Friday, June 25, 2010

Berlin: City of bears and walking man lights!

Heyo!

So we just got to Copenhagen after a night train from Berlin. We had a nice ride on our first 6 person sleeper car. It was actually pretty comfortable!

Berlin was a great experience. It was cool to go back to a different part of Germany and compare the 2. Berlin was definitely a lot different than Munich. Much less "German" culture, aka liederhosen, bavarian music, beer halls and beer gardens, but a lot more city. But the history there is fascinating. And every corner you turn there is a story behind it.

When we arrived in Berlin it was late so we just walked around the corner to grab some kebabs- our new personal favorite snacks- and went to bed. Apparently kebabs are like the most popular fast food in Europe. And boy they are tasty! These ones had peanut sauce and hummus! mmmm.

Anyways...we woke up the next morning to take a free walking tour. These free walking tours are definitely the best intro to the city. Just a word of advice to anyone doing something like this in the future. The tour took us through all the sites in Berlin. We saw the Brandenburg Gate ,which is the cities major symbol. Across from it is the hotel Michael Jackson dangled his baby from. Who knew! We saw the site of major Nazi marches, buildings, and their headquarters. Of these sites we saw the building where they filmed a major scene in Valkerie to recreate history only a few years ago, and we saw the spot where Hitler's bunker used to be. This is also the spot he died at. Now its simply a crappy parking lot. Very fitting.

We of course saw the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. This was the main crossover point between West and East Germany during communist times. They have replicas of signs and gates to give people a feel of what the checkpoint looked like. They also have panels with info all about the Berlin Wall. We read about people's attempted escapes, both successful and failed. We read about the amount of deaths at the wall, memorials to victims of it, the GDR's methods of restriction during communist times, and the fall of the wall, which was actually an accident! It is so crazy that this happened when we were alive. We were babies, but still. It doesn't feel like that recent. But I am sure to our parents who are reading this they remember everything.

On our tour we also saw the site where the students of the university in Berlin had to burn all the books the government had banned. We saw a war memorial and the university where Einstein studied. We also saw the Holocaust Memorial. This memorial is very different than anything else we have seen. It's not obvious what it is alluding to at all. Its just hundreds of stone blocks, all different sizes. You can walk through it and evaluate what it means for yourself. Some people play hide and seek in it because people disappear and reappear in front of your eyes beacause of all the blocks. Our tour guide said she saw that as conveying its sense of hope, that people can still play in something that signifies such a terrible part of history. There is an exhibition underground which we toured a few days later. It was incredibly intense. It had diary entries of 15 actual victims. It had a room about a select number of actual families that were affected. It talked about a few of the concentration camps. It was almost too much for us.

After our tour we went back to the hostel to rest up for a pub crawl! Thats right...we had to do at least one. And Berlin was the place to do it. This city never sleeps. We had a good group of people to meet up with from a neighboring hostel that we met on the tour. Two of the girls we actually had met in Prague on our tour there! So we hung out with them, some Australian guys, and some guys from UVA (again!) and partied and danced the night away.

The next day we went to the German History Museum. We read more in depth about WW2 and the Holocaust and the Commuist times. We then went to look more closely at Checkpoint Charlie and had lunch at Einsteins Cafe! The next day we looked at the Holocaust memorial that I described before, but more in depth. Afterwards we tried to go look at the Topography of Terror-the site where the Nazi headquarters were. But it was beginning to be overload. We were feeling overwhelmed and upset about all the holocaust stuff we have been hearing about. So we decided we needed something happy. Luckily, Berlin houses one of the best and biggest chocolate stores in the world!

We headed to the chocolate store for some happy chocolate time :) We got DELICIOUS chocolate mousse desserts and coffees with ice cream. MMMMM. After taking pictures with a ton of the Berlin bears around town (kind of like the hokie birds around blacksburg...the bear is the symbol of Berlin), we grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant which Christie had been hardcore craving. We then headed to the main square by the Brandenburg Gate to watch Germany vs Ghana in the WORLD CUP!

Let me just say it was NUTSSSSS. We couldnt even see down the whole street until they showed it on tv. We were among millions upon millions of Germans crowding the streets watching the game. We didnt get there until halftime. But we were there when Germany scored. We actually couldnt stand there the whole time because it was too crowded. So we ran up the street to a cafe to watch. And Germany wonnn!!! Deutschlandddd! People filled the streets after the game going crazy. After long days and nights we turned in early before catching our train to Copenhagen the following evening.

Okay I wrote a lot of this out of order because it was hard to remember. But you get the general idea!

Love and miss you guys. We are definitely feeling the wariness of travelling in this last week. But we are seeing amazing things and can't wait share it with you in person!

Love
Nicole, Chrisite, Tricia

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh i forgot to explain the walking man lights!

Basically in East Berlin they had the lights that tell you when you can cross the street like every other city, but their lights had a little man in a top hat. It is so cute. They had stores with the walking man everywhere too. It is like a Berlin "thing." And you know you are in East Berlin if you see it and in West Berlin if you dont.

Unknown said...

lol aw that is cute!! i can't wait to see pics and everything :D I MISS YOU AHHH. when u get back we HAVE to go to the river

Anonymous said...

we will my love!

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