#dustinfletcher

[umichenginabroad]

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Night has fallen on my second day in Germany, and I already have so many thoughts racing around my head.

First off: I have never flown before, so I got to experience my first flights and airport customs all by myself, which was a little scary and foreboding, but I was able to make it through. It’s kind of funny that I’ve never been on a plane before, considering that I’m planning on being an aero major specializing in planes! A couple things about the planes themselves actually really surprised me as well. I always thought that planes accelerated really slowly, and that when planes were driving around runways, they were building up speed to take off. I had absolutley NO idea just how fast planes were. It went from 5 mph to around 100 mph within seconds. Lastly, in my flight to Amsterdam, I felt like I was treated like a king with the way they were feeding us on the plane.

My German friend that I had in one my classes told me that there were a lot of wind farms all over Germany. I believed him, but didn’t quite understand just how many there were, so I thought it was hilarious that my very first sight of Germany was of a wind farm! (The white towers in the pic are the wind turbines)

Something else that I noticed immediately in Europe was the alcohol culture. On the plane ride from Amsterdam to Berlin, the air hostess set down a meal in front of me, and handed me a small bottle wine as part of. When I spent some time in Germany itself, some of the meals I bought had a beer included with it, as if a water replacement. And in some places, the beer is actually cheaper than the water! I was fairly surprised by this, as that would NEVER happen in the US, even if it was with people well over the age of 21. It seems to be a lot less taboo in Europe, since it’s such a large part of the culture.

I’ve noticed a ton of other differences from American life as well. One thing that’s very strange to me is the fact that water is not free. Anywhere you go, you need to purchase water. Vegetation here is also much different. Every road here seems to be grown over (but still well maintained) with sorts of vegetation, and it gives me the feeling that I want to explore. In stores, everything is so much cheaper than in America, and it’s all so much better! I am a huge fan of food, such as greek yogurt, bread, and strawberries. We went shopping at Aldi before we even checked into our housing, and all of the food was extremely cheap and tasty. There was an aisle for fresh bread, and I picked out a grainy sunflower encrusted bread, which is needless to say absolutely delicious, a section for “Obst und Gemüse, jeden Tag frisch” where I picked out a pallet of the best strawberries that I have ever seen and eaten, and I grabbed the best greek yogurt that I’ve ever had.

The fellow TUB participants living in Klüberstraße and I, hereby dubbed the Klüber Gübers, met up last night to hang out and meet each other. We then all met bright and early this morning to ride the trains into Berlin and do some sightseeing/eating. We visited many different places, I got to talk to a lot of German workers, and we ate a lot of food. Döner definitely lived up to the hype!

We all met up tonight as well, and we ordered food from a Chinese place. On the app that we order through, it said the delivery driver had arrived, and I went downstairs with one of the other TUB members to pick it up. We couldn’t find the delivery man, but there was a German lady that we had seen earlier. I asked her in German if she knew where delivery drivers dropped stuff off at. My friend then said something in English, so the lady tried to speak in English as well, but couldn’t really articulate what she was trying to say. She asked me how good my German was and I said that it was pretty good, so she talked to me in German. We ended up conversing for about 30 minutes, and at the end I asked her what she thought of my speaking, to which she said it was very good, although I do have a slight American accent. Since my goal is to be completely fluent by the end of this trip, I was very excited to hear that.

It’s now 2 am and I need to leave my apartment at 7:15 tomorrow to get to class on time, so I need to log off until later this week. Tschüß!

[umichenginabroad]

Croatia Crew

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Last Thursday was the German Holiday known as Christi Himmelfahrt, which directly translates to “Christ Skyjourney. Most English speakers would know it better as Ascension, but to be honest if anyone asked me about Ascension, I would probably have the same blank stare on my face as if someone had asked me about the Christ Skyjourney. The Holiday was on a Thursday, which means that Friday was what the Germans call a “Brückentag”, in English a “Bridge day”. It basically means the day that separates a holiday from the weekend, so it would be Friday or Monday if the holiday was on Thursday or Tuesday, respectively. The TUB program was so generous that they decided to give us this day off, and since not much was happening in Berlin that weekend due to the holiday, a group of 8 guys decided to go spend some time in Croatia.

When I was thinking about side trips to make, Croatia had never even come close to crossing my mind. I think the only times I’ve ever even thought about the country were for my 7th grade world map test and the couple times they’ve played in the World Cup since then. My friend August asked his German teacher where he should go on the 4 day weekend, and she said Croatia. I had actually been thinking about visiting Venice, but when I asked in the group chat if anyone wanted to go, another guy responded saying they were already going to Croatia. I had been pretty set on Venice, but after taking one look at pictures of Croatia, I was completely sold.

Little background on me: I’m an Eagle Scout, so I’ve spent a large majority of my childhood was spent outdoors camping, hiking, swimming, etc. I’ve done a 12-day backpacking trip in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which is still one of my favorite memories to this day, and I’ve done a 5-day canoeing trip in the Boundary Waters. I love anything nature related, but I especially love water and mountains. So, when I see a picture on google that looks a little something like this:

There is absolutely no hesitation in me saying yes.

We left Thursday morning at 8:00 and ended up getting there around 17:00. I hadn’t actually realized it, but Germany is pretty much directly north of Croatia, so we didn’t need to adjust to a different time zone. We spent that first night wandering around and enjoying the views, taking pictures, and just screwing around in general.

