My first assignments at the DAH

The second week of my experiences in Bremerhaven has been interesting to say the least. As I approached the end of the reading materials, I was eager to do…well, whatever I was supposed to do on this internship. I was eventually given an assignment by Tanja (the person who had hired me) and told me to start researching Industrialization during the 19^th Century. She explained that there was going to be a special themed tour that required that we find more information on industrialization as that played a large role in making people leave. Therefore, I got to have a chance to look at what could possibly be the most pertinent information for people to understand about industrialization and its negative effects in Germany. I am looking forward to the research as I do not have as much

I also realized I was wrong about how casual people are. As an intern, I get to share an office with Christoph. He is about 6’ 8’’ and incredibly funny. He also tends to dress informally on days when he does not have to go into museum to give special tours. One of the great things about Christoph is that we both like classical music so we often have music in the background while we work. For the other employees, music tends to be discouraged…which is unfortunate. Nevertheless it helps that we can both speak German and English and we’ll switch between the two. Since we both have gaps in terms of what phrases we can say in the other language sometimes we ask each other questions of the best ways to say things in a specific language.

In addition to my little research project, I will also be preparing to give tours as some point. I have started trying to read through the script for tours which is interesting. I also had the chance to go on two German tours. The tours seemed easy to do in terms of German vocabulary but I am a little hesitant to start giving tours in my third language. What if people ask difficult questions and I don’t know how to say the answer in German? I guess that’s what I think might happen. Anyways, I look forward to another exciting week at the Deutsches Auswandererhaus and to the weekend (where I will be visiting a friend of mine in Hamburg).