{"id":1014,"date":"2017-10-05T11:22:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T15:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian\/?page_id=1014"},"modified":"2025-06-05T10:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T14:59:13","slug":"holly-bushman-16-on-the-fsa-program-in-berlin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/alumni\/holly-bushman-16-on-the-fsa-program-in-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Holly Bushman (’16) on the FSA program in Berlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to study abroad in Berlin on a whim. As senior year loomed large, I was bored with course prospects and unenthused at the thought of falling back into the same routine. The FSA program would provide a ready-made GEC (a requirement that I, like many seniors, was scrambling to fulfill), plus it forced me to take courses I would have never considered and shake-up the comfortable lifestyle I\u2019d fallen into at Bates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Descending through clouds towards Sch\u00f6nefeld airport on an August morning, I gazed out the airplane window in disbelief. We\u2019d been told that Berlin was one of the most populous cities in Europe, that its famous skyline included the 370-meter-tall Fernsehturm, that the expansive metropolitan area was nearly ten times the size of Paris (as my mother excitedly read from a New York Times \u201c36 Hours\u201d travel segment while I shoved clothes into my already bloated backpack). And yet, all I saw was green: farm fields, occasional rows of trees, and gentle rolling hills punctuated by the occasional cluster of houses or wind turbine. No skyline or urban sprawl in sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was obvious from that first impression that Berlin would take any expectation I might harbor and kick it to the curb. At first, that was a tough pill to swallow. I struggled in the required German language course and spent much of my free time cooped up in my (admittedly  beautiful) homestay, occasionally venturing outside to buy 3\u20ac bottles of wine at the organic supermarket around the corner (they were about as awful as you\u2019d expect). Stumbling through interactions with cashiers in the Sp\u00e4ties<\/em> or fellow commuters on the U Bahn wore me out. Berlin, I figured, was just SO nicht f\u00fcr mich.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, in mid-October, one of the FSA courses began discussing the influence of the Bauhaus school on German art and architecture. A few days before departing for Berlin, I\u2019d visited the Fogg Museum on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, MA. I recognized names L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Moholy-Nagy and Mies van der Rohe from the Fogg collection, and was shocked by my affinity for the funky furniture and enthusiasm for the material. When a professor suggested I visit a Bauhaus housing development in Berlin\u2019s outer neighborhoods, I surprised myself even more by bailing on a weekend trip to Rome with some friends to stay in Berlin and explore solo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Onkel<\/a>

A house in Onkel Toms Hu\u0308tte neighborhood (Photo: Holly Bushman<\/p><\/div>\n

The colorful corners of Bruno Taut\u2019s Onkel Toms H\u00fctte neighborhood brightened that grey autumn afternoon: window trim painted yellow and red, boxes of geraniums and late-season roses, patches of blue and green graffiti on the stucco walls. Picking up on those details signaled a sea change in the way I approach the urban environment. It\u2019s a feeling I\u2019ve been chasing ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m incredibly lucky to have returned to Berlin for two extended stays in the two years since that weekend. Each time I\u2019m in the city, I block out a free day and pick a Kiez I\u2019ve never visited before. Serendipity is the best way to explore, and on my walks I\u2019ve stumbled across rose gardens in Buch, Peter Behren\u2019s AEG turbine factory in Moabit, Brutalist churches in Sch\u00f6neberg, and the house that Rosa Parks grew up in<\/a> (really!) transplanted to Wedding. I\u2019ve returned to the green areas near Sch\u00f6nefeld airport and delighted in watching the city dissipate into rolling fields through the S-Bahn window. While searching for the Wei\u00dfstadt housing development in Reinickendorf I was surprised by the number of low-flying airplanes overhead. As it happens, the street I was following is directly aligned with Tegel airport\u2019s runway. I spend a good part of that afternoon lying on my back in a park, watching jets buzz fifty feet overhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

The magic of Berlin, and the magic of the FSA, was equally serendipitous. I\u2019m writing this reflection as I procrastinate on applications to graduate school, where I plan to continue studying architecture and urbanism in the unique style I’ve cultivated in Berlin. I\u2019m incredibly grateful to the FSA faculty for pushing me to see the world differently, and I\u2019ll be making my way back to Berlin for the rest of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Wilmersdorf<\/a>

Wilmersdorf (Photo: Holly Bushman)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Fischerinsel<\/a>

Fischerinsel (Photo: Holly Bushman)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Fidicinstra\u00dfe<\/a>

Fidicinstra\u00dfe (Photo: Holly Bushman)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Bergmannstra\u00dfe<\/a>

Bergmannstra\u00dfe in Kreuzberg (Photo: Holly Bushman)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided to study abroad in Berlin on a whim. As senior…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"parent":26,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_prepend":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append_before_footer":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1014","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2327,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1014\/revisions\/2327"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}