I'm not sure whether to call this day 1 or 2. I think 1.  My journey
started on Saturday in the US, but I landed in Germany in the morning
of Sunday for work. From the airport I'd been warned about travel
issues due to the airport S-Bahn (should I clarify names? S-bahn is
the local surface metro,) station being closed for construction. I
was able to just take the FEX (regional trains,) to Berlin Central
and wander from there no big deal. Berlin proper is very...
monumental is the best way to say it I think. Even in the Eastern
half there's a lot of ornamentation, which is interesting because
it stands out to me even in comparison to older American cities or
Tokyo. In the latter case I guess some of it is that ornamentation
here is often less subtle.

To set some expectations here: I'm mostly in Germany for work, so
posts will be shorter than on vacation in Japan, I'm hoping to pick
things up once I get into Czech for the vacation portion, though.

So yesterday I went on a walk, wandered around, I was shocked to
learn that basically everywhere in Germany is closed on Sundays. The
lack of convenience stores in the American or Japanese sense has
been interesting too. There are a fair number of Spätkaufs but
a more accurate translation would probably be "snack bar" than
"convenience store" from the ones I've seen.  For the most part
they just have snacks and drinks.

ATMs have been an interesting adventure as well. For the most
part you need to specifically seek out a bank for an ATM, as
there are plenty ATMs in the wild but they're for the most part
scams. High fees, horrible exchange rates, that sort of thing. The
Deutschebank ATMs are top notch though. They give you a variety
of bills so it's not just a stack of $20's or 10,000 yens which
is much more convenient. Food's been good so far, and annoyingly
on par with the US in price, except you don't tip or get hit with
taxes unexpectedly here.

The biggest problem so far is that I think my sinuses really didn't
appreciate the low front which rolled in last night. Spent a good
chunk of the morning wandering around Berlin looking for some
necessities, namely some allergy medicine to help with the sinuses
and dye-safe shampoo. That and breakfast (I slept through the
company breakfast,) pretty much got me caught up. I met coworkers
(including some I haven't gotten to see in person before,) and
started writing up the phlog.

PS: The standard beers are pretty good, but as far as I can tell if
you get good German beer and good American beer they're just about
on par when the American brewers take stabs at something other than
IPAs. Looking forward to comparing what the Czechs have got :)

.