Favorite season

Aaand it's that time again when I check my blog and notice that more than a week has passed since I last updated. Last week's cold left me no energy to do anything else than just rest but it still amazes me how fast time can go when you have lots to do. It's October in three days and that just has to sink in for a minute, it can't be!!

Summer is over for sure, leaves are falling on the ground and mornings are very chilly, just the way I like it. I had to stay home for a couple days because I got sick so it was just better to stay in. Well, luckily there's Netflix, fluffy socks, blankets and chocolate to help me get better faster. I didn't get a fever so I could go to work last week. Having a cold at work isn't too much fun though but somehow I pulled through with the help of some tea and fruit.

Ginger tea to the rescue  

I went to see Basement at a sold out Musik & Frieden (ex Comet Club) 14.9.

Sunset at Warschauer Strasse

As you've probably noticed, I'm not much of a writer or a reader, I prefer photos and visual stuff. The windmill below is located like 800 meters from where I live, from the first glance it doesn't look like it's located in Berlin at all but it is. The weather was pretty on Sunday and getting some fresh air is never a bad idea so I went for a walk and found it.

Bockwindmühle in Marzahn

And what would be a better way to spend a Saturday evening than at the most iconic places in Berlin; the East Side Gallery and Brandenburger Tor. Well, I liked it. Could've taken my camera with me though but the idea of that didn't even cross my mind so again the quality is brought to you by my iPhone..

Tomorrow me and my coworkers are going to have breakfast at Scandic Hotel Potsdamer Platz, of course it has to be during the actual breakfast time so I have to leave the house super early to get there on time. 

It's Monday evening and I'm already really looking forward to Friday, not just because it's the weekend again but because my parents and my little brother are coming over. This is not the furthest but the longest time I ever spent being away from my family and they seem to be excited to see me too so it should be fun!

Potsdam

This week has been pretty grey and rainy but that's totally fine by me, I love this time of the year. Right now it's raining and I can't wait for the weather to get colder so I can wear sweaters and all the warm stuff all the time. Mornings are quite cool already but during the days we still get close to 20 degrees. Oh well.

Last weekend was super sunny and I didn't have much to do so on sunday I took a train down to Potsdam and walked around the Sanssouci park and the city in general. I managed to take my camera with me and took pictures of stuff I thought were cool. You could spend a whole day in the park, it's really really huge. I wanted to walk through it but it's so big I wouldn't have had time for that. So if you want to see the whole park, you need to spend a little longer than an hour or two on that.

The amount of couples in the park was absolutely ridiculous, I felt like I was the only one who came to the park by themselves but it was cool. Pretty park to say the least.

I also visited the Holländisches Viertel (the Dutch Quarter) and I have to say my expectations were a bit too high. Definitely wasn't as cool as I thought it would be but it was indeed a little bit of the Netherlands in Germany.

Aside from my occasional exploring stuff I mostly just work. I'm taking in some requests and handle them almost by myself now, I want to double check everything before sending emails because after all it's about real customers and real money, don't want to make stupid mistakes even though I'm here to learn. 

Time keeps flying by

Today marks my four weeks in Berlin and it has gone FAST. Days at work are quite long because it takes me an hour to get to work, I work ironically from 9 to 5 which leaves me no time/energy to do much in the evenings, unless I already have planned something after work. Weekends are for mostly gathering energy for another week at the office but hey, this is what I signed up for so I'm not complaining at all!

 

View from the Friedrichstr. S-bahn station on my way to work

1/2 of our office with clean desks!!

Yesterday evening me and my coworkers were invited for a dinner up in the rotating restaurant of the Berliner Fernsehturm (TV-tower)! Yes, the restaurant rotates but slowly enough, you could barely even notice it. It rotates continuously and makes a full cycle in about an hour. This was my first time up in the tower and it was quite confusing to look out the window and see a different part of the city each time.

On the restaurant's website it actually says "Please dress appropriately". Of course I had forgotten about the whole dinner until the second I got on the tram in the morning.. I wasn't exactly dressed up for a fancy company dinner but at least I wasn't wearing any merch so my clothing was decent enough.

If you want to take pictures, I would recommend going up during the daylight but if you just want to enjoy the view and the city lights, it's worth a visit in the evening. I couldn't get a good picture because the restaurant's lights got reflected on the windows too much but hey, at least I tried.

