Orientation Week Continued

Hallo!
To give you a little background, this week has been orientation week.  We have had introductory programs at IES every day, which has been really helpful.

Yesterday, we went to the Mensa for the first time.  The Mensa is the equivalent of a cafeteria at a university - but an extensive and gourmet one.  It has many different choices for meals, sides, salads, fruits, deserts, anything you could think of (even beer - it's not unusual for German students or professors to have one with lunch).  The food, unlike a cafeteria (and very much unlike Saga!), is delicious.  Each university has several Mensas on its campus, and they are open to students and staff.  The prices are subsidized by the government, so, for example, my lunch today (plate of potatoes, chick pea soup, salad, and banana) cost €2,90 (that's $3.70), and yesterday's Käsespätzle (yes, Lis!) was around the same.  For such delicious food, it's a better deal than making lunch every day (especially since I've yet to find the glutenfrei grocery section).  IES has partnered with Humboldt Universität (one of the largest and best universities in Germany) and we therefore have Humboldt IDs that allow us to use their Mensas every day.  I look forward to regularly for lunch!

The student assistants (late 20's staffers who are extremely helpful and great) at IES gave us a tour of the area around IES/Humboldt which was wonderful.  One of them is a Ph.D. student there, so he knew the a great deal about history of the Universität (founded in 1810) and was a great guide!  Below are a couple photos I snapped of the Humboldt Law School between rain drops (and no, I didn't spell Universität wrong - before umlauts existed they placed an extra "e" after the vowel to change the same - hence Goethe).

[NOTE: You can always click on the photos on this blog to enlarge them]

I apologize for the quality of this photo, but I wanted to give you an idea of what the Law school building looked like.  I'll surely take more when the weather improves. 

I will admit that there have been some frustrating moments here, but they mostly concern my unfamiliarity with the public transit system.  The system is comprised of S-Bahn trains, U-Bahn trains, Trams, and busses.  If that's not confusing enough already, the system is quite extensive and intersects in many areas, and a great deal of the city itself is currently under construction, which interrupts some train schedules.  So the past two days, my flatmate and I have found ourselves walking through some parts of town that we're not familiar with (this city is incredibly safe, it's just a little unnerving) to find another Bahnhof (train station).  But that's okay, it's part of the adjustment and learning process!  Not every transit system is going to be as simple as the MTA or WMATA!

One perk of getting lost is sometimes it provides for very unique photo opportunities!  This is the Deutsche Bank building in Potsdamer Platz. 

Today we took a very lengthy and extensive bus tour ride through the city.  It was very interesting and I learned a lot, but it was pouring rain and got dark at 2:30pm today, so it was impossible to take photos and difficult to see.  I did snap some shots and write some notes to remind myself of the many places I'll need to return to over the next few months!

In other news, I just found out the weather for Saturday calls for sun (highly unusual), and we are taking a trip to Potsdam, so hopefully I'll come back with many photos!