After a week and a half of wonderful travels, I am back home.
Yes, home in Berlin. On my way back I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was going somewhere special, somewhere comfortable and familiar, somewhere close to my heart. Honestly, in my wildest dreams I never thought I would feel at home in a foreign city only after a month of being there. But, I suppose, absence really does make your heart grow fonder.
After a 3-week intensive German course we had a weeklong break during which IES organized a field trip to St Petersburg. All those not taking part in the trip had the opportunity to recharge after 3 weeks of classes and also to do some travelling. My classmates went to locations as diverse as Prague, Barcelona, Israel, Malta…Myself, I went to Paris to see some friends who, funny enough, were meeting up with their friends studying at IES Paris and IES Nantes. It was so fun to be guided through the city by students who not long ago were themselves strangers in a strange city. I think that was when I realized that I, too, had a new home in a city that seemed overwhelming to me only a month ago.
Everybody seems to have returned to Berlin with a good deal of energy and a sense of preparedness for the semester to truly start. Next week is the first week of Humboldt University classes. I am both excited and nervous, but definitely ready to completely immerse myself in the academic culture here. I have my courses more or less confirmed at this point, even though I am still looking for an internship. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do an internship for credit through IES, and I’ve been working with Liane, the internship coordinator at IES for the past couple of weeks. She is incredibly helpful and I can’t wait to have another interesting learning experience!
Marta Misiulaityte
<p><span style="color: rgb(29, 29, 29); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237);">Marta is a Sociology and German double major at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, but has a hard time staying within the boundaries of these two disciplines just the way she cannot stay in any one place for a long time. The thirst for knowledge and adventures is her biggest drive; over the course of her college career she has taken classes ranging from film studies to psychology, and she just spent a semester studying Arabic in Jordan. Originally from Lithuania, Marta has been fortunate enough to call many places her home. When she is not devouring books, she coordinates and leads campus tours, serves as a proctor in a first-year student dorm, works at the Admissions office as well as helping out at the Registrar’s office at Bowdoin. In her free time, she can be found either taking photographs or swing dancing. She can’t wait to check out the Berlin lindy hop scene!</span></p>
