by Annabel Liou
Berlin feels like a dream now that I’ve been back at Northwestern for a month. Take any American street I’ve walked down: I see no doner stands, hear absolutely no German, and feel significantly less intrigued by everything around me. I miss the amazingly open-minded and talented Berliners, the awesome Northwestern crew, the crazy techno music, the canals and museums, the forest and lakes, the easy travel around Europe, everything. I even miss Eik and Ante, the two ever so wonderful receptionists in our hotel that we stayed at. They always humored my terrible German and made me feel so at home.
Berliners never struck me as the most friendly of people. Most of them were extremely reserved in public, and gave my friends and I weird looks if we were loud on the train. However, once you get to know them better, they became wonderful and kind friends. They are so easily amused by my broken German and help me learn new phrases. They showed me places that locals frequent around Berlin, and helped me understand that things like currywurst and spatzle are a tourist trap.
Of course Berlin would’ve been completely different without the Northwestern crew. I’ll never forget one of our last days, when we went to this isolated lake in the middle of Grunewald forest. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we swam and ate fries, basically what we had been doing all summer. These people shared so many of my most glorious experiences and interests the entire summer. I’ll never forget the weekly doner runs and karaoke nights.
I learned so much in the classroom as well. The refugee law course has become extremely relevant, and the class about German politics and history taught me a lot about Germany’s current struggle to reconcile its national identity with its controversial past. Not to mention, all that German we learned that helped me fit right into Berlin.
Now when I run into one of my Northwestern friends from the Berlin program, it always throws me off seeing their faces in America. It’s almost too good to be true. I imagine running into my Berlin friends here, knowing it would almost never happen. I am continuing to reconcile my amazing experiences in Berlin with real life in Evanston. Berlin will stay with me forever, and I need to bring the energy and excitement from Berlin to Northwestern.