The Germany part is the worst part of the entire show (mentioned above, I live next to Eschweiler):
It makes absolutely no sense to fly from New York to Berlin to then take a train to Eschweiler: Eschweiler is located right on the border to the Netherlands and by train is about 5-6 hours away from Berlin. The flight from New York to Berlin is also about 6 hours. If you want to go to this side of Germany, you either fly to Brussels, Cologne or Düsseldorf and you're right here, by train, within 1 to 1.5 hours. And you certainly don't take the train shown in the series, for the most part, that is a small local train stopping at every bush.
And don't get me started on the horrible ways the journalist imagined Anna arriving in Germany! Yes, this was in 2007, but even back then Germany didn't look as medieval as the series try to portray it (like the police, etc...). Or the butcher.... neither does it look like that in most parts, nor are they and all people racist and xenophobic. Hated the implication that everybody would automatically assume that someone from Russia must have some mobster ties or something like that (or Turkey for that matter, like that butcher).
My town has one of the largest technical universities in Europe and we have tons of students coming here to attend, very many from Russia (I swear, nobody is batting an eye on students from other countries, many stay and work well-paid jobs later on). I do wonder why Anna didn't attend there if she claims she was as good with maths as she claims to have been. Of course, you don't need to study something just because you're good at it and if she was more interested in fashion, there are also good options in Germany and the Netherlands.
universe