Cultural Experience in London and Berlin Alex Eichenmuller

Initial Preconceptions I had a pretty good idea of what London would be like because of my personal interest in the history and culture of England Knowing and working with many people from Scotland and England gave me an advantage in knowing the culture I expected London to be a bustling and sophisticated city with a rich historical and cultural center I believe my preconceptions were mostly correct

Initial Preconceptions I had almost no idea what to expect from a modern Berlin The only information I knew was from WWII and what my grandfather had told me about living there in that time Because of my lack of information I thought Berlin would be much like London My initial preconception was way off and I realized that I knew nothing of modern day Berlin’s culture

Experiences One of the major experiences for me throughout the entire trip was seeing how different countries and cultures view historical events I knew that every country has their own side to history so seeing this in the museums was not a shock to me but what was is how some of my group reacted

Experiences I think one of the biggest shocks for me on this trip was that not everyone has had the same background in history and has not had very many cultural experiences This was probably the biggest shock to me, not the way the cities were, but how people in the group reacted to these cities and the different customs of England and Germany It honestly astonished me at points that things I thought were basic knowledge and understands were not universal within the group

Experiences The way people acted and lived in Berlin was a very good experience for me and helped me to broaden my cultural views I expected there to be more foot traffic but public and private transportation seemed to be more popular as opposed to London People seemed to be more reserved when in public than I had originally expected, when I thought of Germany I thought that people would be loud and drinking beer when out at dinner and that proved to be very wrong

Analysis In some ways I found London to be similar to both Boston and New York City Boston because of the historical landmarks and rich cultural background rooted in history New York City because of the lively Piccadilly Circus

Analysis London and Berlin were completely different and it was a shock to me going from a city that had a layout and culture that I was somewhat familiar with to one that I had absolutely no idea about Almost everything I thought I knew about Berlin proved to be wrong

Analysis Berlin was unlike any city I had ever experienced before There was less foot traffic than I expected The public transit (trains) being above ground and not exclusively underground in the central areas of the city startled me Graffiti seemed to be the norm and from what I could tell was not heavily discouraged

Analysis Out of the two cities we visited I felt a greater connection to London than I did Berlin This is because I have a great interest in the history of England, especially the reign of Henry VIII Even though I had a greater connection to London I still felt a connection to Berlin because of my families history in the city and the areas surrounding it

Synthesis I believe that my own preconceptions did not affect how I viewed the cities because I kept an open mind and truly wanted to learn about how other countries and cultures lived

Synthesis My opinion is that you cannot possibly live a full life if you keep your mind closed off to different cultures, the best people I have met are those who taught me something new about the world and expanded my views

Synthesis This trip has also taught me that not everyone will view different cultures the same way I do I learned that this is not a bad thing because everyone sees the world differently but I also learned that the people I want to surround myself with are those with open minds and are willing to learn about different parts of the world and their history