Will and I in front of a beautiful mountain-range sunset

Afterwards, we went to a restaurant where I tried black risotto, which is a Croatian specialty made of slightly cheesy rice and squid that’s stained black by the squid ink. It was delicious, but at some point I want to try it at a higher quality restaurant.

Black squid risotto, featuring my boy Jeremy

The next day was absolutely action packed, with us waking up at 7 to go on a sea kayaking tour that lasted until 1, and then at 2 meet a guy that would drive us up the mountains so we could go white-water rafting. I’m a thrill seeker, so I liked the rafting more, but I absolutely loved both of them. We had some beautiful views from the kayaks, saw some sea urchins and sea cucumbers (the latter which pretty much looks and feels like a turd), and we also got to go “cliff jumping” off a large rock in the water. The jump was only about 2 meters, but I’ve never been cliff jumping before and am actually scared of heights, so it took me a bit to jump off, but I did it, screamed a little (okay, maybe a lot), and loved it! I was so excited and wanted to jump again, so I climbed right back up the rock to jump off again, thinking it would be much easier this time… Spoiler, it wasn’t. I had to muster up the courage again, but I did it a second time, and lastly a third time with a go-pro.

Sea urchin: Fun fact, it was moving

Croatian mountains over beautiful blue water

White water rafting was amazing. I can’t even describe how much fun I had, I just loved it. We made it through some pretty rough rapids, got battered by a couple trees, drank water from a waterfall, and the only casualty was a single shoe! There was one rapid that I kinda wish we could have done, but I understand why the guide made us walk around the rapid while he went down by himself. Underneath that rapid are pockets where water goes into and causes vortices, which, if someone were to get trapped in there, would prevent them from ever coming back up again. It would’ve been fun to do, but at the same time it wouldn’t be too fun to die.

We also got to go cliff jumping on the rafting trip, and if I thought that first rock was a big jump then boy was I in for a big surprise. The first cliff we came to was the taller of the two, unlike on the kayaking trip, this one was an actual cliff. The cliff was 5 meters tall, and we were told to only go if we thought we were strong swimmers, since we had to start swimming immediately to get back to where the boat was, otherwise we’d be swept downstream through the next rapid. We were also told to be certain we were going to jump, since we had to do some rockclimbing to get there, and the only way back down was to jump. 4 of us went up, and the first person jumped off the 5 meter cliff. However above us was another 2 meter climb, and August asked the guide if we could jump off there, and he said yes. Remember how I said I’m afraid of heights? Well, for some sadistic reason, the way I deal with my fears is by hitting them head on, as hard as I can. So what did I decide to do? I climbed up to the very top section, which added 2 meters to the jump. Let me tell you, when you’re standing at 5 meters already and are looking up at that higher section, it really doesn’t look like it would be that much higher, or scarier. It is. WOW. Keep in mind, 7 meters is 23 feet. Twenty. Three. Feet. That’s 7 feet higher than that original jump, which is already 16 feet high. I got up there and started hyping myself up for the jump, and after a couple seconds the guide asked if I was ready, and I responded “Yes…..… NO”. It took me about 15 more seconds, but I managed to throw myself off the cliff, and I’m glad I did, since it was one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever done in my life!! When I got to the bottom, I was so shook that I almost forgot to start swimming, but I started swimming towards our boat. I started to feel my watershoe (which I had just bought the day before in Croatia) slip off, and so I tried by best to keep it on by kicking slower with that leg, but I was about to be swept down the stream, and alas I lost my shoe. Even though I had to go the rest of the trip without a water shoe, the cliff jumping was absolutely worth it. Would I do it again? Yes. Would I go off a higher cliff? Yes. I’d just need some more time to hype myself up, and also probably a second change of pants.

It looks like the guide yeeted me off the cliff

Another cool thing we did during rafting was getting out of the boat and purposely floating through a rapid in the “safety position”. The safety position is laying on your back in the water, feet first, and using your hands to sort of steer you. Again, I was a little scared to do this, but extremely excited, so naturally I was the first one to go through. We were told to jump into the middle of the water because we didn’t want to get sucked to either of the edges, and our destination was on the right-hand side. While I was going through I felt myself start to get pulled to the left bank, and I started to panic a little bit. I tried steering, but it didn’t seem to work, so I turned over and swam a little bit, realized I probably should stay in the safety position, and started swimming on my back in the direction of our landing point as hard as possible. Luckily, I made it safely!

We went to a pretty fancy seafood restaurant for dinner, since Croatia is famous for seafood. When we walked in there were fish on ice right next to the entrance, so we knew it was fresh. But, the moment we realized just how legit this restaurant was, was when we asked our waiter about the fish they had and he walked us over to the cooler and just picked up a fresh seabass. We ended up getting a seafood soupy-thing, which was definitely one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

Our dinner. Various seafood with homemade noodles in delectable sauce

One food that Croatia is famous for is it’s street food called “Cevapi” (prounounced Che-va-pee) which looks sort of like a Döner. They’re little meatball sticks that are cooked, shoved in the bread, topped with a broth, and then you can decorate it with vegetables of your choice. I chose garlic sauce, dill pickles, corn, and lettuce. It’s insanely good, but the bread wasn’t really extremely appealing to me. I’m actually kind of mad at myself for writing about this, because now I’m craving one and I have absolutely no way of getting it in Germany!

Cevapi

I absolutely loved Croatia, and I hope I can go back and visit it again some day in the future.

