We started our journey to Berlin early two Friday mornings ago. We had to meet downstairs at 5am to drop off our room keys and board the busses to the airport. Since it was a mandatory excursion, everyone at the castle went, and we were accompanied by most of the main staff as well as many of the teaching staff. We got to the Cologne airport at about 8, if I remember correctly, left around 10, and were finally in Berlin around noon. We boarded two more busses, which took us into the center of the city and to the hotel that we were put up in, and by 2pm most of us were situated. We stayed in actual hotel rooms, which was a nice change, and Kendra and I were put in a two-person room together with our own shower and everything. We felt so fancy.
After splitting up into groups, we were all taken on a short walking tour of the city. Berlin is massive so it was impossible to see even remotely everything that we wanted to, but we did make good time.
We started at hour hotel, walked down Unter de Linden (one of the main streets with a lot of sights on it) past Alexanderplatz, up to Domplatz, which is there the Berlin Dome cathedral is. I was really surprised at how spread out everything is in Berlin. We stayed in what previously was East Berlin, so a lot of the buildings are obviously very communisty (just block-like and rather drab), and the streets are wide enough to fit...well, tanks. It was really strange, but I still liked it. Even the crosswalk lights are leftover from communism, little men with boxy hats.
Here's a picture of the cathedral with the Alexanderplatz TV (radio?) tower in the background. The day was really nice and pretty, and we enjoyed it muchly.
Next we walked down to the Brandenburg Gate, one of the most known sights of Berlin. Of course, there were a million people everywhere. It was cool though. Because that weekend was the 20th anniversary of the wall coming down, there was all sorts of activity going on everywhere.
This is the memorial for murdered Jews (not to be confused with the Holocaust memorial, though it does relate to the Holocaust, it is specifically for the murdered Jews). The group had a very fun time running through, around, and even over the huge slabs of stone. As blasphemous as that sounds, apparently the designer wanted people to be able to enjoy the memorial, to play on it and have fun with it. I could've spent hours there, but unfortunately we had to keep going.
By then it was starting to get dark. We walked to Potsdamerplatz and the Sony center, following the line where the wall used to be, and on the way past some of the dominoes getting ready for Monday's festivities. The idea behind the dominoes were to create huge massive dominoes painted like the bits of leftover wall are now and, on Monday night, signaling exactly 20 years from when the wall was finally fallen, to knock them down. Because we had a train to catch that night we didn't have time to stay and actually see it, but it supposedly was a very interesting experience.
Here's a bit of the wall still left standing, now graffitied and painted with little explanations on either side of it.
The next day my entire day was planned out for me due to my Art History class. Both of my teachers accompanied us to Berlin and we spent all day in two museums. We started our day at the Hauptbanhof, the main train station, which is pretty much in the middle of everything (and also is the station where Kendra and Nicole lost me later in the week - I'll explain later). There were these massive red steps set up outside of it that let you see higher up all over the city, so we climbed them and spent a bit there.
From there we walked to the Hamburger Hauptbanhof, which is a former train station converted into a modern art museum. I have to say, it was probably one of the best museums I've ever been in. Most pieces in there (and it was HUGE, so this was really staggering) actually were relevant to what we've been learning in class and we saw a lot of famous works by a lot of famous artists that we've been studying. It was SO cool. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures in it because I was too busy admiring everything.
After grabbing a quick lunch back at the train station, we headed to the New National Gallery (or Neu Nationalgallerie, I think). There was a massive surrealist and abstract expressionist exhibition there, which was really neat. We again saw a lot of artists that we have been studying, and also many others that we just know anyway (like Dali, etc..). It was pretty cool, I must say.
That night Kendra, Cara, and I all went out in search of something to do. We ended up at this music club/bar with a live band playing. We realized, halfway through, that they were speaking English with American accents. After they were done playing, we caught up to the singer at the merch table. Turns out they're from Washington state (Olympia, to be exact) and are touring around Europe with another musician called Angelo Spencer (who we also saw play, and is slightly better known that they are, as he has a kid with Kimya Dawson). Nic (the singer) was really excited to talk to us, since apparently in all the traveling he'd done so far he'd only met one other American.
The next day, which I unfortunately do not have any pictures of, was again filled with museums. We went to the Deutsches Historiche Museum in the morning (which is the German History Museum). It was actually really interesting, despite my lack of interest in...history. We had a guided tour about the history of Germany from WWII on, which was very informative. Our guide unabashedly talked about Hitler's regime and the Holocaust, which I have to admit I was rather surprised about, considering that from what I've heard most German people are somewhat ashamed of this piece of German history and don't like to bring it up much. The guide answered all of our questions though and gave a very in-depth explanation of everything and I really enjoyed the museum, despite the fact that we didn't get to see much more of it than that.
After lunch, we headed with Dojna (one of the awesome OSA staff) to the Jewish Historical Museum. The museum itself was really cool, the architect who designed it did so in a really interesting way that I'd have a tough time describing without a picture. We also were given a guided tour, but it was only about 45 minutes long so we didn't get to see much. We were free to walk around afterwards though, so we did, but left soon after.
That night, student government sponsored (with the aid of 7 euro from each of us?) a dinner. We all went to Bavaria, a supposedly authentic German restaurant (but in reality was just a campy, showy fake one - but it was fun, nonetheless!). We had amazing soup, really good sausage (or pasta if you are, like me, a vegetarian of sorts), and incredible apple pastries for dessert. You were also allowed to order drinks on your own dime, and Lewis, who I have recently met and who actually is also from Long Island (Coram, to be exact, he went to high school with Mara) was sitting next to me, and ordered literally the biggest beer I have ever seen.
Yeah.
The next day we met up early and headed to the dome cathedral in groups.
We walked up the almost 500 steps allllllllll the way to the very top (it was tiring, let me tell you). But the climb was DEFINITELY worth it. Despite the fact that it was sorta foggy and rainy out, the view was incredible, and we were happy (albeit, sopping) by the time we were done.
After that, we headed to the Reichstag, or the German parliament building, where we were given guided tours of the Bundestag, or the parliament. It was really cool to be inside it, to be in this awesome historical place where all sorts of crazy shit has undoubtedly happened. The president of parliament (akin to our speaker of the house) even just casually walked by us at one point, which was surreal, and so cool.
The Reichstag has a massive glass dome on top where people can go up and see the entire city. Obviously, we did.
Here's the Brandenburg Gate from above. Notice all the dominoes to the right! They were EVERYWHERE. More pictures to follow...
After that, our Berlin adventure was concluded and we were free to leave not only the building, but the city. Kendra, Nicole, and I all headed back to the hotel to pick up our things, rested for a bit, and then made it back to the Hauptbanhof station for our 11-hour 7pm train ride to Vienna and the beginning of our week-long travel break!
No comments:
Post a Comment