First week in Bremerhaven

Welcome from Bremerhaven! I am here for my second internship this summer at the Deutsches Auswandererhaus, one of the best museums in Germany. After having spent the last six weeks in Berlin working at another museum, I was not really sure what to expect from the new museum. The reputation of this museum certainly is impeccable as it had won an award for being one of the best museums in Europe. The irony was that I had not even heard of the city of Bremerhaven other than through learning about the museum. Regardless, I was eager to learn about the new museum.

My first week at the Auswandererhaus was spent getting to know the museum and tours. I began looking through the tours that I could give (in either English or German...I still haven’t decided yet). The museum itself is absolutely colossal and details the story of over 7.2 million Europeans who immigrated to the United States through the small harbor of Bremerhaven. I have spent most of the first week just going through all of the exhibits and trying to get to know the exhibits. Since I will be making tours and will need to know the museum very well, the first week of the internship is spent reading. I work in a separate building that is disconnected from the museum (and conveniently two floors below my apartment) which allows this room to be more relaxed. People seem to be wearing business casual at least. From what I can tell, most of the employees come from other parts of Germany which is certainly interesting. There are even people who spent their time in Friedrichshain and who lived probably only a couple blocks away from me (though during different time periods).

With all of the reading material I have to consume, it seems boring. Either that, or I have a lot of work in store for me!