[umichenginabroad]

Go with the Flow

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Alright guys, so I realized I’ve been posting for a while now and still haven’t talked about my classes. During the course of this program, we take a German course and an Engineering course. It starts off with having the German course in the morning from 8:30 to 12 every day in the first week, without the engineering course. The German course stays being 8:30 to 12 until the end of week three, when we finish the class. We had our first engineering class during the second week, which went from 1 til 5 after the morning German class. The schedule for the engineering was not consistent until we started week 4, when we started going to class from 9 to 12 and 1 to 5 every single day, and we pretty much just finished all of the class time for it yesterday (Friday week 5).

TL;DR I learned a lot while still having fun, ergo School = Fun

So first off, the German class. I was in the Advanced German course, so we spoke completely in German and talked about subject areas ranging from history to education to politics. We were expected to participate as much as we could, which really wasn’t a problem for me, since the way I learn is by actively participating. One awesome thing about this class was that we got to go on excursions into Germany, and unlike the other excursions we went on with the rest of the IPE program, these were completely in German. The two we did were the one in Kreuzberg that I mentioned before, and then we also made a trip to the Olympia Stadion. I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge fan of sports and everything athletic, so this was kind of like something out of a dream. Also with me being the wrestling nerd that I am, I just had to take pics of the large engraving that has the US wrestling champion!! Our stadium tour was in German, but there was a group of Danish people who didn’t know German that signed up for the German tour by accident instead of English. Our teacher jokingly asked if we would translate for them, and so of course I said yes. Well, at least to the best of my ability. Before this trip I had never really tried to take Germany and translate it word for word into English, so I learned pretty quick that it’s pretty dang hard. I ended up just waiting to hear the entire segment the tour guide said and telling them the summary, rather than word for word. I do think it’s pretty cool though that when I think of German, I think in pictures, rather than translating each sentence to English in my head. I think I need to credit my high school German teacher for that, so here’s a shoutout to Herr Brian Smith!!!

Olympic Champions at different weights in Freestyle wrestling (Ringen Freistil) and Greco-Roman wrestling (Ringen Griechisch-Römisch)

It’s too bad that the German class finished so early, since I was hoping to make a huge leap in my German abilities and I actually really liked the class. I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything, because I actually learned quite a lot!  I just have now realized exactly how much work my German needs to get me to the point of fluency. Yet another excuse to come back to Germany in the future!!

The engineering course I’m in is called “Aerodynamics of Experimental Road Vehicles”. This course was quite fitting for me, since I hope to either be an aerospace or a mechanical engineer one day. Currently I’m leaning towards Aero, but we’ll see what ends up happening. So the basic rundown of this course is that we take a model car and drill pressure taps into it, place it in a wind tunnel, and do all sorts of tests. Drilling the holes and attaching the tubes took FOREVER, since there were 37 of them, and then we needed to measure the position of each point in the x, y, and z axes, all by hand.

Pressure taps on the surface of the model car

Pressure taps on the inside of the car... there are 37....

Once we’re done with that, we modify the vehicle with clay in hopes to reduce the pressure drag that effects the vehicle. We also compare our results to that of the original, and now we are currently writing a lab report and making a presentation and poster. I can’t speak for the other courses, since I know basically nothing about them, but our class has been pretty rigorous. The first week and a half was pretty much crash-course aerodynamics, but rather than being lectured on them, we researched topics in groups and then presented to the other groups. In the course of a week, we had to learn about a semesters worth of  basic aerodynamics, as well as touching on a couple complicated topics. We needed to do this though, because otherwise the class itself would be near impossible. 

Even though the lab was pretty demanding, I really loved the course. We had an awesome teacher-guy (his name is Marvin, I can’t exactly remember what the job title is called though lol), and there were a total of 5 of us in the lab, so we got pretty close. We went through some frustrating moments, like recording meticulous data but not remembering what measurement it was for and needing to completely start over, and we went through some pretty great times, like when we finally got to see how much we improved the aerodynamics when we did flow visualization (as well as the aerodynamics of my head :D) 

It’s Difficult to see, but the curvy line over my head is the smoke trail for flow-vis

The lab reports that we are writing are with our team, but I decided to be a tryhard and write it on my own. No, not because I thought it would be fun to abandon my partner, but because I thought it would be a genius idea to write it completely in German. I got to my third page (725 words) and realized “Wow, this is already the longest thing I’ve ever written in German.” It was at that moment that I thought, you know, maybe I bit off quite a bit more than I could chew, and should actually do this in English. Especially since the report will be around 12 pages. But, I decided to persevere, and I’m at 10 pages!! Marvin has helped me out with a couple of the vocab words, since they’re scientific and I couldn’t find a translation that I was sure of, such as “Druckbohrungen”, which is what they call pressure taps, and “Strömungsablösung”, which means flow separation. If you were to look up flow separation, you’d end up getting something like Strömungstrennung, which does technically mean flow separation, but trennen is used more for something like separating trash, not airflow. It’s going to be difficult, but I just gotta stick with it and I think it’ll be worth it in the end.

A small taste of what I’ve been working on

Marvin’s been a really cool guy to work with with, and is actually a pretty great role model. He’s a hard worker, has his life together, and loves what he does. It was fun to ask him a question about flow dynamics and see how excited he got talking about it. He wasn’t just interested in us learning the “what”, but also the “why”, and would often run to the chalkboard and draw out picture after picture to help us understand what was going on. I honestly hope that wherever my education takes me, I find that same happiness and passion in what I do.

