BERLIN

Dear blog readers,

I am dreadfully sorry for the blog hiatus. Some of it is for a good reason that you will read about shortly. Some if it is for bad reasons, like a presentation, an exam, and other such scholarly un-pleasantries. Either way, I have decided to make up for it by putting the ENTIRE Berlin weekend in ONE POST. Hey, I'm only here for 2.5 more weeks and don't have that many posts left! So hunker down, this might be long. But I hope it will be enjoyable.

**Side note: I have Wikipedia open as I write this. Keep in mind that it informs my writing. I will not pretend to know this all by heart.**

BERLIN

Our story starts at 11:15pm on Thursday night. That is the time that Bonnie, Sarah, Anna, Deborah, and I boarded the Eurolines bus that would take us to Berlin. We chose to take the bus in the first place because it was by far the cheapest option of getting to Berlin, and we figured that the 8 hour ride would seem shorter since it was overnight and we would be "sleeping."

A few days earlier when we printed off our tickets, we realized the ride was 10 hours. Hmm. We can still do it!

So there we are on Thursday night, getting on to our bus with a variety of other characters. The ride began extremely well -- the lights were turned off, the canned music on the overhead soon silenced, and the movement of the bus strangely soothing. I had just found the most comfortable position yet when...

The lights come fully on at 2:00am. We have pulled over, and the German police are coming aboard. Passport check!

Now, I know what you are thinking, and I would like to say I behaved myself this time. I handed over my passport like a good, compliant citizen should. Thankfully for me, they handed it right back. See, no big deal! I have learned so much.

After the passport check we were on our way again, although I sadly never found quite as nice a sleeping position as before. But before I had time to think about it, we were pulling into the ZOB (Central Bus Station) in Berlin at 8:15am.

WHAT?!?!

We had expected to get there after 9 o'clock. What were we going to do with the extra hour of our time? Turns out we needed it, since our tired little brains took a while to direct our feet to a U-Bahn stop, and we wandered around for quite some time. We made it, though, and soon the U-Bahn had whisked us away to the center of Berlin!

Right out of the metro station, we found sections of the wall:



















And right after that, the first of many Starbucks. Woohoo!


























Our first real stop was at the Holocaust Memorial. It looks like the blocks are all around the same height...



















...but once you go inside, you realize that the center of the memorial is deep into the ground and also becomes something of a maze.



















This is supposedly one of the few memorials to use no intentional symbolism, so the blocks can mean whatever you want them to mean.

We were too early to go the the museum below the memorial (for a later day, then), so our next stop was at the Brandenburg gate!



















Yes, Napoleon marched through that gate, and now also have Bonnie and Sarah.

I realize that wasn't a very complete picture of the gate. Here we go:



















After that we went to the Reichstag, the German Parliament building.




















(It took many tries before I got a picture where the flag was displayed that well! Thank you, German wind.)

The great news is, you can enter the Reichstag for free and go up to the dome at the top. The not-great news, you have to stand in line first. We got in line at 10:00. It was cold, it was windy, but we were doing it. Plus, there were plenty of ways to amuse ourselves. Sarah translated a Spanish brochure for us because the English brochures were all out:



















We watched these street performers do tricks with a giant puppet:




















And sometimes we just huddled together for warmth. It was coooooooold! In the middle of May, no less! Why didn't we go to the south of France for the weekend?!

But eventually we were before the automatic doors, waiting in hopeful anticipation for them to open and allow us inside to the warmth.




















And by now it was 1:00. Yes. Three hours in line. But we did it! I think we all deserve buttons or something that say "I survived the line at the Reichstag." If they sold them, I would buy them. Here's what the faces of Calvin students looks like after three hours in line, right before the doors open:



















Note the man behind Bonnie who is also waiting in hopeful anticipation for the doors to open. He is staring those doors down!

Finally the doors opened for us, a cheer went up, and we were inside. Sure, the line inside lasted for another good twenty minutes, but it was warm! Then we rode an elevator to the top and explored the dome:



















Crazy, right? The mirrors in the middle reflect sunlight into the parliamentary chamber, and the glass dome has two ramps winding around the entire thing, one for going up and one for going down. Our lovely free audioguides told us interesting information about the sights we were seeing, and we had fun playing with the mirrors too!








































After that, time for FOOD! Intro to first German food of the trip: flammkuchen!
























Not sure if this is originally German, but it's the only time I've ever seen it. Translation: pizza-type dish that is not quite pizza but instead a giant, thin crust with various toppings, in my case chicken curry. YUM.

