By Ines Aviles-Spadoni

As Continental Airlines flight 96 made its final approach on a crisp May morning, photojournalism junior Jarrett Baker looked out the window, trying to picture where the Berlin Wall stood. As the plane touched down, he rushed to make an 11 a.m. appointment with the Berlin Thunder at the Olympic Stadium. A suitcase in one hand, laptop in the other, and cameras slung around his neck, Baker set off to photograph and write about American football in Germany.

“This was a good opportunity, for one, because it was different,” said Baker, who had never been out of the United States. “You see all these stories about football, but not a lot on NFL-Europe.”

Baker, who’s going to Ecuador this semester as a Florida FlyIns student, arrived at the Berlin stadium on time.

“The team was practicing and I was standing out on the practice field looking at them do their drills,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘Hey stupid, go get your camera and start shooting.’ ”

Baker was participating in a program created two years ago by Associate Prof. John Freeman, who lived in the German capital as the son of a U.S. Air Force sergeant.

“The idea came to me while I was on sabbatical in 2004,” he said. “It was partly for nostalgic reasons, but at the same time, I thought what a wonderful, visually attractive city to go to for photographers. And we ended up with a couple of writers.”

Last summer, the course had 11 students from the College and four from the University of Georgia; this year, 14 from UF and one from Santa Fe Community College.

In Berlin, Freeman invites professional correspondents and photojournalists to advise the students on story ideas, places to go and people to interview. This year, he had two guests: Andrew Purvis from Time magazine and John McDougal from the Agence France-Press.

Journalism sophomore Sara Rubin, who has traveled to Egypt, France, Israel, Italy and the Caribbean, took the course in the spring. She set out to do a story on Berlin’s Jewish population but changed it after arriving in the city.

“It was difficult to find a rabbi to talk to,” she said. “I went to the American-Jewish Committee in Berlin, and I thought it was going to be this big establishment, but it ended up being this little office.”

Nicolai Tarasov, the receptionist of the hotel where the group stayed, became Rubin’s subject. The Russian immigrant is also a musician.

Photojournalism junior Tim Hussin, who’s traveled to Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Holland and Ireland, focused on a Turkish artist and his apprentice, a young German man who spoke fairly good English.

The apprentice gave Hussin a piece of glass to protect the camera lens from flying sparks. It created an interesting effect, he said.

“I just fired my camera away,” he said, “and I got all these photos of streaming light.”