The First Week

Wow. Hey! I'm in Berlin! Who would have ever thought that this day would finally come? It still doesn't feel real to me but it is a cool feeling to walk around this city thinking "Whoa, I live here!" I take the s-bahn (one of the train systems) to the Brandenburg Gate stop when I go to Mittelpunkt (our cafe/meeting place in the city). I'll be working on a campus that claims some of the greatest minds- Einstein, Planck ('s constant), Buchner (funnel), Nernst (equation)- and has incredible history in the city. Yesterday I walked between two pieces of the Berlin Wall chilling outside of a mall. I literally live here. Ask me in a few months how I feel about Germany but today I'm pretty thrilled by it.

This week was a lot of new. New places, new food, new friends, new experiences. I finally made it to an IKEA! I moved into an apartment in Germany! I turned 23!

Monday- A whole lot of crazy. Landing at 8am after a sleepless flight from the States- I really don't recommend it to anyone. Mamie, Maureen, Hannah, Nicole, and I went to our apartment for the first time and took in the lay of the land (including our awesome balcony). Nicole and I spent the majority of our day setting up our room with reminders from home and staying on our feet to stay awake. A chaotic first Aldi run and a team dinner somehow fit into the day. The seemingly longest day ever ended with my head on the pillow at 20:30. Day one: check.

Tuesday- Olympiastadion. One of the coolest places to cast vision for our role in Berlin. The amount of students in Berlin (around 200,000) can fill this Olympic Stadium 2 and 1/2 times. God knows each and every one of them, just like He knows each and every one of us on our team. Our job is not to look at the stadium with fear for the enormity of students needing the Gospel- but to take it all in, knowing that by multiplying our faith in the lives of student leaders it is the believing students that will reach their non-believing peers. One can reach four, four can reach sixteen, sixteen can reach sixty-four, students can reach the world. I'll stop there with the side comment that yes I made up the numbers but the concept is the key. Multiplication builds movement. And I'm so excited to be a part of that here in Berlin over the next year. Tuesday afternoon we talked more about our role as interns and met some students. We celebrated our teammate Liz's birthday with dinner at an Egyptian restaurant and Wonder Waffel before another early night. (yay jetlag...)

Wednesday- A morning meeting and time in the Word. My first trip to IKEA for things for our apartment. Roommate bonding talking love languages, Meyer's Briggs, and rules for the apartment. Eating brownies and ice cream. More settling in.

Thursday- Happy Birthday to me! 22 years of American birthdays, here's to my 23rd starting in a new country! My roommates raced me to Mittelpunkt to make me a chai tea latte in a mug with my boss' winking face on it. Truly priceless (see Facebook for a picture of the mug). Morning meeting and time in the Word was followed by an afternoon on our first campus. Mamie, Ben, Hanna, and I went to University of Potsdam- Golm campus. We "decoded" or explored and learned about the campus and students to gauge the environment for moving onto this campus. Classes are not yet in session so it was pretty quiet but it was fun to have the day with Hanna (who I know from IndyMetro Cru) exploring a new place. Our team had dinner that night at the Speichers (one of the families on the team) and I got another round of happy birthday and a brownie cupcake. My roomies and I finished the night with a new apartment tradition: share 22 facts/fun stories about yourself and 1 thing you want to do over the next year (all together that makes 23 things because I'm now 23 years old). It was a great birthday :)

Friday- Team assignment reveal- I'm on the North team! While this makes no difference to many of you, it helps to distinguish where in the city I'll be working. I'll be mainly on the campuses of the HU and the TU along with a few other campuses. I'm excited to be working along Brady, Debbie, Kayla, Liz, Ben, Lauren, and Stu and Barbara (who you can be praying return to Berlin soon!) We spent the afternoon on campus at Humboldt (HU) and our evening watching Pitch Perfect with the team at our apartment. Beautiful.

For the sake of length I'll say we spent our weekend adventuring a little bit, being real tourists in our new home, eating ice cream, and enjoying the fact that Berlin is sunny right now. Sorry for the length and logistical orientation this post had but I wanted to fill you all in on how this first week of adventure has been. It's hard to believe I'll be here until next summer but piece by piece we're working on making it home. I promise I'll share more about what God has been up to in future posts. For now, sleep.

Berlin's Olympiastadion. A most impressive place of Nazi design with particularly redemptive qualities.

My sweet birthday cupcake.

My team for Thursday's birthday campus decoding adventure- Hanna, Mamie, and Ben (L-R).

Just going to work in the morning...

The courtyard of Humboldt University- one of the places I'll be spending my time over the next year.