Prague! I took the train from Berlin to Prague yesterday afternoon. It was about a 5 hour ride through some very scenic country. I got a little teary eyed saying goodbye to Dave at the train station.  Even though he’s going to come visit me in 2 weeks this will be the longest we’ve ever been apart during our 5-year relationship:(  Luckily (and I guess unluckily) I’m going to be in class from 10:00am-6:00pm everyday and then working on homework and curriculum preparation in the evenings- so I probably won’t have much time to miss him!

Today the group met in the early afternoon to take an “orientation tour” of Prague and learn the basics. A lot of it was a refresher for me, but was really helpful because though I’m usually pretty good with directions Prague is such an easy city to “get lost” in! There are 22 people in the TEFL certification program and most everyone is here already (classes start tomorrow at 9:45am). I initially thought we’d all be housed together, but we’re spread about a bit. There are 7 of us here at Hotel Pivovar (which is right next to where we’ll be having class).  There is another place about a 10 minute walk away that houses about 10 others and then a couple random apartments also about 10-15 minute walks away.  Apparently all the places are pretty similar, but comfortable.  I have my own room in a two room suite (my suitemate is a super nice girl from San Diego named Tamara). We also share a bathroom and a kitchen.  There are 3 other apartments with the same layout on our floor.

It has been amazing to be able to see Prague again. We went out to Old Town Square on Saturday night and things looked pretty much the way I remember them- some additional flowers and benches around the main statue, but that was about it.  We went to an Irish pub that was playing the rugby world cup and had a live band (playing mostly American songs- I heard Shipping up to Boston!).  The place was filled with smoke though (well every place was filled with smoke) so all of my clothes and my hair reek.  Seriously everything in my wardrobe is going to smell of smoke by the end of these 4 weeks!  The other big change is that beer (and everything) is way more expensive now that it was in 2005.  And with the Koruna stronger it makes it even more expensive.  I guess we were in a touristy-area, so that might play a role in the price of things. But the cheapest beer we found last was Staropramen and it was 75 Korunas!!!  This evening at dinner we found beer for 40 Korunas, but still a big jump from what I remember. When I was last in Prague Pilsner Urquell was the expensive beer and it was b/ 25-30 Korunas; Staropramen was only 20-23 Korunas. I’m going to have to adjust my expectations when it comes to the price of things here…

Starting tomorrow I don’t think I’ll be doing too much touristing during the week due to course work, but am hoping to get a lot in every weekend.  I already had my first big plate of goulash (so delicious!) and need to make sure to sample all my other Czech favorites on the weekends!  For any of my old Praha friends reading this- make sure to send me reminders of the best restaurants and places to go in the city:)

It’s off to bed now- I need to be well rested for class in the morning- but good night and na shledanou! 

Der Wohnung

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Yesterday we moved into our new apartment. The hotel was great, but it feels SO good to be in our own place. The apartment is located in Steglitz (an area in Berlin, but a bit south of the main attractions) and is only about a 5-10 walk to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn station at Rathaus Steglitz.  In it’s description the apartment was described as a 1.5 room place and looked a little small from pictures so we were expecting teeny-tiny, but it’s actually a lot more spacious than anticipated.  There is a long hallway that leads to a kitchen (with adjoining patio), a small bathroom and then a relatively large sleeping/living room.  The place is furnished, almost entirely with Ikea goods, and has a homey feel. We’re loving it thus far!

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After taking the day yesterday to settle in, we decided today would be a good day to explore our new city.  We took the sites at the Branderburg Tor, Reichstag, Unter den Linden, Alexanderplatz and Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg.  We’re taking a much need rest at home now, but are going to try and see if we can hit up a bar for “American Football” later this evening.  We’ll keep you posted on whether we’re successful in our search!

Much love and GO PACK GO!  (Patriots too I guess…)

Dave & Adrian