what most of the train stations all over the city looked like

Berlin. WOW. Pretty much the coolest city ever, it’s about 3.5 million people big and more tram, train, s-bahns, u-bahns, and other public transpiration systems then I have ever seen in my life. The city was full of new, modern, daring, original architecture that not only excited but illuminated my imagination. I haven’t seen modern architecture like this since I left London, and no offence to London. But it has to be said: London doesn’t have much on Berlin when it comes to the good stuff, Architecture.

Brandenburger Tor

MMM German street vendor pretzel

awesome architecture in berlin

a portion of the wall

We arrived in Berlin about 9 or 10 and suffered through figuring out how to get form the train station to the hostel. Turns out it was a short s-bahn (s train line) ride and literally the train stop was just to the left of our hostel. We crashed needles to say, seeing how we were going to get up at the butt crack of dawn (as my cousin Ryan would say) and visit Berlin’s famous Parliament building.

The Reichstag

looking down from the second platform

The Reichstag Building offers one of the most beautiful views of the city, however on the morning we choose to go it was drizzling and a bit brisk outside. We arrived at 9:30 to avoid the ridiculously long line it is known for having. And by the time we had reached the glass entry way (we waited about 15 min tops) the line had stretched down the stairs on to the plaza and made a left handed turn and continued to the adjacent sidewalk. We reached the first level of the observation deck and admired the mirrored funnel thing and then made our way up the spiraling ramps to the second observation deck where we could see much of the rainy city. We had learned about this building in a previous Environmental Building Systems class and we were impressed to see the building first hand.

super cool church

looking up from inside

For the rest of the day we toured much of the city, navigating our way to an art museum were we took in an art exhibit called melanchlie, which when translated into English sounds pretty much the same as it does in German, Melancholy. It wasn’t nearly as depressing as it sounded, we got to see some works of art by Picasso, Warhol, Hopper and many other great artist. After which we spend the day dogging small rain storms and taking loads of pictures.

Jewish museum

Jewish Memorial

At one point Allison, Mack and myself were tired and wet but were reluctant to head back to our hostel so we decided to grab a movie. Many of the titles that were available at home were sure enough available at this particular theater as well. We noticed that some of the titles were in German and a few in English. Being the level headed girls that we are we choose a movie who’s title was still in English because clearly that signified the film itself would be in English as well. We found our seats in the theater (because here in Europe they are assigned) and hunkered down for a relaxing time. Sure enough the first preview was in German, and the second and the third and so on….soon we became nervous that the film it too would be in German. After about 400 more previews the actual movie came on, the music’s started and images on New York filled the screen. Clive Owen’s face appeared larger than life on the big screen and when he opened his mouth, drew his first breath, he began speaking. I understood what he had been saying, only because I had taken German for a while growing up, but Allison and Mack were pretty much clueless. Then the uncontrollable laughter came. We were laughing so hard I think we all were tearing up. One by one we exited the theater and approached the box office and received a refund for our unfortunate misunderstanding.

fussball!!!!

Saturday was wonderful, it was bright warm and quite the opposite of Friday and boy did we take advantage of it. A few of us started at the Daniel Libeskind building, The Jewish Museum Berlin, and moved to Alexanderplatz seeing various historic building and different instillation art works. Also that afternoon in the city of Berlin there was a soccer gaming going on, a huge match between two archrivals. We HAD to go. We boarded a train headed toward the Olympic stadium where the 1936 games were held. We arrived made our way to the ticket booth and proceed to fin the cheapest ones available, purchased them and made our way to the upper most ring of the stands. It was a pretty good game of back and forth soccer, however the most disappointed part was that neither team scored. I was so looking forward to seeing a bunch of European soccer nuts go absolutely crazy over a goal. These were some intense fans; there was such a tension in the air you could cut with a plastic picnic knife. We made our way to the train station and it was packed. Guards in riot gear over looked the crowd and made sure no one idiot did anything ... well idiotic. It was kind of scary, I’m not going to lie, there were way too many people there, and standing on the platform and when the train came, you went where the crowd pushed you. I finally understood how someone could die from getting trampled on in a large crowd. Our group stayed close and came up with a strategy to get the girls on first and then make room for the boys, it worked like a charm and we were off. The car was full to the brim and was extremely uncomfortable. But as we got further away for the stadium fans began to dwindle and breathing room was once again restored.

Sunday was once again both rainy and partly sunny. We made our way around to Berlin wall memorials and the Pergamonmuseum which showcases the Ishtar gate of Babylon and the Alter of Zeus.

Ishtar gate

dunno know, but it's old and greek

Out of all the side trips I have taken this semester I have to say that the trip to Berlin has been my favorite. I think I was most excited to use my German that I had learned over 11 years ago, I started in 6th grade and ended it in grade 11). And the thing was, it wasn’t all that bad, I was able to say many different things and was able to help our group out a few times. My face must have lit up a thousand times when I could understand what was being said around me, even if it was about our group, it was really exciting. The Germans even looked impressed and a little relived, after serving my friends in English, and then being able to talk to me in German. To tell you the truth it was awesome. It made me want to kick myself in the shin for dropping out of German, especially when I was struggling to get my point across, I kept thinking to myself “this would be easier if you had stuck with it.” But I guess for a weekend stay it was just fine.
So now that I am back I am going to hunker down and get some school work done. So look forward to my next posting of all SCHOOL WORK! Yeah I bet my dad is super excited about that one!

sony center