Welcome to Berlin

Today was the arrival day for the students. The students made their way from their homes in Seattle, Colorado, and Spokane to Berlin. We got settled into our rooms at CIEE in Berlin, which will be our home base for the next three weeks. Despite everyone being tired, everyone was also excited to start exploring Berlin. To help the students to start acclimating to the new city, I took everyone on a short walk about the neighborhoods by Gneisenaustraẞe and the surrounding Kreuzberg neighborhood. We are staying in a trendy and busy area of Berlin with many little shops, restaurants, and local markets. We walked through a particularly great market nearby, the Marheineke Markthalle, which has many organic foods, high quality ingredients, and some very tasty coffee shops.

Gonzaga in Berlin officially kicked off with a welcome dinner in Berlin at the Felix Austria restaurant down the road from CIEE. We were able to order some traditional German and Austrian dishes to experience the local cuisine. The food was delicious and we couldn't finish the portions provided! It was a great start to the program and everyone is looking forward to our walking tour of downtown Berlin tomorrow.