Week 8: Hardware Repairs, Final Goodbyes, and a Bittersweet Return

Moin! Week eight — the last one. It started with familiar work at the shop, ended with grilled food and sea air, and left me with a strange mix of pride, nostalgia, and genuine sadness. Here's how it went.

Back at the Shop: Hardware as Second Nature

This final week, I was stationed at the shop rather than the office, focusing entirely on hardware repairs. By now, the work felt natural — problems that would have slowed me down in week one got solved almost automatically.

• Touchpad Rescue: One laptop came in with a completely unresponsive touchpad. To reach the loose connection cable causing the issue, we had to carefully remove the keyboard first — fiddly work, but satisfying once it snapped back to life.
• Thermal Management: Another overheating PC landed on the workbench. The culprit was straightforward: not enough fans to move air properly. A few adjustments later, it was running cool and stable again.
• The Usual Suspects: The rest of the week was filled with the reliable classics — swapping RAM, troubleshooting SSDs, and deep-cleaning hardware that had clearly never seen a can of compressed air.

The Final Days Together

Outside of work, the focus was simply on enjoying the last moments on the island together.

• Beach, One Last Time: We made one final trip down to the sea — soaking in the view and the warmth that had become such a normal part of daily life here.
• Two More BBQs: True to form, we fired up the grill twice this week. Good food, good company, and the kind of easy conversations that only happen when a group has genuinely bonded over eight weeks.

• Return to Berlin: Saturday morning meant taxi, airport, and a last glimpse of the sea before boarding. Landing back in Berlin felt surreal — familiar, yet completely different after two months away.

Thank You

Looking back, this internship has been one of the most formative experiences of my life, and it didn't happen by accident.

A big thank you to my school (OSZ IMT Berlin) for making this opportunity possible, to Stadler Deutschland GmbH for their trust and support, and to the European Union for funding the Erasmus+ programme that enables experiences like this in the first place.

To my fellow apprentices — thank you for making every single day memorable. A special thank you to Moritz for organizing everything behind the scenes with calm and reliability that the whole group benefited from more than we probably said out loud.

And finally, to Moritz, Sarah, and Nico — I came to Crete for an internship and found real friends. That's the part I'll carry with me the longest.

Summary of the week: The final week delivered exactly what it needed to — solid work, easy evenings, and a proper goodbye to an island that genuinely felt like a second home. Eight weeks, one unforgettable chapter. ✈️🇬🇷