Berlin

I arrived in Berlin and somehow managed to meet Rachel and the other Aggies at the hostel within about 45 minutes. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to navigate that. I’m straight EXHAUSTED when I get there but I man up and get dressed and try to make myself look at least somewhat presentable.

Our first day was somewhat of a fail. We started at the Brandbenburg Gate. The Brandenburg Gate was aspired by the Acropolis in Athens. It has had been very significant in the history of Berlin and Germany at many different times.

It has a monument on the top. This monument depicts a four horse chariot driven by a woman. The woman was originally named Irene or something like that. During the Napoleonic wars the French stole the monument from the Prussians and took the sculpture to Paris to use as a trophy. Less than a decade later the Prussian army took the sculpture back and renamed the woman on the sculpture Victoria. Now here comes the best part. Apparently (according to our tour guide) the French and Germans have historically always been at each other’s throats. So the square surrounding the Brandenburg gates is named Pariser Platz or Paris Square. They renamed the sculpture Victoria after all their troubles with the French. So that now the Germans will always have “Victory over Paris”. The Brandenburg Gate was also the site of Hitler’s march when he rose to power. The Brandenburg Gate was also squeezed between the walls when East and West Berlin were still divided.

Rachel and I at the Brandenburg Gate

After Seeing the Brandenburg gate we walked through part of the Tiergarten (the oldest public park in Berlin… which is HUGE – apparently close to the size of central park in New York.) to see the Reichstag – or the Parliament building. We were told the one of the positive things (of the very few) about visiting Berlin when it was as cold as it was is that during the summers men like to walk around stark naked in the Tiergarten and “not the kind of men we would like to see”.

The Tiergarten 

We scheduled a tour to go to the Reichstag that Sunday but decided to go to the Sauchenhausen Concentration Camp instead. I wish I had been able to see it but I wasn’t. After the Reichstag we had planned to take a walking tour but due to the fact that we had 10 people we had to come back the next day and pretend not to know each other so we could still go on the tour “for free”.

The Reichstag  

There is so much Graffiti all over Berlin - this is just a random little alley we passed on the way to the Jewish Museum

After that we went to the Jewish Museum which was interesting. As much as I love museums… I don’t particularly enjoy them because I don’t feel like I remember much from them. I enjoyed the Jewish Museum because it was laid out VERY interestingly. On the bottom floor there were 3 different axes (Continuity, Emigration, and Holocaust)– each representing a different period or theme of Jewish history. The axes were also not leveled so we were always either walking up or down a hallway which I didn’t realize at first.

My favorite part of the museum was this one area where there were thousands upon thousands of steel sculptures of faces representing holocaust victims.

Another area of the museum is the Garden of Exile where 49 concrete pillars were erected on uneven ground, which is supposed to disorient people and give them a sense of instability. Foliage grows from the top to represent hope.

The Garden of Exile at the Jewish Museum

After the Jewish Museum we were all pretty beat so we headed back towards the hostal and went to a brewery for dinner. I ate a Turkey steak which was really great but my meal totaled 16 euro and I didn’t like the sides… Oh well. When in Berlin…

That night we went to bar/disco called White Trash Fast Food. It was a little too smoky for my taste but the name alone was enough to get me to go in. It was fun.

The next day we went on a tour of the city with this AWESOME tour guide from Manchester. He was very witty and had lots of little anecdotes to tell us. He was extremely detailed with the history of the city. I never realized how many of todays most impressive inventions and scientific findings and products came from Germans. He pointed out – although we were all very aware already – that whenever people think of Germany they only think of Hitler and the Holocaust which is very true… but he went past that – trying not to dawn on it too much and continued to tell us all these amazing things that Germans had done.

He took us to the Holocaust memorial which I was very impressed by and enjoyed a lot. It was made to be interpreted by whoever is experiencing that therefore the architect did not really explain what he wanted or expected people to feel when walking through it.

We also went to Hitler’s bunker – or the ground above Hitler’s bunker – or let me re-phrase this… He took us to a parking lot. The Germans did not want to revere or remember Hitler in anyway therefore although they couldn’t destroy the bunker (although they apparently tried many times) they did seal it off completely and at street level it only looks like a parking lot.

He took us to many places where there had been stands off in Berlin and where the buildings were riddled with bullet holes which was very cool. He also explained to us how after the war – all that was left in Berlin were the women and that they practically rebuilt the entire city all on their own. They even constructed the airport I flew into in some ridiculously short amount of time (Maybe 6 weeks or something? I do not remember).

