It’s 5 o’clock in the morning, and the sun is already high in the sky, so I am wide-awake. Here in Germany, there isn’t ever much darkness, so you always have to draw the blinds on the windows if you want to sleep late, but I like to take advantage of every day that I spend here, so I’m always up early.

A typical day starts with breakfast at the breakfast buffet downstairs in our hotel. German breakfast consists of bread, yogurt, bread, meat and cheese, bread,hot coffee and tea, and bread. Did I mention bread? There are all types of bread, from rolls, to sliced bread, to sweet breads, to croissants, and you of course have to try them all!

After breakfast, its time to explore the city, which of course means using the fabulous public transportation system in Berlin, consisting of the bus, tram, S-Bahn (street train), and the U-Bahn (subway). Often, I use the Maps app to find where I’mtrying to go, but the system is really so easy to use that you could just look at the map andbe able to find where you’re going.

For a lunch on the go, one of my favorite food combinations to have is a Berliner/Turkish street food called Döner, which is like a gyro but a million times better, and to drink Mezzo Mix with it, which is a combination of Fanta and Coke (this sounds disgusting, but in reality is super delicious). You can buy this on any street in Berlin, but the best place to buy Döner is Mustafa’s.

To end a perfect day in Berlin, there’s only one place to go: a Biergarten. In Berlin, my favorite place to go is Prater Garten, a Biergarten in the Mitte District of Berlin where my study abroad group lived. At any typical Biergarten, you can buy soft pretzels, bratwursts, ice cream, a nd of course, beer. Casual drinking is very popular among Berliners, so it isn’t strange to go to a Biergarten for dinner and relax there.