Aerodynamics of Experimental Road Vehicles, class of 2019 (and Marvin)

[umichenginabroad]

Schnitzel, Döner, and Bier, Oh My!

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

The post you’ve all been waiting for: FOOOOOOOOOOODDD!!

One of the most wonderful things about being immersed in another culture is getting to experience their culinary tastes. I’m a huge proponent of the idea of being open to try anything at least once, so I’ve had my fair share of weird foods in my life. Germany doesn’t have too many of the foods that you gotta hype yourself up to eat, but they do have a lot of foods that American doesn’t. And, of the food they have that America also has, its generally a lot better.

When you think of German food, the first things that come to mind are Schnitzel, Currywurst, Döner, and of course, Bier. I sadly haven’t gotten to try Schnitzel yet, but I will definitely find some at an actual restaurant before I leave Germany.

Currywurst and Döner though…. O lawdy I’m absolutely addicted. My Currywurst addiction is a bit worse than the Döner, but nonetheless addicted to both. Two weeks ago, I had Currywurst every single day except Friday. And guess what I had on Friday?  Yup, that’s right. Döner. I think I’m going to go through withdrawal once I get back to America! One thing that makes the Currywurst so hard for me to resist is that the stand was on the way from my morning German class to my afternoon engineering class, so I just grabbed it and ate it on the way. Every. Day. And no, I have not gotten tired of it. I’m trying to be a bit more frugal with my money right now, so I bought some Wurst and made my own Currywurst back in my apartment. I wish I could eat more Döner, but there unfortunately aren’t any stands nearby. I’m not sure which part about the Döner makes it so wonderful, whether it’s the juicy meat strips inside or the slight crunch of the toasted bread, but either way it’s absolutely heavenly and it’s a must-have if you ever find yourself in Berlin.

Currywurst Rot-Weiß (Curry Ketchup and Mayo) from Curry36

Currywurst in front of the Brandenburger Tor

Döner

Germany is both one of the largest producers and drinkers of beer in the world. Beer itself is engrained into the German culture, especially in the Bavarian region of Germany. There are so many more types of brews, brands, and even flavors of beer than I had ever imagined, and I’ve been able to try a couple of them. I’ve found that I really enjoy a Lager from tap, since it has a nice mild taste, is not overly sweet, and not too bitter. I’ve heard from many people that German beer is a lot better than American beer, so I may have been spoiled here and will never like American beer, but oh well, I guess it’s just another addition to the extensive list to come back here. (See previous blog post for Lager pic).

Cooking at home is fairly simple, since I’ve done that a lot for a fair amount of my life. Home food involves at least two trips to the store per week. I go to either ALDI or Penny, both of which are very cheap supermarkets here. The only problem I’ve faced is that I have had to throw out a fair amount of food. All of the food here is so fresh, and the shelf life after you buy it is only a couple days. Once you open a package, you basically have to finish it, or else it will spoil. Every single package I have gotten is about 1.5 times the amount of food I want to cook, so I had not been able to finish the food and I had to throw it out. My solution: I started cooking with my friend Jeremy, another participant on this trip. We started making fairly nice meals and incorporating sides so that we would have enough food for two people and not have to throw out any food. Since then, I have not had that problem at all, and my at-home cuisine greatly improved!

My Currywurst Culinary Creation

Honestly, I have not had any cravings for food back in America. I’m completely content with all of the food here and by the time I have to go back to America, I’ll be sad to leave the German food behind. Who knows, maybe I can use this as an opportunity to learn how to cook Germanic foods while I’m back in America!

[umichenginabroad]

Oops

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Story Time!

This past Monday I walked out of class and decided to go to the Biergarten that’s right around the corner from my lab. I ordered a Lager vom Fass (Lager from Barrel a.k.a. From tap) and then brought it over to a table to enjoy the nature around me. It was very peaceful and quiet. A couple birds were hopping around near my feet, eating seeds off of the ground. After I finished my Lager, I decided to get a second, just because I loved it so much. I sat down at a different bench to drink my beer, and right before I finished I realized I put my wallet down on the windowsill right behind me. Knowing how forgetful I am (I’d actually lose my head if it weren’t attached), I put my wallet immediately in my pocket. I finished my drink and put my mug in the dish-return box, popped my earbuds in, and was on my way back to the U-Bahn station. Like always, I was jammin out to my music and when I had almost reached U-Bahn Zoologischer Garten, I started to tap the beat on the front of my pants. It was at this moment that I realized the large bulge in my left pocket that is normally there, wasn’t. Yes, that’s right. I lost my wallet in the middle of Berlin.

