Florida vs Germany: Air Conditioning

As someone who grew up in Florida, I've always known life with air conditioning. In Florida, it's a practical requirement, given how hot and humid it is for most of the year. When I moved to Europe a year ago, I expected to find less AC. What I didn't expect was to find a completely opposite attitude towards it.

Air Conditioning units - Source

Coming up on a year

I know it's been several months since my last blog post. There's a lot that goes through my mind, and I quite honestly don't find the energy often enough to write these posts. But this blog post isn't about my writing. It's about looking back at the past year.

This week marks a year since I left my job in the US. It marks a year since I took the big leap into the unknown. I had no job lined up in Europe, and I wasn't even sure which city I'd ultimately end up in. My hope was that I'd get something in Berlin (and I sure did!). My parents thought I was a bit crazy for doing this, but supported me nonetheless.

Banking in Germany

Now that I've been living in Germany for almost 6 months, I've gotten a better feeling for the differences between life here and in the US. One thing that quickly became apparent was the different approaches to banking. In Germany (and really most of Europe), banking systems seem to be more secure, use the IBAN system throughout the SEPA, and Germans are somewhat distrusting of credit cards.

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dskley/8647962765/

Two weeks in, trip to Prague

Just over 2 weeks after starting work, I took a weekend trip to Prague. But I'll start with an update on those two weeks before getting into details about my Prague trip. My Prague Flickr album is here.

Dublin - Croke Park Classic 2014

When I was still in the US planning my move to Europe, I decided to fit in the UCF game in Dublin into my plans. It would have cost too much to just visit Dublin from the US, but flights from Europe are much cheaper. With my job lined up, I had my start date set for the week just after the game, on a Wednesday to give me time to get back and have a day to get ready for the start of work. As usual, I have a Flickr album with pictures I took while I was in Dublin.

Brussels for the move to Berlin

In my last two posts, I talked about getting my apartment in Berlin and the trip back to Brussels. When I returned to Brussels, I spent my time there pretty much getting my stuff in order. I did some light grocery shopping for some Belgian food snacks to bring with me to Berlin. When I went out to the store, I saw an interesting truck parked along the street.

Diplomatic Cargo outside my grandmother's apartment building.

Being a tourist in Berlin for the last time

In my previous post, I talked about being in Berlin and flat-hunting. When I wasn't actively looking at flats or researching places online (which wasn't very much time), I wandered around a bit.

At Alexanderplatz, I noticed they were setting up for some gelato expo? More about this below.