Zoe Orlino

I would count down the hours like “in 24 hours american time I will be home”. The last few days of my study abroad all I could think about was Filipino food and bbq. I texted my mom if we could have BBQ and lumpia when I came home. Lo and behold I was greeted with this wonderful surprise waiting for me at home! I missed home so much.

Studying abroad taught me how to cherish my home and broadened my perspectives about the environment and the quality of life. The way Germans handle the nature greatly differs from the American mindset. Neither are 100% wrong or right. But rather they value different parts of the environment and choose to develop based on those wants.

I feel developed as a designer. I feel like I’ve learned so much and yet I know I still have so much more to discover.

Studying abroad taught me not only the book smarts I need but the street smarts that can make or break your psyche.

I’ll cherish these memories together and I am so thankful for these experiences.

That’s right. My friend Tiffany and I had a 16 hour layover in the Dublin Airport and survived. We first made the trip back from Hamburg to Berlin. Got on the wrong bus going the opposite direction of the Tegal Airport. Realized our mistake and was kindly guided on the right path by a nearby bus driver. Rushed through the terminals and landed into our connecting flight from Berlin to Dublin with time to spare.

And after all that excitement we landed in the Dublin Airport at a 11 pm with our flight being at 4 pm the following day. You may ask why we didn’t find a hotel or explore the city with the time we had. To that I have one simple answer: visas.

Yup. In order to leave the airport I would need a separate visa for Ireland. And with our layover being so late at night we figured why not save $60 from visa fees and just tough it out in the airport! Tiffany was a really good sport about it and I’m so thankful she was my travel buddy.

And you know, our 16 hour layover wasn’t too bad. If you ever have to endure more than 5 hours in an airport let me tell you sleeping really helps time pass by quickly.

That and finding something fun to do to pass the time. For me – it was cataloging every hour of the layover as best I could. And luckily I have some snapchat videos and pictures as payoff!

Cheers to a wonderful journey! Here’s the play by play:

Week 5 : June 24 – June 30

And just like that the trip has ended.

Our last week in Germany brought us to some fantastic places like Nord Park. We really got to explore the past and how war impacted architecture. How mindsets are different because of war. And just everything inbetween.

I’ll never forget the beautiful picturesque landscapes I’ve seen. Or the beauty of nature I’ve been introduced to. Or the wonderful food I’ve eaten. I think I’ll really miss pretzels and alster beer. But oh how homesick I’ve become. This last week is when homesickness really start to hit. I began to count the days and hours until I start the journey home. “In 48 hours I’ll be on the train to Berlin”, “In 48 hours I’l be at the Tegal Airport”, “In 48 hours I’ll be on the plane to Dublin”, so on and so forth.

As amazing as this opportunity has been I cannot wait to be home at last.

 

I’m thankful for all the hard work my professors put into planning such a wonderful trip, all the beautiful places I’ve been to, all the memories I’ve made, all the shitty selfies I’ve taken with these wonderful people, all the sketches I’ve poured all my energy into drawing, and the open mind and new perspectives I have now thanks to this trip.

 

Week 4 : June 16 – June 23

We’ve made our way to Essen and our hostile genuinely blew my mind away. Not only is there enough space for all 15 of us to have our own bed, we have at least six showers, free coffee and other soft drinks, and lets not forget about the sauna. That’s right SAUNA. Unperfekthaus proves to be a beautiful establishment that keeps getting better and better. With so many places to explore I’m super content!

And although transit is not as fleshed out as Berlin – we share 1 or 2 day transit passes for 5 students now – the places we visit never cease to amaze me.

We focused a lot on the history of mining within Essen and neighboring towns. And a lot of the places we visited, like Landschafts park, prioritized the idea of fourth nature – where the natural earth takes over a once industrialized area. Through the different notes, sections, and rough plans of the park I don’t think I’ll ever forget the the park’s unique beauty.

Of course nothing can ever end our work grind. We were separated into pairs in order to collect the DBH (diameter at breast height) of birch trees in a certain area of Landschafts park. My teammate Tiffany and I would continue to measure other birch trees that were north, south, east, and west of one random central tree. In addition to DBH we collected height, latitude, and longitude. Measuring proved to be difficult but when your teammate is exactly 5 feet tall it becomes easier to “measure in Tiffanys!” Even though the picture is cut off this birch proved to be 11 Tiffanys, or 55 feet) tall!!

The end of the week brought the beginning of our travel weekend- where we were given a three day weekend to travel anywhere we please! My friends and I chose to travel to Amsterdam and boy is it different! The many building facades and obsessions with bikes really took me by surprise. They have decks of underground parking dedicated to bikes alone. That’s freaking wild.

And while in Amsterdam I got my sister a Miffy plush! I had no clue she was made in the Netherlands!

Week 3 : June 10 – June 16

With the end to our many field trips comes the real work part of our study abroad: the design charettes…

((To my understanding charettes are a period of work where we aim to create a (somewhat/ to the best of our abilities) full fledged design within this tight deadline.))

We had the honor to work with the landscape architecture students at the Technischen Universität Berlin! Our sight was right outside rundfunk berlin-brandenburg, a radio broadcasting center.

Here’s a look into two sections of the existing site and a rather poorly done plan view as well. The plan served more as a memory marker of the number and species of trees on the existing site.

Working with the students as TUB really helped ground my understanding of the design process. They really have a firm grasp of conceptualizing an idea and working from there to create something that perfectly caters the space.

As we moved from working with the TUB students we had to develop our design further. With a mere 24 hours to fully render and tweak our designs there was a lot of work ahead of us. I chose to branch off and work alone and that proved to be a challenge. But it was a challenge worth taking!

After pulling a full all-nighter here’s the final presentation board I handed in!! All the digital renderings presented are my work but of course it was still a team effort between Dios, Christina, and I! And I learned a lot from working with the two.

After uploading the file into my dropbox at 5pm- my friends and all-nighter buddies crawled out of our apartment and ate Thai food. Not only was it my first meal of the day but the most delicious food I’ve yet in Germany.

I don’t know if it was the delirium of staying up all night messing with my head or the actual goodness of the food.

But one thing stays true: and all-nighter is better with company.