Berlin

So It's been a while since I have written...
Whenever I get a chance to sleep that is what I have been doing. I hate my stupid colds that last for weeks if not months!
But now its Sunday and I just woke up and I'm lying in bed and I can't talk because my throat hurts so I figured...why not write? So here it goes..

Not this weekend we are in now but last weekend, I took a trip to Berlin with a bunch of friends (9 of us total) and there were some other people from our program there as well staying in a different hostel. We took the train from a really sketchy Prague railway station after deciding not to go to the main one, but apparently the train stopped at both stations. We sat in normal seats, some of which had little tables in the middle with seats facing each other. We slept, ate, and played cards. It was about a 5 hour ride and we got into Berlin close to midnight Thursday night.

The station we got into was also not the main station of Berlin, it was the east station. Everything was closed and there was no information desk. We found our way to the main area of the train station after everyone took out some euros, and waited for the bus. We got on the bus and couldn't pay because we didnt have bills small enough and he wouldn't take them. He let us on anyway and about 15 or 20 minutes later we realized we got on a bus going in the wrong direction. So we got off, waited for another bus going the opposite direction for about 10 minutes and got on the same bus number going in the opposite direction. It was the last bus of the night so it did not go all the way to where we needed to go and stopped its route back at the train station. All throughout this trip of bus mishaps, Lisa had to go to the bathroom. It was really painful to watch her suffer. She finally went to the bathroom in a port-o-potty behind a sketchy kebob restaurant next to the train station. We found our way to the front of the train station again (the bus dropped us off by this kebob place in the back) and hopped in cabs for an 8 euro cab ride to our hostel. It would have been worth it to do this in the first place because that comes out to 2 euros each, and each bus ride was a little over 2 euros a person...although we didn't pay the first one...it still was not worth it to take the bus and we wasted about an hour.

We finally got to our hostel and everyone was really pleased. It was very nice and a fun place to be in a great location. The room was pretty big and the beds were a decent size and were pretty comfortable. We were all starving at this point because our train left at 6ish so we didnt have a chance to eat dinner..just snacks...so we went out to a kebob place down the street and I had some falafel which was delicious.

We got up the next morning and did the New Berlin Free walking tour. New Europe is a company that runs free tours in every city. Josh, Jon and I did one in Edinburgh Scotland. They are legitimate tours (especially the Berlin one which was 5 hours long) and they just expect tips at the end. So you end up tipping like 5 euros a person which is nothing for a full 5 hour tour. It was FREEZING outside for 5 hours. But we hit all the major sights.

We started out in Pariser Platz by the Brandenburg Gate and continued to the Reichstag which is German house of Parliament. It was burned down "mysteriously" in 1933 and never rebuilt during Hitlers rule...hmmm...
Then we journeyed to the Holocaust memorial which is very interesting the way it was done. It is a bunch of concrete blocks and as you walk through them, they become taller and you feel as if you are sinking deeper. The ground is also very uneven. There are a lot of people that have different interpretations and the architect did not really write much about it. It is 2,711 stones on a 5 and a half acre plot of land.

Then we continued to the former site of hitlers bunker where his killed himself, the Luftwaffe headquarters(now the German tax offices), a part of the Berlin Wall still standing, the former SS headquarters, Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point between American and Soviet sectors), Gendarmenmarkt (where the symphony orchestra plays well as the French and German cathedrals which look exactly the same), Bebelplatz (where the opera house is), The book burning memorial, The Unter den Linden (old royal blvd), The Neue Wache (memorial to the victims of war and tyranny, and Museum Island (where all the museums are...).

Then we went on the Third Reich tour and learned more about the Third Reich and saw some things that we didn't see on the free tour, like The soviet memorial which was the first thing the soviets built when they came into Berlin. We also saw all of the Jewish area and synagogue and museums and memorials and old cemeteries and a demolished old persons home and commemoration plaques and the site of the former Jewish community center.

I forgot to mention...I went to this Vietnamese place called Monsieur Vongs which was amazing! I had wonton soup with tofu and fresh vegetables and then a glass noodle salad which was delicious! The second night we all went to this amazing Italian place on valentines day and they gave the girls roses and made the pizzas into heart shapes.

Then we left on Sunday...we took the train from the main station and we sat in one of those six person compartments. We took two of them obviously...but it was amazing cuz we could sleep well and watch some TV on a laptop and really have nice intimate conversations without disturbing other people on the train. And, those cars are the main thing anyone has to experience on a European train like in the movie Eurotrip when a random guy comes and sits with them...that's exactly what it was like although its a good thing no one came in and there were not many tunnels...

Got back safely and we were ready to begin our full week of classes!