(The pictures show Helsinki Airport for transit and the city of Berlin with snow.)
Hi, this is KUZUHARA at ATL.
I am now residing in Berlin, Germany. It’s been about 6 months since I came to Berlin and I’ve got used to the life here, so I will start writing about my feelings and many things I experienced from the day of arrival in a new post until today, titling them as “Knight-errant diary in Berlin startup.”
As I mentioned before, since it has been 6 months past, the beginning part will be only about the things of the past but I will try to write about everything until the day of departure eventually.
This is the 1st round of the series of writings, so I want to explain the reasons why I came to Berlin.
In the first place, why did ATL choose Berlin? This is because Berlin is the hottest TechHub place in Europe after Silicon Valley and it has many experienced startup companies. Especially there are lots of leading-edge hardware startup companies in Berlin, and they were introduced at the Berlin Innovation Meetup in Tokyo hosted by ATL on the other day.
By collaborating with such leading technology startup companies, we want to develop new technologies and relationships as ATL.
By collaborating with such leading technology startup companies, we want to develop new technologies and relationships as ATL.
Before I arrived in Berlin, I was in the following state;
- Actually, I just joined at ATL on October 2013 and it was at the end of November when it was officially announced that I would work in Berlin.
- Obviously communication in Berlin will be in English, but I am bad at English and I do not have overseas experience such as studying abroad.
- I’m embarrassed to say but I thought the city capital was Bon, not Berlin.
I pushed forward preparations at a fast pace after Berlin residence was decided, and I could start working from January 2014 all in one piece.
…but, I encountered a lot of troubles after my arrival at the new post.
First of all, on the day of my arrival. After arriving at an apartment where I started living in Berlin, I wanted to take a shower so that I could get rid of the fatigue from the long trip, but hot water did not come out. This was too much after the long airplane ride, and I unwillingly moved to a hotel from the apartment on the first day.
Pulling myself together, on the 2nd day I did some personal preparations and I went to a cellphone shop and made a contract of a SIM card. I had a hard time in making the unaccustomed contract in English, but thanks to kind help, I could finish it. What I suffered came after this. After a couple of days past after the signing, (Why…!?) The mobile phone is dead…Wondering what happened to the phone, I received a PC mail saying that:
“your SIM card isn’t active anymore, because of technical problems in our System. Please come as fast as you can to our xxx Shop. We have made a new SIM card for you with a new number and give your for these problems a benefit on your contract.
I had many kinds of troubles but I think it was good to have such true-to-type experiences by facing the life differences between Japanese and overseas. Maybe