Berlin

So I got back from Berlin this morning at 6:30 am after a delightful 9 hour bus ride. The ride wasnt actually as bad as it may sound. I slept most of the way there and back so it was tolerable. We arrived in Berlin at like 9 am Saturday morning and immediately found ourselves lost in a world of German. Somehow we managed to get directions to our hostel via the metro. When we arrived at the hostel we checked in but couldn't go to our room until like 3 or something so we had a lot of time to kill. Luckily a FREE daily tour of Berlins historical sites leaves from our hostel everyday at 1030. So we decided to do that. Little did we know that for nearly the next 5 hours we would be walking approx 10 kilometers around Berlin in 20 degree weather. Welcome to Germany! Anyways, along the tour we saw all the famous sites. The Brandenburg Gate, The Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe, the site of Hitler's Bunker, former headquarters of the Nazi S.S. (the only remaining Nazi building in Berlin), the remaining 100 meter stretch of the Berlin Wall, the site of the famous Nazi book burning in 1933, the famous East Berlin TV tower, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off the balcony, and of course bunch of famous churches, museums, libraries, and palaces that I can't remember the names of. It was a good tour but I wasn't pretty frozen and exhausted by the end of it all. After the tour, we met up with a friend of a kid I was traveling with who is studying in Berlin for the semester. He took us around the areas of Berlin that weren't exactly on the tour. He showed up some pretty cool stuff, and we got some dinner at some Italian restaurant (despite spending 3 days and 2 nights in Germany I don't think I ate a single piece of food that could be called "German).


Saturday night was quite the adventure. People in Germany don't really go out before 1 or 2 am and the bars and clubs don't close until 8 or 9 am. So needless to say it was a pretty crazy night, that included verbal altercations with club bouncers who didn't like Americans, memorable encounters with Transit Authority Officials, some weird German pizza, and lots of walking blindly around the city following the one kid who knew where he was going. All in all, it was a really fun night, but I think it really gave me a much greater appreciation, for Amsterdam, and how much I have already come to like this city. Berlin is massive and complicated, not all that nice in a many areas, and people are no where near as friendly as here in Amsterdam (not that I honestly expected it to be any other way). So after finally going to sleep in the early hours of Sunday, we got up around lunch time and went to a Turkish place, allegedly run by the German mob, for some kabbabs. Afterwards, we went into the city in search of another spot where they still have a piece of the Berlin Wall Up, but its not in its original form like the other one. It has been painted with these amazing murals by famous artists from all over the world. So we thought that would be cool to see, but after nearly 2 hours of getting lost on the metro and then a bus, we gave up on the wall and found our way into the German Museum of Contemporary Art (at least thats what we think it translates into). We walked around there for about two hours and actually had a really good time for 4 guys in an art museum. The place was huge, and full of a lot of really good art, and also a lot of really weird stuff that people have created, so it was cool to walk around in. After that we all met up back at the hostel and made reservations to this restaraunt called "The Bird" that is famous in Berlin for being the best burger in town and a really cool bar. And they did not dissapoint. We filled a table with 12 people, and the burgers and fries and pitchers were flowing all night. The burger was AMAZING. One of the best meals I've had since being in Europe. And like I said all night, "thats just how we do it in America." And The Bird truly was a little piece of American soil right in the heart of Berlin. In fact, a handful of us enjoyed ourselves some much at The Bird, that we ended staying there the entire night until a delightful German cab driver delivered us safely to our hostel many hours later.

By Monday, I was pretty exhausted and spent much of the morning and early afternoon hanging around our hostel, which was actually a really cool place, with a huge bar and a cool lounge area. In the late afternoon we made our way out of the hostel and went downtown. Well there isnt exactly a centralized downtown in Berlin like in most cities, but I guess we were in the shopping district. Which, for a unemployed college student on a tight budget, is not the most exciting place to be. But it was fine, and eventually we got some dinner at a Thai restaraunt. After Thai food, we only had about an hour and a half until our bus left so we hustled back to the hostel to get our stuff. We hopped on the train after that and rode it until we got to the bus station. Got on the bus about 20 minutes before departure, put on my headphones and rocked out for about 2 hours until I passed out. Next thing I knew we were in Amsterdam at 6 30 in the morning, remembering I had class in 4 hours. Got a quick nap in, biked to class, went shopping for groceries, and wrote this blog. That's all for now. One European adventure in the books.

Peace & Love