After our tour we headed home to eat and went out – just the girls just time. We tried to get into some club our friend had told us about but because most of the girls weren’t 21 we couldn’t get in. The whole time in line Rachel Westmoreland was practicing how to say “We are Five” … It sounded something like “Vee haven foonfh” I don’t know why but I found that hilarious. The bouncer calls us up and before she can even get that out he says “How Many”. We’re very foreign looking apparently. But after that little rejection we head to the club next door. It was incredibly smokey. There were three different rooms for dancing and each one was very different. The first one was the smallest and least rowdy and was playing lots of 80’s music. I would’ve liked to have stayed there but the people were just standing around. The second room was very different each time we went in but ranged many different genres. The third and definitely most popular room – like I found much of Berlin to be – was just … grunge. We danced to… Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach… and many other overly hardcore bands. We were all pretty exhausted and we knew we were going to Sachenhausen the next day so we left around 3 I think.

The next morning half of us headed to Sachenhausen – a concentration camp right outside of Berlin. It was one of the first ones and was pretty small. It had 2 zones – one for “normal prisoners” then a much nicer zone for political prisoners. It was quite depressing. I imagine it would’ve been much worse had more of the original camp still been standing. We also didn’t get to spend near as long there as I would have liked because we were in such a hurry.

For Bathing

A flyer pointing out Jewish features

One of the uniforms from Sachenhausen

One of the Bunkers

After that we went to Mauer Park. On Sundays they have a huge market with lots of stalls filled with all sorts of random stuff. We were again in a rush – so much so I forgot to take ANY pictures but it was extremely fun and I am very glad we went.

Then we headed to the Bauhaus Museum for all the architecture kids and finished off at the East Side Gallery which I knew was going to be my favorite place in Berlin. It is a 1300m segment of the Berlin Wall (one of three still standing segments) and it is filled with artwork. We didn’t get to walk the length of the wall so I returned Monday before my flight left.

Flying home was a HUGE pain. They tell us (in English and French – Brussels Airlines) that we are going to have to go to Bordeaux because we cannot land in Bilbao. Apparently the airport lies directly between two mountains so landing there when there is wind/storms and it is dark is very dangerous. Apparently a few weeks ago during a landing 8 people were injured and someone broke their leg. I have no idea if this is even true but here enters the random/very talkative/slightly obnoxious Venezuelan man sitting behind me. He’s ALL ABOUT stories. I could not get a moment to myself after I answered his first question. I heard all about his travels, his feelings towards Brussels Airlines, his family blah blah blah.

So here we are sitting on a plane headed into Bordeaux. I’m thankful I have some money left so if I do have to get a hotel or something I will be okay… As we land this large and very rambunctious group of Spanish people from Bilbao start to cheer and clap. I’m thinking “Well, okay… I guess I AM glad we are alive etc…” Then we sit on the plane for about an hour. 30 minutes in I hear one of the women from Bilbao talking on the phone saying “Oh You’re here? Okay we will be out ASAP we are still waiting on the plane for some reason”. At first I think to myself – man Bordeaux must be much closer to Bilbao than I had thought. That’s when I realize… This huge group of Spanish people (who have been standing the past 30 minutes on the plan ready to get outta there) have NO IDEA that we aren’t in Bilbao because no one announced this in Spanish. It was pretty hilarious…

They take us all to a hotel – it’s really nice. I skype my parents then fall asleep. I wake up – eat the awesome breakfast – and here comes Mr. Talkative again. I’m trying to avoid him because I do NOT want to me stuck sitting next to him on the bus for 5 hours to Bilbao. I tell him I am going to go use the phone. I go straight to the hotel doors and think to myself – the bus will come – I will run out there, hop on it, right up front, and pretend to be asleep and no one will set next to the obviously foreign girl. Well what do ya know? Mr. Talkative comes up and says “I don’t know what you were planning but do you want to sit next to each other?” DAMN. And if you know me then you know I can’t just flat out be mean to someone… so I say yes. Now Mind you all – had he not sat by me I would have 100% had my own seat… even he probably would have because he was not a tiny little thing. Half way through I actually had to even ask if we could put the armrest down because my body was cramping from leaning so far right towards the window the whole time. For the record this man was VERY nice but… what poor luck that was.