And the food! Oh, the foooooooodd..!! How could you resist a fancy buffet, it was really good! Not sure though which one was better, the ever changing beautiful scenery or the delicious food. In any case, the night was great and I would definitely go up there again. :) 

The map below is connected to something I've been wanting to do for a long time now, an InterRail trip in Europe. During my internship I'm allowed to have a full week off and at this point it's going to be in November since September and October are busy busy months at work. People usually go railing during the summer but I just have to rush through it and pick a couple places worth visiting. The end of the year has always been my favorite time of the year anyway so this will be great, I'm very excited! I don't have any solid plans yet but I'll probably get a Global Pass for 10 days which allows you to travel on 5 days of your choice. We'll see!

Tomorrow I'm up for some more company hangouts and surprises, we were invited to this "dragonboat race" and I have no idea what to expect, except for paddling boats and water. It's going to be interesting for sure!

Oh and next week I should get my camera out of the bag and use it before it's all dusty...

No plans is the best plans

This was the first weekend with zero plans and I really enjoyed just doing nothing at all.

It's getting quite busy at work and we've had a couple last minute booking requests as well but luckily when it's last minute, the customer knows exactly what they want and we can just message the hotel to book it for them.

On Thursday we left the office earlier to check out two cool Amano-group hotels. It was really nice because I've only done that kind of stuff once in Finland for a school project. The guy who presented the hotels to us was super nice although he spoke a little bit too fast (as German people always do) so I didn't get everything he said but most importantly I got to see two really nice hotels.

One of the many rooms we saw, behind the wall on the right was another bed

Rooftop terrace at Amano Grand Central (which wasn't quite finished yet)

Bar terrace view

After the tour we sat down at the hotel bar for drinks which was really nice.
For next week I don't really have plans but the on the 8th of September I'm going for lunch or dinner with my coworkers in the TV tower, I've never been up there so it should be cool!

P.S. I can't wait for the weather to cool down, I've had enough of this +30 degree weather...

Busy life in a busy city

Tomorrow I've been here for two very busy weeks, busy is actually an understatement but all I can say at this point is that I really love Berlin more and more every day.

During my time here I've had only one day without any plans and that was on Sunday after I came back from the Destruction Derby Festival in Rosslau. I stayed in bed all day because I was very tired, only got a couple hours of sleep on Saturday night but it was beyond worth it. If you know me, you know that I love concerts a LOT and Berlin (and Germany in general) is like a paradise to me because almost every tour that I'd like to see comes here. Every show has been totally worth the hours spent on travels and the not so glorious number of hours slept, can't wait for the next ones!

Stick To Your Guns @ Summerblast Festival, Trier 15/08

Thy Art Is Murder @ Cassiopeia, Berlin 18/08

More Than A Thousand's last show in Germany @ Destruction Derby, Dessau-Rosslau 22/08 - definitely going to miss these guys! :(

So as it comes to the REAL reason why I came to Berlin, so far I've had the nicest time at the office. For the first week I mainly wanted to just see how everything works there and in the meantime I helped with translating some hotel and excursion descriptions as the other Finnish-speaking person is on vacation right now. Oh and I helped writing some offers to clients too.

My second week has barely started and requests keep coming in at the office as the season starts. Today I finished writing the company's newsletter for September (in English and Finnish) and they also gave me three accommodation requests for individual customers or small groups to handle. They weren't easy, lots of email-exchanging in three different languages and I even had to take a call in from a contact person... Yikes! Tomorrow I'll get to practice writing an invoice and send it since one of my today's customers wanted to book the hotel I offered to them. :)

Coffee is always a necessity

I haven't really had time to explore the city or take pictures of the neighbourhood I live in or anything yet but here's a snap of Reichstag from one of my first days here. 

(B)E(R)LINA

So this is where I'll be writing about my internship in Berlin! It's going to be in English so if you don't understand, just use Google Translate or ask your mother or whatever!

Last week I took a pretty big step in my life and finally moved to Berlin for a few months. When I started my travel business studies at Helmi Business College (Liiketalousopisto) I found out that with them it's possible to do the 4/5-month internship abroad which is included in my studies. At that time I had been to Berlin a few times and had absolutely fallen in love with this city so I decided I'm going to come here. And I did.

I've been here for six days now and it's all very new to me especially because I have never ever moved. The first couple weeks are going to be exhausting but I'm sure I'll be just fine. I know my way around and the public transportation is running so perfectly in the whole city. The only "problem" is that I haven't used German in years... I understand a lot but it's really hard to start getting words out of my mouth again.

Anyway, I had my first day at work today and it was amazing, my office rules! I'll keep updating every now and then when I have more stuff to tell.
Until then, tschüß!