At this point in time, it was late enough in the day that we could check into our hostel. At this point in time, we also realized it would be important to look up where our hostel was. Enter internet station in the train station, Google Maps, and problem solved. In no time we had found our way to the Heart of Gold Hostel!




















The most exciting part of our 14 bed mega-dorm was the wall art-piece...thing.



















Haha :)

Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in front of the Berliner Dom. Mooching off of a tour group, we learned that this cathedral is only about 100 years old (so young!).




















We also ran into the Ampelman. He is pretty awesome.



















Before darkness fell, we also walked along the East Side Gallery. The gallery is a long stretch of remaining Wall that international artists painted in 1990.



























































Last thing of the night -- first German beer! (Weird lighting, blame the restaurant.)




















And that was Friday.

Keep going, there's more!

Saturday dawned gray and raining (arg!!) as we traveled by S-Bahn to the nearby city of Potsdam. Why? We were going to see some palaces! Also, the Potsdam Conference happened there, but we didn't really see that. We were 65 years late.

Plus, fun fact from Wikipedia! A sister-city of Potsdam is Sioux Falls, SD! Go Sioux Falls!

I will admit, the rain put a bit of a damper on our spirits at first. The German wind, which the day before had been so helpful at unfurling the flag for me, was now rather a nuisance. And it was MAY, for crying out loud.



















But you know what? Sometimes miracles happen. No, not the miracle you expect. It didn't stop raining. But along the rainy streets of Potsdam...




















We found this shoe store!



















Four out of the five of us got a new pair of shoes. And although I won't say that money buys happiness, I will say that fifteen minutes in a warm, dry store and a pair of 10 euro flats will do wonders to perk up the day. Look at those happy faces!



















With renewed energy, we made our way to the palaces. And I mean renewed energy. We sang rain songs, stepped in puddles, and laughed at the poor (dry) people stuck in the boring tour buses. They weren't seeing the city like we were! They were probably asleep. We were having more fun.

Before we knew it, we had found the park filled with palaces of the Prussian royalty. According to Deborah, the rain makes the colors in pictures more saturated. See, we knew what we were doing going to a park in the rain.



















Palaces are a good excuse for fun pictures with people:




















Or without. I like both:














































































It was a grand time looking at palaces. We only got almost-lost once, in the botanical gardens of some university (what were they doing there?), but we saved the situation. After a few hours of palace-gazing, we went back to the center of the city to look for a cafe to warm up. For some reason the return trip took much longer than before, mostly because we weren't running across any cafes that interested us. But suddenly, tada! An entire street full of them!




















I must say we chose the best of them all to eat at. Cute chandeliers, a pink ceiling and green walls, an ice cream parlor-like feel...it warms the soul just thinking about it.

Oh, and COFFEE and CAKE of course!



















Running around outside on a rainy day is fun, but eating cake and drinking coffee inside on a rainy is almost better. Does anyone else agree?

I could bore you now with mundane details of our train ride back to Berlin, our process of cleaning up at the hostel, looking for a restaurant that may have closed ten years ago, blah blah blah. I will just skip ahead to dinner. Meet the stank.
























Please note that when I typed "stank" into Wikipedia, it redirected me to the page titled "Odor." No, no, no. Our menus informed us that this glass, called a stank, is the only glass that Kolsch (the beer) should be served in.

We enjoyed drinking Kolsch from a stank!



















I also enjoyed at dinner the Berlin specialty of currywurst. I would described it as a better-than-average hot dog covered in better-than-average ketchup. Now that is not a judgement on all currywurst in Berlin, just a judgement on this particular restaurant. And I did enjoy it! I said better-than-average, right? Besides, the fried potatoes that came with the currywurst were OUT OF THIS WORLD delicious.




















Do I talk about food too much on this blog? Sorry. I just love it so.

Anyway, back on track. I can do this! The activity planned for after dinner was to ascend the TV tower, which I like to describe as the Space Needle of Berlin. (Which works, because the Space Needle is three years older. Ha!)
























I feel like I am breaking some great rule of chronology, since I took that last picture on Friday night and we went up the tower on Saturday night. But it is the best picture I have!

Anyway, we rode the elevator, our ears all popped, and then we spent some time gazing out at the city at night.



















After spending time at the TV tower, we spent quite a lot of time looking for the illusive area of Friedrichshain. The only real details there are, it sounds like a cool neighborhood, we never found it. We DID find a cool neighborhood near our hostel, however, and enjoyed happy hour there to round out our last night in Berlin.

