Berlin!

Sorry, no pictures.. only some links!

I arrived in Berlin at 8 am. There was hardly any security kind of thing. The guy just looked at my passport and asked me what I was doing here and let me go. No customs or anything either.

Took a nice bus + subway ride from the airport to my apartment and just absorbed the surroundings as much as I could, with the help of our resident director who picked me up. Napped for about 4 hours and got settled. Apartment has huge windows, furnished with most things you could need and balcony! Views are great-in my bedroom window I can see a tennis club. From the balcony There's a small playground!

After my nap, I embarked on a mission to get toilet paper and a cell phone cause those were two things I did not have. Found that they have Yang Le Duo! (Yakult) and some interesting foods.

Also saw a Turkish protest? I'm thinking it had to do with these protests. Well even if I'm a little clueless, it was interesting to witness.


So here's a list of things I noticed about Berlin or Germany or Europe that I think is great:
   -huge windows, operable for ventilation  (think this is Germany)
   -SO MUCH green space, lots of parks and public spaces--and they're not empty either (think this is Berlin)
   -lots of bike lanes (Germany?)
   -lots of recycling. we have 5 different bags for trash, compost, paper, glass, plastic.... etc (Germany)
   -lots of food on the streets!!! Small shops. just like Taiwan
   -tons of graffiti--sometimes can be nice
   -transportation is quick. you can get a monthly pass for 77 euro and use it on buses, trains? and subway
   -subways are fairly nice too. Biggest difference was that you have to push a button to open the door

Here's an article that my roommate showed me of differences between US and Germany- was quite interesting to read.