Anyone got an Apartment??

Well I finished my one week of the Transatlantic Program in Berlin on Sunday. I met some great people from around the US, visited some very cool places (Porsche, DaimlerChrysler, HafenCity in Hamburg, German Foreign Ministry, etc. etc.), and bonded with new friends over excellent meals paid for by the German American Chamber of Commerce and fine German beers paid for by ourselves. It was a taxing week, with 12 hour days, long winded german presentations, little rest, and yet still the need to go out at night to explore Berlin and consume American quantities of alcohol and shisha. We went to the "White Trash Bar" which was great, definitely not the white trash I was hoping for, but instead more like the Kevin Federline/Mohawk Dude white trash....

So after our temporary goodbyes, we all split up and departed the newly opened Berlin Train Station for our individual internships. I got off the train in Erlangen, which is 20 minutes from Herzogenaurach (where Adidas is). Carrying my 74+ pounds of luggage through the rainy european streets, sad violin music playing (actually not, but really, it´d have been great if it were), i stumbled into the Hotel Frankischer Hof. I booked two nights, and that is the extent of my housing situation in Germany for the next 6 months...

So, the housing search has begun, and checking my email this morning sadly resulted in zero replies from the emails I had sent. I think I may have to actually start calling people, which is always this lame-ass thing of me that I fear when I´m abroad. Im also having a hard time decidiing where I want to live: Erlangen is a University city of about 100,000 people and so far from what I´ve seen, its very nice--but 20 minutes away by bus. Herzogenaurach is the city of shoes, both Puma and Adidas are located there, who are arch enemies and have been for years... (http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article359772.ece) It´s a lot smaller than Erlangen, and certainly lacks the young population of Erlangen, but it´s right by work and most likely cheaper....

So, if the rare chance happens that someone who reads this knows of a good place for me to live here, let me know! Otherwise, Stay tuned and either you´ll hear from me soon regarding my new address, or you´ll just know that I´m naked and curled up sleeping behind the Döner stand while the cold German rain (every day since Ive been here!) washes the dirt and sorrow from my tattered clothes to the sweet, yet sad sound, of a violin solo.

Pause to breathe

My last few weeks have been nuts. I'd really like to have been updating my blog on the recent chaos, but a definite lack of time or motivation at the time held me from that.

Anyways, its Thursday, and I've got one quick paper to write (which this post had to interrupt), and tomorrow I take my last exam to complete my 5 years at UW-Eau Claire and get myself a degree in Business Administration and a degree in German for Professions. I've not had time to get sentimental about this being the last time I'll see many of my friends who have been a regular part of my life for the last couple of years. I generally don't get sentimental at all, so maybe that too is why its all seeming to just not be happening and it just being the beginning of another summer vacation, where I'd see them all again in September.

But this year it's not.

My parents are coming at 5 tonight to completley move me out of my house and take me to the airport in Minneapolis. At 2:30 tomorrow I'm flying to Berlin, Germany to begin a 6 month internship. The first week will be spent with 25 other American students in Berlin leraning about the German Business/Political environment, a bit of travelling, a bit of brushing up on our business german, and then we all go off on our own ways to start the actual internships.

After a roller-coaster of a placement process, I was placed at a company and given a pretty lame internship, "address-management" was the name of the department at this mail-order catalog company. I was offered a very nice salary and the company had found me an apartment already. As attractive as the pay and the apartment were, they were merely superficial benefits of this job, as I'm going to Germany for the experience to learn and grow professionally, not the money. Although this internship was given to me about two weeks ago, I had to tell the organizing group that I couldn't take it, and I wanted them to find me something else...even if it meant not starting right away. It was a hard decision to make, because this organization had already done so much work for me in the placement process, and I felt like a dick for not accepting it, but I told them my feelings on the position, and I believe they understood.


Two days later, I got a phone call from Adidas, and I eventually got offered a position in their European Business Development Department! Pay had not been mentioned, and English is the official office language, which was disappointing, but now I'd be in an truely international environment with people from 40 different countries working together--that's what I want to do, and that's more valuable of an experience. After I accepted the job, I found out that it, INDEED, is paid!! Although its nothing extravegant, its 50% more than the previous internship, and having thought I was accepting a non-paid internship, it feels like I just won money!

I've got that nervous excitment thing happening right now. With this door closing a new one is definitely opening, and I'm very much looking forward to exploring in it.

Anyways, I've got a paper to write, a shithole of a room to clean up, bags to pack, passport pictures to be taken, farewells to bid, an exam at 9am tomorrow, and a flight to Germany to worry about...