Berlin!

Ok! I'm taking a Sunday morning homework break, and, during this time, I will tell you about my trip to Berlin, that was... 3 weeks ago? I know... Crazy.

**Note that these are just whats written in my travel journal, so if the tense is funny, thats why.




Schiphol Airport... Oh man. Nice airport, but its not at all user friendly... nope. I couldn't find the check in, or anyone to ask. I found the baggage check in... And they sent me to the people check in. I checked in, then they sent me to the OTHER side of the airport to go through security. Their metal detectors were very sensitive and 3/5 people beeped, then were pulled aside for pat-down, myself included. I had to check my bag, in, and, when I landed in Berlin, I found that it had been security searched! Lucky for them, my bag has 2 weeks of dirty clothes in it and stinks at this point. But yeah, I made it to the hostel fine. Trying to figure out the transit system was a little tricky... Its a great system (I'll SO miss functioning transit systems...) just, its a little confusing at first. I got to the hostel and ditched my bag, sent people e-mails telling them I got there safe, then I headed to the FREE tour!!! Yay. I love free tours. Our tour guide was great, as always. We saw Brandenburg Gate, the hotel Michale Jackson dangled the baby out of, the Reichtag, holocaust memorial, where Hitler's bunker was, the wall, last remaining Nazi architecture, checkpoint charlie... All in the first half of the tour. We ended at Museum Island, so I went to the German Historical Museum. Good times. Pretty good museum. I'm finding though, that I like MODERN history much more than... other history. Maybe because they don't teach it in schools at all... But I've learned so much about the Soviets and the Cold war on my travels... Its so interesting. Definitely something I want to learn more about. After that, I came to the hostel to shower, lost motivation to find anywhere to go (especially because my hair was wet...) I'm sad I only have 2 days in Berlin though. Its a giant city, with SOOO much history! I really want to come back to visit. I couldn't live here though...

I've run into a number of people, young and old, who are off traveling for a year or more at a time. I want to do that! How do they pay for that??? I found two STUDENTS from Canada. They spent some time in Norway, loved it and decided to stay. Most hostels allow you to work for them and they pay for your room and board. But it can't really pay that well...

Busy Day! Wow! I got up at 8:20, got dressed, had cereal and OJ... and headed out. Hitting 3 museums, a gallery and the Reichtag. All in one day. Aren't you impressed?! First up was going to be the Reichtag, but on the way there, I got distracted by a column with a golden statue on the top... Probably important. From there, I could see the Brandenburg Gate... so I walked through Tiergarten, which was GORGEOUS. Beautiful fall day with leaves falling, leaves on the ground... GORGEOUS. THen, half an hour or so later, I ended up at the Reichtag, right across from the Brandenburg Gate. But the line was crazy long to get in... So I went to the memorial to the murdered jews of europe (actual name. Everyone calls it the holocaust memorial though.) Its a whole bunch of rectangle blocks ranging from flat to over 4 meters tall that are at various slants. There are 2,711 blocks. The ground is all slanted and its dark and cold in the middle... And sound gets muffled in the middle... where the blocks are rather tall. I walked around in that for a while, then went into the exposition underneath. It starts as a time line, then there are personal stories from letters they've found... then there's a room of families and it tells their stories. Then there's a room of names, where they project a name onto the wall and tell the story of that person. Then, the last room is a room of locations. There were phones where first you'd heard a 'first person account' from a voice actor tell about what happened in transit to or at various concentration camps... I don't know if that or the postcards in the other room were... harder to read. Anyway, at the end you exit right into the middle of the memorial. So, i spent a little more time there, then I found the cobble stones that show where the wall once stood. So I followed them/the wall to Potsdammer Platz, then to the Topography of Terror exhibit. Its one of the few remaining stretches of wall. And underneath it they found where the Nazi security headquarters was... So its a long, free, open air exhibit about the torment the Jews went through... Great way to spend a morning. After that, I passed check point charlie (Alpha, Bravo... Charlie! 3rd Check point) then took the train to Alexander Platz, where the TV tower is, its one of the biggest squares in Berlin. I walked around there for a bit before going to the GDR museum, which is a hands on museum about what life was like in East Germany. it was quite interesting, but nothing I can pinpoint for a story. Then, I hopped on the train and went to the East Side Gallery, which they're refurbishing this year or next by inviting the original artists back. You could really see the divide between east and west here, where less money was being spent than in the touristy parts of Berlin. And the Graffiti was good... a lot was covered up with tagging, which is really sad (and why they're refurbishing it...) But you could still see some of it. After that... i went back to the Reichtag and stood in line for a very long time to go up to the top of the Reichtag. We couldn't go into the dome (closed for repairs :( ) But I went to the roof terrace... I could have gotten some good pictures, but by the time I got up there, it was dark... I grabbed some dinner on the way back... And then I was planning on just watching a movie downstair, but I met Olivia from South Africa. We ended up going downstairs for drinks and talking to the only guy who works at the hostel who is FROM berlin. He told us how, yeah, Berlin is nice now... But in West Berlin before the wall came down, it was a paradise where bars never closed, it was quieter and there wasn't required military service like in the rest of Germany. Apperently the West Germans pumped lots of money into West Berlin, so it was always nice and clean and the street lights stayed on all night so the East Germans could see how great life was on the other side. It was interesting to hear such a different view from someone who had been there... Then, i went to bed.

Now, I'm sitting in the airport waiting to check in to fly back to Copenhagen. Kinda boring, but I didn't have any time to actually do anything this morning, so its simply a travel day. I have a day to rest and recover... Then I'm heading to the Czech Republic for 5 days! Whoo!!!