Naturally, I freaked out a little bit. I sprinted all the way from Zoologisher Garten back to the Bier Garten, where I was certain I had left my wallet. However once I got there, my wallet was nowhere to be found. I figured that maybe someone had turned my wallet in the cash register there, so I asked them. But when in the midst of my panic I tried asking in German, I asked them if they had seen my “Portmonteau” (Pronounced Port - mon- toe). This is not a German word at all, and they were very confused. I ended up just saying wallet, since I’d rather give up the guise of being a German resident than lose my wallet forever. To my dismay, they still didn’t have it. I ran up and down the path between Zoo. Garten and Bier Garten for a solid hour and a half. hoping I would find it. At this point I had started to lose hope that I would ever find it. I thought it was a shot in the dark, but I went to the Polizei station that was right along that path and asked if they had found a wallet. Of course, I asked them in German (and at this point I had realized the word was “Portemonnaie” [Port-moan-neigh]), so the first answer that I got was no. As I was about to leave though, one of the officers inside said “Wait, what’s your name?” and I told him. They all started laughing and I was really confused, so the first officer told me that because I had asked in German, they thought I was a German resident. Since everything in my wallet is American, they almost didn’t think to ask what my name was and were just about to send me along. They brought me in, held my Driver’s License up to my face, and confirmed it was me. They had to fill out some paperwork, which took about ten minutes so I was able to chat with them in German during that time, about thinks like what I was doing in Germany, Aerospace engineering, and how I was able to speak German so well. I also learned that my wallet had fallen out of my pocket in the middle of the path between the Polizei Station and the Bier Garten, and someone had found it and turned it in. By the end of the process, I was able to go home with my wallet and all of its original contents! 

[umichenginabroad]

Reindeer and Rain, dear

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Hey everyone, what’s up!

So I know I’ve had reaaallly long blog posts the past couple times and that I haven’t posted that many, but now that I have consistent wifi and a good amount of free time, I’m gonna try to blast through a short couple blogs here!

First off, I FINALLY got my SIM card to work. That means that my internet-less days of wandering around the city are finished! The whole process was a bit frustrating, but after 2 hours of verifying my identity, an hour of mooching of Saturn wifi to make a customer support call, and 3 visits to the o2 store, I finally got 155 gb of data! (And an added bonus, I got it all for the for the price of 5 gb 😊) As difficult as it was to find my way around the city and get updates on activities, I actually kind of enjoyed my time disconnected. It really let me immerse into the environment I’ve been put in, and it also really forced me to learn how to read the S-Bahn and U-Bahn maps. It’s always good to find the silver lining in things.

Last weekend I got to go on my first side trip! I was going with 4 other guys to Oslo, Norway. Our flight was at 7 in the morning, meaning we had to get there at 6, which also meant I had to wake up at 4. Boooooooooooo, mornings aren’t fun. Since I’ve barely been able to get out of bed at 7 for class here, I was a little worried that I was going to sleep through my alarms and miss my flight. Luckily, I didn’t! …..But, one of the other 4 did. Sorry David, I think I summoned all of your waking-up ability to get my tired butt out of bed….

A first glimpse of Norway

Anywho, we got to Norway and the first thing I noticed was that I didn’t understand anything. I’ve learned German for 5 years, so when I came to Germany, signs, billboards, menus, etc. weren’t really that ‘foreign’. It was very cool to actually understand what it was like to be the person that didn’t understand what anyone was saying. Thankfully Norwegians speak a lot of English, so I didn’t have the misfortune of ordering something I hated at a restaurant!

Speaking of food, Norway has some pretty great cookin. The country is known for its fresh fish and game meats, so naturally we were bound and determined to eat some before we left. The first meal I had when I got to Norway was a salmon-covered open sandwich and it was very good. I love smoked salmon but haven’t been buying smoked salmon sandwiches in Germany, since all of the salmon sandwiches have horseradish on them. I am not a fan of Horseradish at all, but apparently it’s very popular here in Deutschland. For lunch in Norway, I got a bowl of Fiskesuppe, and all seafood was fresh caught. For dinner, we all went to the oldest restaurant in Oslo, and MAN was it good. We got a “Taste of Norway” Platter that had many different meats, including whale and Reindeer. The portions were small, but the flavors were powerful. I’m glad I got to try the whale, but it really didn’t do that much for me. Very tender, but very mild in flavor. The three of us that got one all ate them together at the same time, so we could all share our reactions at the same time. My main course came shortly thereafter, a plate of the most tender sea trout I have ever had. It was also the first time I’d really been to a fine dining place, so along the way I learned a bit of table etiquette as well! To top it all off, we grabbed some fish and chips from a food truck that was parked outside the train station, and it was definitely the best fish and chips I’ve ever had. The only unfortunate thing about Norwegian food is how expensive everything was. The cheapest food we could find was still around 100 Kroner (about equivalent to 9 US Dollars). My wallet was definitely crying by the end of the trip.

Yum

We didn’t have a ton of time in Norway, so we were only able to see a handful of things. We saw several museums, a castle, did a Fjord Tour, and walked around doing some sightseeing. Everything in the museums was in Norwegian, so I couldn’t understand anything, but it was still cool to see all of the exhibits. 

I don’t know any Norwegian but this HAS to translate to “bendy axe”

Oslo was much different than I had pictured in my head, but I really enjoyed the trip and I hope I can explore a bit more of Norway at some point in the future!

[umichenginabroad]

A Darkness that must never be forgotten

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

My previous two posts have been very joyful and happy. However, this post will take a more somber tone. Before you begin reading this, I want you to remember a couple things; the following topics are can be very emotionally heavy, and parts of this might be difficult topics for some people to read. However, of all the posts I make during my exchange, this one is arguably the most important and I hope you read it all the way through.