That was Saturday.

Hang in, you can make it! Only one more day to get through!
(That was partly to you, partly to myself.)

Sunday was our day to finish up everything we still wanted to do. This included, of course, Checkpoint Charlie.




















And then the Holocaust Museum that we didn't get to on Friday:




















Both the displays at Checkpoint Charlie (crossing point into East Berlin) and the displays at the Holocaust Museum were well-done and thought-provoking. But so sad! Most history is, at some point, sad, but for Berlin that history was not all that long ago. It doesn't help that reminders are still everywhere, like the fact that many parts of the east side look like this:



















while a lot of the west side looks more like this:




















And there's a brick line running through the entire city over the path where the Berlin Wall once was:
























Berlin's had a lot to get through. I think it's still kind of getting through it.

Hmm.

Anyway, after the museum we went to Tiergarten park to see the Victory Column, which I wanted to see because of a certain speech given there a few years back:























I know, I'm a lost cause. And then when we got to the column, surprise! Completely covered in scaffolding. Not even the horrible looks-like-the-monument scaffolding, but, even worse, looks-like-the-monument-bedecked-in-giant-construction-workers scaffolding.



















But Obama-figurine was there, and that's all that matters.



















Following the park it was time for one last real meal at a German restaurant:
























When we emerged from the restaurant, a miracle had happened: the sun was out!!!!



















The blue skies made for excellent viewing of our last sight, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was damaged in the bombings of WWII, which you can still see since the original tower hasn't been rebuilt.
























The inside of the tower is still beautiful but also cracked:



















At this point, we had finished seeing everything we set out to see. But it was only 3:00 in the afternoon, and our bus didn't leave until 7:30. What to do? Well, Anna read on a display in the church that Kaiser Wilhelm was buried at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.

Is that on our map? Yes.

Should we go to another palace? Yes!

We had a plan. Plus, it was now sunny and a beautiful day for walking.

Aaaaaaand we also came across a pretzel stand and fulfilled one of our goals to eat pretzels in Germany!



















Munching on pretzels helped make the trip to the palace seem shorter. Charlottenburg Palace was lovely. The blue skies didn't hurt either.





































A lovely time was had by all on the grounds of Charlottenburg. We began to make our way to the bus station, but we still had one small goal to fulfill...German chocolate. Now, it was Sunday, so all the grocery stores we walked by were closed. We regretted not going to a store earlier in the weekend and worried that our German chocolate dreams would never be fulfilled...

...then we found a convenience store with a rainbow of chocolate variety. Miracles do happen! Look at all this chocolate goodness!





















































Best of all, I was reunited with my favorite chocolate of all time: Milka Kuhflecken (cow spots). Milk chocolate with white chocolate spots. The ultimate candy. The treat of all treats.



















I bought four bars. Probably not enough, since last January I came back with about ten. But it will do, because it is that delicious. I am eating some right now as I write this...

ENOUGH ABOUT FOOD!!!!!! you say. Sorry, my bad.

We spent the last of our Berlin time in a park near the convenience store/bus station, eating chocolate and taking pictures. Excellent, excellent way to round out the trip.

Then it was back on the bus!



















And time for another nine hours on the road. Some of the time was spent looking at/taking pictures, some writing a crazy story that we started on our excursion to Zeeland, and most sleeping or trying to sleep (but no passport check this time!). Before we knew it, we were back at Amstel Station in Amsterdam...

...at 4:45am. Note that the metro doesn't start running until 6:35.

Hmm. The situation wasn't as bad as you think. Thanks to Anna and Sarah's thinking skills (which are amazing -- my brain wasn't even functioning at that point), we figured out how to take a bus at 5:55 and then take the tram, arriving back at Uilenstede around 6:15. Just enough time for a quick nap before 9:00 class!!!!

Yes, sadly we fell back into the routine of classes immediately upon returning. That is why I haven't written a thing about our wonderful experiences up until this point. But thankfully
A) that horrid week is over, along with classes, and
B) I can write about it now and relive it all. Despite the bad weather, somewhat depressing history of the city, and serious sleep deprivation, the weekend was still splendid. I blame that on the fantastic company: Sarah, Bonnie, Anna, and Deborah. Together we are the five girls of the Netherlands Semester 2010, and we rocked our weekend in Berlin!

I should end this tome of a blog post with a picture I took from the bus ride back. Sure, it's no Colosseum at sunrise, but it's something, right? Thanks for reading :)