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BERLIN
Berlin was crazy jam packed with fun! Beware, this is a long blog!
Berlin was amazing! Im SO glad we made an effort to go there! The overnight train ride was very nice, and we got some sleep, yay!
We both slept pretty well but arrived too early to check in…about 4 hours too early to be exact. We waited for Kathleen and Kristen to arrive, my San Diego friends who are doing a summer internship in London and came up for a long weekend with us! While we were waiting for them and waiting to check in, our friend Daniel from Switzerland strolls up and he’s staying 2 nights there too! So now there’s five of us. In crazy Berlin. Needless to say, it was a weekend to be remembered.
That night we were all pretty tired from traveling so we rested and then wanted to go out for some dinner and maybe a drink. We went to a cute little Russian pub, I tried Czech beer and it was yummy. Then we asked where a cool bar or something would be and they directed us, while on our way there we happened upon a huge beer garden with all different ages of people drinking beer and just hanging out. So we had another beer there (some German Pilsner something or other) and then called it a night around midnight.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast all together and then went on this amazing free walking tour my friend Jen told me about and the hostel supports. The group does free tours all over Europe (work for tips) and 4 hours each with cool young guides that usually are majoring in whatever country they are guiding you in. They took us all over Berlin and we learned pretty much the entire history of Berlin. What an amazing city. It’s so different from anywhere else I’ve ever been! Half of it was behind the wall for so long and besides that 90% of the city was destroyed in the war. So any old buildings we saw were all reconstructions…which is sad but really fascinating! The city has been through so much with being a center for both world wars and the cold war to boot. It was also Nazi headquarters so a lot really took place there. Needless to say, the tour was amazing and I learned SO much! I love learning.
After the tour we went down to an area that has the longest portion of the wall left and a bunch of artisits painted it. We walked along it taking pictures and talking about the death strip that used to be on one side of it. Have I mentioned how stinking HOT Berlin is right now? Good lord, not quite as bad as Rome but awfully close. Nowhere has air conditioning which makes sense since its usually so cold there in the winter, but there was just no relief. So by this time we were tired and headed back for a cool shower and a rest before attempting a pub crawl in the evening put on by the same tour group.
By the time we reached the pub crawl we were all kinda over it since everyone looked really young and lame and me and Daniel forgot our ID’s (NO ONE has asked us this entire time in Europe, we’re clearly above 18, but the group had a rule so whatever) so we just ventured out on our own. They had a street full of cool bars and clubs so we went to a little place that had hookah and got some more beer, yay! Daniel had to leave in the morning so he headed back (I was surprised he lasted so long with us crazies to be honest) to get some sleep and we got a recommendations from a fellow American for a place down the street. Apparently this old department store that was disheveled and abandon after the war was going to be torn down but this group of artists basically squatted in it and saved it. Each floor has a bar or dance area and different art. There’s pretty graffiti all over the halls and stairwell. We had another drink there on the top floor overlooking the city and then found that all the bars on the street had backdoors that led to this other little club area outside in this dirt lot. The lot had been transformed by artists too and had a band and dancing area, sculptures, different bars, lots of neat things. So we ended our evening there with one last drink (or two;) and dancing like crazies to the band that was actually really good. The European bar scene is so different from home. Everyone just dances by themselves to the music or friends dance together…unlike at home where random strangers just come and pound into your leg while your trying to dance with your friend. So nobody bothered us the ENTIRE evening…it was so weird! No one hit on us, undressed us with their eyes, or even attempted to talk to us. For the most part of course.
The next morning me and cassie recovered while the other girls went to a museum about all the attempts to try and get over the wall. Then we all went to the Jewish History museum for the afternoon before the girls left. The museum was HUGE and made by an artist so every aspect of it connects to the theme of the museum…Jewish History obviously. They had a small section about the Holocaust, but most of it was an ENTIRE history of the Jewish people starting from about the 1100’s I would guess? It was very modern with all these interactive games and learning tools, they had lots of actual relics and replicas of course too. It was interesting but I was so tired and its not a subject that interests me a ton (I don’t know why it just doesn’t I guess) so I wasn’t as into it as Cassie was. But me and the other girls had fun goofing around and playing with the stuff that was supposed to engage kid visitors…haha.
The girls left afterwards and then me and Cassie had my other friend Jen to visit with for the evening. Jen is from Hamburg, Germany but does her university abroad, we met at school. It was so fun to see her in her element! She’s home for the summer and her mom and her came to Berlin to renew her student visa at the American consulate there. We just got dinner together since we were all pretty tired, it was so nice to see her and we had lots of fun catching up. She goes to San Francisco State now so I don’t know when I get to see her again which is sad.
And now we’re on our way to Amsterdam! Our train ride is 6 hours…we’ve just slept away the first 3 hours or so and are excited for Amsterdam. I think we’re going to try and take it easy in Amsterdam…we have lots of museums and another walking tour to go on but hopefully we wont top it off and go out night after night like Berlin. It was exhausting; we’re STILL tired from everything and hoping to recuperate in Amsterdam so we can be on our game for Paris (in preparation for our Frenchmen of course). But we had SO much fun in Berlin!
We cant believe our trip is so close to being over! Crazy!
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