Following the end of WW1, Germany was in shambles. The country as a whole needed to pay off the debt from the war, and this stemmed into riots, some demonstrations, and political vulnerability. As a result, it was very easy for people to find something, or someone, to assign the blame to. This is where Adolf Hitler comes in. As a young man and new politician, Hitler joined the DAP (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei -> German Worker’s Party), which later changed its name to the Nationalsozialistche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), or Nazi for short. This party was strongly opposed to the democratic style government that Germany had adopted during the Weimar Republik. Hitler quickly gained popularity in this party, since he was a riveting speaker, in fact the best in the party. Hitler’s charismatic speeches of anti-Semitism and nationalism largely unified the people of Germany and drew large crowds towards his cause. Many people thought “This is exactly what our country needs, a strong leader who will speak his mind and get the job done!” Scary… You may be thinking, how could someone with such strong hate be elected as a leader? Excellent question, and I’m glad you’re asking it. You’d be surprised how often people say that phrase about very hateful people. Anyways, remember the thing about needing to assign blame to someone? That’s exactly what Hitler did. Rather than directly spreading anti-Semitic hate, Hitler spread it by saying that the Jews were the reason Germany lost the war, that they sabotaged the war efforts, that they’re the cause of all the political and social unrest in Germany at that time… It’s crazy what desperation can do to people’s moral compasses. In 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor and soon thereafter a bill was passed that stripped all power from the Reichstag. This effectively made Adolf Hitler the dictator of Germany, and thus das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich) was born.

I won’t go into as much detail about the war itself, since that’s the part that everyone already knows, but I wanted to talk about the preceding events, as few people actually fully understand how Hitler came to power and how WW2 began. Hopefully this isn’t sounding like a history book, but you need the background knowledge to really feel the emotions.

As a group, we visited the “Deutsche Unterwelt”, which was a tour of one of the bunkers found in Berlin. During this tour, we got to learn a lot about events leading up to the war, as well as how the German government was able to mitigate panic or spread propaganda, which they used to “brainwash” the public. Leading up to the war, Germany needed to start preparing, but the big question is, how do you get an entire country to prepare for a war that you are starting as an attempt to “purify” the world? Simple answer, you don’t. Instead, Hitler told Germany that other countries were preparing to wage war against them, and enforced mandatory “defense” preparations, such as practice air raids (callback to bunker we were in), manufacturing weapons, so on and so forth. The German government spread propaganda during the practice raids by having magazines that contained the Nazi ideology. But don’t forget the children! To make the air raids family friendly, the government so generously provided board games depicting war and Nazi ideals for the young’ns! Learning about this was extremely important for me, because it really helped me to fully understand how Hitler was able to get Germany fully onboard with his radical ideas. Most people think that the German people knew Hitler’s plan from the beginning, which makes it really easy to judge them for joining in at Hitler’s side. I know I definitely judged them, because I just couldn’t grasp how people would just so willingly torture and kill people.  The reality is that it was a long, deliberate, and thought out process over a course of a decade where Hitler slowly convinced people to listen to him. Through these small things like slowly hiding Germany’s true intentions, to lying about the war, to feeding propaganda to children, it’s actually quite easy to understand how Hitler could manipulate the entire country. Some other things we were able to see were bathrooms, waiting areas, and the bunker rooms themselves. Sitting in a room with our tour group was already fairly crowded, and we were at about the maximum capacity for the bunker room. We were told that the bunkers were only designed to make the people feel safer, since the German government never thought bombs would reach Berlin, so they really couldn’t handle all of Berlin’s population. At the end of the war though, bombs started landing in Berlin, and so everyone that could fit in the bunker did. Imagine, 100 people sitting in a room. Now, imagine that the room was designed for 20 people. Now imagine that it’s unbearably hot, and people are using the bathroom right where they sit, and you have to stay there for hours. Sitting there thinking about that really made me appreciate all of the things I have, and how comfortable my life is in comparison. And finally, to drive the idea home of how terrible this all was, the people in the bunker were the lucky ones. Compared to the people in German concentration camps, the people in the bunker were living like royalty.

The thing that surprised me the most from the Unterwelt tour was the fact that the German post-war inhabitants tried to hide the past. Until around 1960, the survivors didn’t really talk about the events of WW2, and even when kids or young adults that didn’t live through the war asked about it, they would push the question aside and change the topic, and because of that, young Germans didn’t know what their country was responsible for. Eventually, people found out, and once they did, they decided that they couldn’t stand around and let the world nor Germany forget what they had done. This movement is what sparked the construction of many memorials all throughout Berlin, as well as the rest of the country.

While we’ve been here in Germany, we’ve had the privilege of visiting a couple of these memorials. So far, we’ve been able to see memorials such as the book burning memorial, Gestapo, Die Deutsche Unterwelt, the Jewish Victim memorial, the Neue Wache, and more. Each and every one of the memorials was very powerful, and all work in tandem to remind us of the past, so that we can never forget it.

The book burning memorial isn’t large, but the person who designed it did a very good job of getting its point across. In the middle of an empty courtyard surrounded by large buildings, including the Humboldt University, is a single plaque and a lone plastic window on the ground. The plaque basically says that when people burn books, it is only a prelude to them burning people as well.  In the beginning of the Nazi reign, young Nazis ran into the University and grabbed any book that contained knowledge opposing their ideas and beliefs. They then brought them out to the courtyard, where they burned all of the books. Under the plastic window in the ground is a room filled with empty bookshelves that would contain the number of books that were burned. Looking at the empty bookshelves really helps to visualize just how much knowledge was lost, and it helps us to remember how the destruction of knowledge leads us down very dark paths.

