In the Streets of Philadelphia

Heute mal ein Eintrag auf English, es handelt sich um meinen Abschlussreport für CDS. Für Nicht-Muttersprachler, einfach auf den Link - Translate this page - Vielleicht kommt ja etwas gescheites heraus.

Philadelphia – A Place that loves you back

A story about flight schedules, road trips and international friendships

Frankfurt – Airport / Germany, August 17, 2005 – 1.15 pm

I am standing at Gate B22 and a friend from home has just called me one last time, wishing me a safe flight and all the best for America. For the past five weeks, I have not have time to think about this step that I am taking right now. All of a sudden I remember all the applications I wrote and the hurry during the last few weeks to get my visa, my room and everything set up for 6 months in Philadelphia.

I’ve been planning my internship for 1 year now. I looked for car manufacturers, suppliers, and freight forwarders, big and small companies in the US, in Canada, UK and Japan. I got a lot of rejections, a lot of maybes. Then five weeks ago an intern at Lufthansa Cargo Sales in Philadelphia called me. They would have an interesting internship for me. Working for the Sales department of a big company I would have to deal with business partners, make the bookings for them and assist with any kind of problems. I would also help in the daily business routines; take the minutes at meetings and conference calls and so on.

Perfect! That would exactly be the internship I always wanted to have. It would fit perfectly into my studies; I could apply what I had learned in the lectures so far and I would learn more about aircrafts, loading etc., things that always seemed very interesting to me. Then everything came very fast: the job interview, the email saying “Welcome on board”, the application for visa, and the interview with the embassy in Berlin and so on.

My biggest dream is now about to come true. After studying in Sweden for one year, I always wanted to go abroad again, to get to know a different culture, to experience daily life in a different surrounding and of course, to make new friends.

“We have a free seat in Economy for you. It is only a middle seat. But if that is ok for you, you can now board the aircraft.” I am flying stand-by, and I am glad I can enter the plane.

Philadelphia / USA, February, 2006

The 6 months in the US went fast. I can not believe that I have only 4 more days at work, and it feels strange to prepare everything for the next intern who is arriving next month. Next week will be my last day here, and then I will be traveling for two more weeks before I finally go home.

I had an awesome time in Philadelphia, a time that I do not want to miss. My work was interesting and different every day. I spoke to customers a lot, mostly on the phone. And being the only German in the office I was forced to speak English all the time. This way I improved my language skills a lot, and nowadays I feel much more confident in the English language.

During my work I learned a lot about logistics, more than any professor can teach you in school. My boss always had an ear for my questions, and I had the chance to visit different departments in the company. I worked with the Export Department and with Accounting for a few days, and I even visited Passenger Services where I prepared the flight and checked-in passengers.

My main tasks were customer service and supporting the Sales Representatives of the region. I made bookings for the customers, gave out rates and advise about routings. I also had some weekly and daily reports; for example, I watched the load factors for our freighter and the capacity of all our five flights.

I will be able to apply my knowledge that I have gained here in the very near future, when writing my final exams for my Master’s Degree. I also see my internship as a huge chance to start my career in the freight industry later on.

From the very first day I felt as a valuable member of the team. I remember my first conference call. It was long and a lot of difficult issues had to be discussed. But my new colleagues still took their time to explain to me the topics they were talking about and make it easy for me to follow.

It was not hard for me to find a place to stay in Philadelphia. The International House in University City offers a variety of rooms for students and interns from all over the world. It is situated in a very nice and safe area of Philadelphia. When I arrived everyone was open-minded and curios about the new suite mate and neighbor. On my first weekend I explored the city with another girl from Germany that arrived only a few days before me.

Thanks to a lot of events organized by the International House every other day, it was easy to make new friends and soon we were a bunch of people, all here for 6 months either studying or doing an internship. For the weekends we often rented a car or traveled by bus and train. We went to Gettysburg, to learn more about Civil War and to Cape May to swim in the ocean and see dolphins for the first time of my live. We went to Lancaster and saw a totally different way of life; in Washington a friend gave us a private tour through the Capitol and we even entered the House of Representatives. Our greatest and longest road trip took us to Niagara Falls. It was a 9 hour drive and after half way and one expensive speeding ticket we thought that it wouldn’t be worth it. But it was!

Living together with people from all over the world, with different background, growing up in different political systems, with different opinions, brightened my mind, and I learned a lot about other cultures, religions and habits. During daily conversation I found out about different manners and perceptions of courtesy. The International House also offered events and classes about cultural differences.

Philadelphia is a very nice city with a lot of American history. In some quarters you even feel put back in a time when the city began to grow and all the beautiful red brick houses were build. The only thing I do not like about Philadelphia is the poverty. I have never seen so many homeless people. In Germany we have a social system that prevents people to fall so deep and offers housing for the very poor. Here you see homeless people everywhere, sleeping on a bench in the park or in the subway station. It still makes me sad every time I see them and makes me think about what happened to them that they have to live on the streets.

Living expenses here in the US are higher than in Germany, I spent more money on food and things like shower gel, shampoo and so on, then I would in Germany. I get a monthly salary of 550EUR and without previous saving and the support of my parents I could not have managed to stay here for so long. Traveling instead and going out is cheaper than at home. That allowed me to do so many trips and explore Philadelphia’s surroundings.

I readily recommend such an experience to everyone. I not only think it is fun to live and work abroad, but it is even necessary for a career nowadays. As globalization increases, it became necessary to speak fluent English and to be able to deal with people from different cultures. This half year taught me exactly these things and so much more. Thanks for that!