Post #3: Overview of Braunschweig

The ten days since I arrived in Braunschweig and began my internship at the Georg Eckert Institute have been exciting, chaotic, and very busy, but I have loved it all so far. I began work the day after arriving, though my boss slowly eased me into my surroundings. This post is in many ways my first time to really sit back and reflect on all that I have done so far. With everything going on, its almost hard to imagine that less than two weeks ago I was back in Massachusetts, and a week before that I was still in DC finishing up my first year of grad school. Below is a very general overview of my experience in Braunschweig so far. Upcoming posts will cover my trip last weekend to Dresden and Prague, another about my first week working at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, another on the strange little things I have noticed and encountered living in Germany so far, and finally one on reminiscing on the plane about when my interest in German culture began, and how through this my academic and career aspirations were born, and perhaps without realizing it, have led me to my current circumstances.

I arrived in Braunschweig after a long flight to Madrid, followed by a five hour layover, a four hour flight to Hannover, and then an hour train ride before finally arriving in Braunschweig. I was unable to fall asleep on either plane ride because as embarrassing it is to admit it, I have a childlike fear of flying and am usually a nervous wreck throughout the duration of a flight. While air travel is an incredible modern advancement, enabling us to quickly visit regions across the world that would have been unimaginable just over a century ago, I nonetheless feel like humans were made to stay grounded. No matter how it may be, I never feel comfortable being in a contraption thousands of feet above the earth, with just the floor separating me from plummeting to the ground.  My opinion is that until technology enables to grow our own wings Terminator-style, humans and air travel are naturally incompatible.

When I finally arrived in Braunschweig, I took the trolley car straight to the address of my new apartment on Wilhelmstaße, where I was greeted by Martina, who was to be my new boss at the internship. She gave me the key and then showed me around my apartment. It is a modestly sized but brand new apartment, and has everything I need for the next two months. I have my own desk, closet, bathroom, and a small kitchen area with a stove top, sink, and mini fridge. It is also in an excellent location. My apartment is directly across from two bakeries (bakeries here are like Starbucks in America, as in there are five of them everywhere you turn), a supermarket, and a gym. I am also a two minute walk from downtown Braunschweig, where centuries of rich cultural history are mixed with modern restaurants and shops.

Braunschweig in many ways is what one might imagine when envisioning a small German city, filled with beautiful old buildings, churches and landmarks, plenty of places to shop and eat, and of course, very good (and cheap for that matter) beer. And while there is a McDonald’s and a Dunkin Donuts downtown, for the most part the city seems not to have been impacted by globalization compared to nearby European cities. It has been able to maintain a strong cultural identity, one in which people are warm and neighborly towards one another, and no one ever appears to be in a rush. And unlike larger German cities, it seems that at least half of the people I have encountered speak little or no English, which has made it difficult to communicate at points, but overall I like that it forces me to rely on the little German that I know, which I imagine (or at least hope) will make be a better German speaker. Most conversations I have with native speakers goes well for the first few sentences, but as the conversation gets more complicated, I usually resort to telling them that ich kann nicht Deutsch gut sprechen, or “I cannot speak German well.” Despite my lack of vocabulary and comically bad pronunciation, most people seem to appreciate that I am at least making the attempt to speak the language, and as a result tend to be very courteous and helpful.

 While it is technically a city, it has a very small town feel to it, and you can walk from one end to the other in just over a half hour, while never having to worry about walking through the streets by yourself. The office where I work is halfway across the city but only takes me about 12 minutes to walk there. There is also a top notch trolley and subway system, which always runs on time and has very clean trolley cars. And like many areas in Nothern Germany, the preferred method of transportation is biking. They almost outnumber cars and pedestrians on the streets, and even have their own lanes on the sidewalks. In a town where everything is in relative distance, cycling is the perfect way to get around, especially with the pleasant spring weather we have been experiencing so far. I have yet to decide whether or not to purchase or rent one myself, for while I do love to bike, I have rather enjoyed the short walk to work every day through the old center of town. It is a pleasant little town square, rebuilt after allied bombing raids at the end of WW2 destroyed 85% of the nearly thousand-year old structures (which will be covered in a later post), but they have designed it in a way that you would never guess that these buildings are actually the replicas of the original structures.