The Neue Wache is a roman-revival style building in the middle of Berlin. Inside is an almost empty room with a circular hole in the ceiling. Directly below this hole is a statue of a mother with her dead son. In front of the statue is an inscription on the floor that says “Den Opfern von Krieg und Gewaltherrschaft” which means “For the Victims of War and Dictatorship”. While I was there, I didn’t really understand the feeling that overcame me. I realized later after some reflection that the sensation was that of vulnerability. The statue is trapped in its place, unable to escape the weathering from the environment. In the winter, the statue is covered in snow, in the summer is baked in the heat, or drenched in a torrential downpour. The fate of the statue, much like that of the victims, is completely in the hands of the seemingly unwavering force that ails it. I can’t even come close to imagining the vulnerability and helplessness that the victims had felt, but the experience was powerful nonetheless.

Every memorial I’ve gone to has been very emotionally evoking, but the one that had the most powerful feeling for me was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is a grid of gray obelisks, and you can walk between them. As you come closer to the middle, the ground gradually gets lower and the obelisks get taller. I have absolutely no idea how to describe the feeling I felt while I was in the middle, but the closest I can come is an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and sadness together. It was one of the most powerful auras I’ve experienced in my life and was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. This is definitely a memorial that you need to see for yourself to find your own interpretation.

There are so many things I could talk about, but it would all be too much for a single blog post. I ~HIGHLY~ recommend taking some time to freshen up on the history of the war and post-war Germany and then take a trip to visit some of the memorials. Every single one is worth seeing, and I promise you that you’ll be glad you did it. The last “memorial” I’d like to talk about, and what I think is the most important, are the Stolpersteine. The first time that I had heard about Stolpersteine was in my 3rd year German class back in high school. Stolpersteine are golden bricks that are put into the sidewalk with the name of a Jewish holocaust victim, as well as their date of birth and date of death. When I first learned about them, I thought they were all gathered together in a single spot in Berlin. However, they aren’t all in one place, but rather spread all throughout Germany. Instead of looming monuments like most memorials, they’re just a single stone or small group of stones in the sidewalk around every corner, and you can spot one in the ground everywhere you go. What I think makes this idea so effective is the frequency at which you see them. Being able to see a Stolperstein anywhere you are really helps quantify the sheer number of people that fell victim to the Holocaust. Also, you see them almost every day, but still not quite often enough to start ignoring them, making them serve as a daily reminder to prevent us from forgetting the past. And as George Santayana said so well, “Wer sich seiner Vergangenheit nicht erinnert, ist dazu verdammt, sie zu wiederholen“ – He who does not remember his past is thereby damned to repeat it.

[umichenginabroad]

Oh WiFi, how you have forsaken me!

By: Dustin Fletcher, Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering major, German minor

Program: Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)

Alright, so I’ve been in Germany for about a week now. I’ve REEAALLLYY wanted to post about so many things (and I mean a LOT, I have been thinking about so much and I’m about to explode with thoughts), however I’ve had some issues with wifi and connection in general. So first off, I basically only have wifi at the university. I was given a stick that generated wifi for my laptop, however it is so slow that in the couple times I’ve already had to use it for research and whatnot, I’ve already used up all of it. Uh oh. Anyways, I had gotten a SIM card here at Aldi, however it hasn’t really worked at all, so I’ve been surviving the past week by being around people with maps that could get me where I needed to go. See next paragraph for that story. This weekend though, most of the people went to Prague, so I was internet-less for two days. Long story short (I will expand on this later) I went on an adventure, ordered an o2 SIM card that gave me a free 150 Gb, and now I’m just waiting for that to show up so I can have data.

Okay, so wifi-less story number one. Last week Wednesday, I needed to go to the doctor. Luckily my program director has an iPhone, because I was able to message her over wifi at the university and figure out where I needed to go. Because it was a Wednesday, basically every place was closed in the afternoon. We ended up finding a hospital called Franziskus-Krankenhaus (Krankenhaus => Hospital) and that was where I was gonna go. Unfortunately, my phone died, so I wasn’t able to use a pre-downloaded map. Thus, I was able to use my German skills and wander around Berlin asking people for directions. Luckily, I was able to find my way there. I also learned the pronunciation of a word on the way there, since I told one guy that my Handy was dead (Handy => Cellphone), and I pronounced the “a” with an “ah” sound. When I said this, one guy didn’t understand what I was saying and gestured with his hands. I realized the reason he did this was because the German word for “hand” is “Hand”, pronounced with an “ah” sound. When I pulled out my phone to show him, he said, “Ah, Handy!” but pronounced like “Hendy”. Anyways, knowledge! So I got to the hospital, but out of pure chance I found two of my friends right outside. Berlin is a city of 3,7 million people, so the odds of that happening were pretty much slim to none. They waited for me while I had my appointment, which unfortunately took a while since there weren’t too many doctors working at that point, and there were a fair amount of patients. I was able to do the entire check-in process and appointment in German, which was really cool for me! Afterwards, I took my friends over to KaDeWe, which stands for Kaufhaus des Westens (Department Store of the West). It’s insanely huge and expensive, but we had fun there checking all the stuff out.

Ohne Netzwerk [=Without Network] Teil Zwei [=Part Two]: This weekend, most of my friends went to Prague. I had been dependent on one kid, Will, for wifi, since he had bought the o2 SIM card that came with a free 150 gb. He just kept creating hotspots for me whenever I needed it, and all was well. Then, he left for Prague this weekend. Thus, I was left without wifi, communication with other TUB members, and without directions... Alright. So I would just have to stick with transportation I already had gotten used to. Kein Problem   ....Or so I thought. To make matters worse, the S-Bahn that I normally took to get into the middle of Berlin was not running this weekend. Instead, there were bus replacements that took people to other places of Berlin. I generally take the S2 to Potsdammer Platz, where the transfer to U-Bahn was right next to the Mall of Berlin. I figured this would be a pretty good place to get WiFi, so I just hopped on the S2 Bus that looked like it went in the same direction as the S-Bahn I normally take. Alas, it was not the right bus. I had never seen anything at any of the train station stops before. I get off, go to the nearest stand, and ask why the trains aren’t running and how I can get to Potsdammer Platz. An older gentleman helped me out and pointed me in the right direction. He ended up getting on the bus with me, as well as the following train, as he was heading home. We talked about several things, such as where we’re from, how the value of money changed during the transition from Deutschmarks to Euros, etc. All of this was in German, because he didn’t understand any English. At one point in the conversation, he mentioned the Turkish and Arabian people that were moving into Germany and making it less “pure”. I really wasn’t a fan of that and wanted to say something, but although my German is good, it is not at the point where I can form a well articulated argument with someone like that. It’s already generally difficult to do that in English with a topic like this. So, I just steered it away from that topic. I ended up finding my way and thanking him for his help, but man, stuff like that really grinds my gears. After I got to the Mall of Berlin, I purchased a phone case so I wouldn’t damage my phone, and I ordered an o2 SIM card with the 150 gb.

Now, a couple differences I’ve seen between Germany and America. First, I’d like to start with the people. As a whole, German’s are ~extremely~ efficient. I wish I had a picture for this next example, but when I went back to KaDeWe after I thought of it, it was closed. When you look at an escalator in America, people are scattered everywhere between the left and right sides of the steps. In Germany, EVERYONE stands either stands on the right, or walks up the left. Everyone. You can easily spot tourists or people new to Germany just by looking at an elevator and seeing which person is standing on the left side. Another place you see the difference in efficiency is at grocery stores. WOW are they fast! I get a little frazzled at the checkout line because I can never keep up to the cashier with packing my items, and I feel like I’m trying to do several things at once. Lastly, you can observe German’s efficiency while driving. Every time I go to cross a cross-walk, cars turning right would would pull up right until their bumpers were almost touching your leg. This scared me the first couple times, but I realized after a couple times that people are just trying to be as efficient as possible, so that they’d be able to drive through as soon as there was a small gap in pedestrians. 

Two observations of the people that don’t have to do with efficiency: Firstly, Germans are quieter in general. They speak quieter, are quieter in public (especially when with friends), and are more respectful of volume when walking through living areas. I think that rather than confusing the point and thinking that German’s are quiet, I think it’s that Americans rather are loud. The other thing I noticed was what people say when they are about to use their cellphone. In America, people generally just start using their phone without saying a word, whereas every German person that I’ve been with said something along the lines of “I just need to respond to a message quickly” or “I’m just checking my phone quickly” before using it, which I thought was kind of a nice way to let the other person know they aren’t just ignoring them. Honestly, I think it’s something I’m going to try to start doing more.

Moving on to the physical differences, one thing that will confuse many Americans is the floor numbering. When you walk into a building, you are on floor E (Erdgeschoss), which basically means ground level. The next floor up is 1, and so on and so forth. The absolutely most surprising difference to me, however, was the doorhandles! These were the first thing that I even noticed while we were here. In Germany, there are no round turning door knobs! All door knobs are either the bar style, or just a knob to pull on when you unlock the door with the key. They warned us about this immediately, since this causes many American students to get locked out easily, as the door locks as soon as it’s closed and you need the keys to get back in. Personally, I like this style better, since you never have to worry about whether or not you locked your door. Picture below is not mine, credit to FSB Door Hardware.

My German class has been going very well. I can’t give too much insight into the basic and intermediate programs, but in the advanced German class I feel like I’m learning. I’ve learned some things that I’ve already been able to implement into my German speaking, as well as cultural information that I’ve already seen around Berlin. One example already is asking for Currywurst Rot-Weiß. I know this one is kind of a funny example, but It’s a typical Berlin thing to ask for that, which means Currywurst with Ketchup and Mayo. Another Beispiel: we learned about German universities and other collegiate programs, so I was able to talk to my German friend Nick about college and the Abitur, as well as another random German girl about her friend’s experience in ERASMUS. Last Friday, our class took a fieldtrip to Kreuzberg, a subsection of Berlin, were a violent demonstration had historically taken place every May first until the last several years. While we were there, our teacher pointed out the differences between Althäuser (Old houses) and the new buildings, which had to be rebuilt after the war. I went on a 13 mile walk through Berlin yesterday, and I was actually able to see all of the old buildings that she had mentioned.

I know that this has been a really long post and basically just a large info-dump on you, so sorry about that, but I have just had SO much happen to me in the past week and I couldn’t even cover it all in these posts. I want to include so much more and so many more pictures, but I’m just not able to. I’m going to see if I’m able to include a link to a photo bank at some point so I can upload photos there for you all to see.

With all that being said, be ready for my next post either today or tomorrow, and come to it with an open mind ready to take in a lot of information. 

 Until then,

-Dustin