While Braunschweig and DC tend to have similar temperatures, I haven’t felt the god-awful DC humidity that makes you question whose genius idea it was to build a city on top of swamp lands. While I have already begun to miss DC, I do enjoy the feeling of not living in constant fear of profusely sweating at any given part of the day. It is nice to be able to sit down at an outside restaurant and have a coffee without wondering if you’re going to need to towel off afterwards.

Perhaps the only thing I do not like about being here is experiencing this all by myself. It is not to say that I’m lonely, but rather I feel that traveling is best experienced with a companion. While I have enjoyed sitting at the outdoor restaurants and having a cappuccino or Wolters Pillsner, (a beer brewed here in Braunschweig considered medicore by German standards, but would be the best beer at nearly any bar in America), and conversing with the friendly locals, it would be great to have someone else to take it all in with me. There are so many little things worth noting throughout the day, and it is an adjustment not being able to quickly point out what I observe to someone else. But perhaps this is the plight of us millennials, that when we do not have constant communication either in person or through our phones, we start to go stir crazy. Either way I have highly enjoyed living here so far, soaking in the beautiful and relaxed German culture, the food, and making the most of my free time outside of work, which has also been a wonderful experience so far, and I will cover in my next blog post. 

Post #2: Musings from the Plane

Today marks the beginning of my trip to Braunschweig, where I will be working with the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, representing the Conflict Resolution through the summer internship program. I am writing this on the plane ride, in an old composition notebook that my mother held on to from perhaps as far back as middle school. I consider myself very fortunate to have been selected for this incredible opportunity, and plan to make the most out of both the internship itself, and living in Germany for two months. Currently, I am experiencing a mix of excitement, anxiety, restlessness, and all of the other emotions that come with embarking on a new and relatively unknown adventure. While for years I have longed to visit Germany, and have known for months about the internship placement, this trip in many ways seemed to creep up suddenly. Through the chaos which is the final weeks of a semester, moving out of my place in Arlington, moving everything back home to Massachusetts, and trying to enjoy the little free time I had with the friends and family I would be missing this summer, I found it difficult to transition into travel mode.

 I had slowly been preparing myself for the trip by reading up on both the city of Braunschweig, the organization I would be interning with, and the greater German/Eastern European region, but it always felt like an adventure far on the horizon. It was not until exactly three weeks before departure when it really began to sink in that I would be entirely on my own, in a country I had never visited before, half way across the world. As it this distant adventure quickly turned into reality, I felt both excited, nervous, and in some ways terrified. I have moved to new and unfamiliar places before, but under much different circumstances. When I first left to begin my undergraduate studies in New Hampshire, while it was a major adjustment, I did know a few people from my home town, and I was surrounded by like-minded students of the same age as myself. And perhaps most importantly, home was only two hours away, so whenever I began to feel homesick I was able to return and spend time with family and friends.

While I lost the luxury of being close to home when I moved to begin grad school at Georgetown, I was quickly immersed by both the excitement of the DC area, and was lucky to quickly meet and become friends with my fellow CR classmates. Almost all of us decided to pursue a career in CR field out of similar intentions, and from the beginning it was refreshing to know that I would be going through this new adventure with people with similar interests and career ambitions as myself. While pursuing a career in CR or other socially-oriented careers does not automatically imply a lower salary and substantial debt, it is nonetheless a risky choice, and deciding to take this route means that you believe the potential benefits far exceed the risks. It was wonderful to see right from the start of grad school that nearly all of my classmates felt the same way about their education, the potential to have a meaningful career, and perhaps most importantly, everyone was quite grounded and easy going. This may be my own biased view, but I believe it takes a special type of person to pursue a degree in a field such as CR. They tend to be people who experienced success both in and out of the classroom, and would rather have a career focused on social progress and meaningful work than other fields with potentially more lucrative salaries. They are actively choosing the difficult path of graduate school curriculum, continuing the life of a student when others were eager to never sit in a classroom again and start making money. And since this decision to pursue higher education comes with the likelihood (or inevitability) of massive debt, it is not a choice to take lightly. In essence, everyone I met in the program was here because they wanted to be, and being in such an environment early on made for an easy transition into grad school life in DC. It did not take long for me to feel comfortable and fall in love with Georgetown, the city, and all of the wonderful people I met over my first two semesters.

            But this comfort and enjoyment of being a graduate student in DC came with a sadness and fear of having to leave for the summer after I had grown so accustomed to the DC life. I had only been here for a year, and now I was off to live for two months in a country by myself that I knew about only from a couple of books and internet articles. While I was excited for the trip and beyond grateful to had been selected for the fellowship, I nonetheless was feeling the nerves of having to leave a place that had quickly become my new home, and say goodbye to both my family and friends for the next two months.

            I think part of the reason this trip seemed to creep up quickly was due to being so preoccupied. As mentioned before, I was so caught up in the craziness otherwise known as the end of the semester, that the summer felt almost like this far and distant future. It is difficult, and perhaps impractical, to only be thinking about your future endeavors when there is so much that needs to be done in the present. When final exams, papers, and presentations begin to approach, one must try to block themselves out from any outside influences that may distract their attention, and focus on the immediate tasks. Even if I wanted to, I did not have the time to be constantly distracted by daydreaming about Germany. But then finals quickly came and went, and it was suddenly time to prepare for the big move to Braunschweig. While I was undeniably excited, the nerves started to kick into high gear, and there were a few nights leading up the trip where falling to sleep was an impossible task.

            As I reflected on my first year of grad school and what was to come in the summer, I was reminded that one can only prepare so much when uprooting to a new place and starting a new position. You never really know what to expect until you actually arrive and begin to live by day in the experience that seemed like a distant task not so long ago. As cliché as it is to say, expect the unexpected is perfect advice for this experience. I have never understood the people that have every minute of each day planned out when they travel or go on vacation. While some preparation is practical, I believe it is also important to leave some free time for the unanticipated. For example, three years ago around this time I went on a field study to Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Most of our trip was extensively planned out, with some plans mandatory and others being optional. When we arrived to Stockholm late one night, a few of us decided to grab some food, against our Professor’s advice to stay in and rest. While in line for food, we started talking to two friendly Swedish policemen also in line. They asked us if we were into hockey, and when we said yes, told us about the European hockey cup that was beginning the next day with the Swedish national team playing Alex Ovechkin and the Russians. It seemed like too cool of an opportunity to pass up, so the next night we went and had a blast rooting for Sweden alongside their passionate fan base. You never know what you might find out about just by having a casual conversation with locals, who tend to really know how to make the most out of spending time in their home region, and provide a perspective beyond the pages in a travel guide.  

            Writing all of this out has helped my nerves diminish quite a bit. Despite my reservations, I know that I’ll soon be arriving in what appears to be a beautiful city and wonderful place to live, while working with a highly respected organization with a long history of producing excellent scholarly work. I am fortunate to have been selected for the fellowship, and then connected with the Georg Eckert institute, and I do not plan to take this for granted. I want to experience all that I can during my two months here, while doing a top notch job at my internship and networking with scholars and professionals from around the world. I plan to take advantage of every responsibility and opportunity that comes my way, making the most of every experience, and taking countless pictures (and if I’m being honest with myself, snapchats) along the way. My next posts will be about arriving and settling in Braunschweig, and my initial impressions of my internship. So long for now!  

First Post!

Welcome to my blog! My posts are one part reflective, one part observational, and one part long winded ramblings that may have little or nothing to do with the main points of the post, with terrible jokes and banter throughout. I am currently a graduate student in the Conflict Resolution program at Georgetown University. My academic interests include transitional justice, international law, human rights, and atrocity prevention. I also have a love-hate interest in American politics, and love nothing more than constructive dialouge and debate.

I am fortunate to have been connected with the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig, Germany. They are a massive research facility focused on scholarly analysis of educational media across the world, in particular how education shapes a child’s perception of their own national, religious, and cultural identity, and how they learn to view people of different backgrounds than themselves. Educational materials, instructors, and curricula  play a substantial role in creating perceptions of the "other" from an early age.

The institute is quite large, with over 140 staff, interns, and visiting scholars. I will be working under a side program called the Georg Arnhold Program on Education for Sustainable Peace. The program was founded in 2013 by Henry Arnhold in honor of his Grandfather, who was a successful German businessmen and passionate advocate for peace education. The program has many endeavors, most notably an annual symposium in New York, houses visiting scholars, and holds an annual summer school for scholars focused on the intersection of conflict resolution and education. My work primarily revolves around preparation for the summer school, which will take place in the last week of June. The topic of this year’s summer school is "Transitional Justice and Education: Engaging Children and Youth in Justice and Peacebuilding through Educational Media." The selected students will join panel discussions and present their research related to the integration of transitional justice themes into educational curricula in post conflict regions.

Hope you enjoy my posts! I hope to post at least once a week, and who knows, some of them might even be worth reading.