Berlin: Sightseeing

 
So this morning,  we had an optional walking tour of Berlin, which most of the group if not all of us went on. We had a really great tour guide, who was funny, and very knowledgeable, so I enjoyed listening to him. He took us to the major sights of Berlin within the main city center. President Obama was actually in Berlin the day before giving a speech, right where we were walking past , but unfortunately he was just there over night so we didn't get to catch a glimpse of him.

My president heard I was going to be in Berlin, and decided to greet me on arrival

Anyways, we started off at the Brandenburg Gate, and then took a glance at the Hotel Adlon and saw the balcony where Michael Jackson stood when he dangled his baby off the balcony back in 2010.

Brandenburg Gate

We also continued on our tour and saw the Holocaust Memorial, which is a composition of various concrete slabs at different heights which cover a specified area. It was interesting to hear our tour guide talk about it, as he explained to us, that it is based upon interpretation:  Some people see the various slopes and grades of the slabs as showing the increasing number or Jews killed during this time, while others look at it like a public "cemetary" for those killed. The slabs start at ground level and increase and look almost like a maze initially from the outside, but as you go through it, you get a realization of how many people truly lost their life during the Holocaust.

After going past the Holocaust Memorial, we also walked onto this "parking lot", which turns out to be built on top of where Hitler died by committing suicide, and where his barracks used to be, and remains still under this parking lot. We also headed over to Checkpoint Charlie, which was the crossing point between East and West Berlin.  Although we saw pieces of the Berlin Wall, as it is all throughout the city in various areas. We were also shown the line where the Berlin Wall stood (Berliner Mauer) that symbolizes the actual division between both East and West Berlin, and I was able to get a picture of myself standing on both sides.

Checkpoint Charlie

Standing over the Berliner Mauer

After this point, we were free to take our own time and explore the city, and so I decided to head over to the Tranenpalast or Palace of Tears, which was the former border crossing station, so there is now a museum in front of this station which is still present to this day, which gave history about the people who had crossed through there, and showed some of their stories and personal items and suitcases and such. After this, I headed on to the Berlin Wall Memorial and walked through there, although their is nothing but ruins, and mostly just descriptions of  what used to be there, it was interesting to see.

So now we're off to our last stop on this amazing lifetime trip, and they saved the craziest city for LAST.......AMSTERDAM here we come!

Only 4 more days..... :(

Today we left Prague to head off to Berlin, but not without a quick pit stop in Dresden for some lunch. We did our own thing while here, walking around the city, saw a few sights on the main path, and grabbed a bite to eat. While in Dresden, I saw a church called "Church of Our Lady" in English, the Semper Opera House, the Zwinger Palace, and a porcelain mural called "The Procession of Princes" which is the largest porcelain mural in the world...pretty neat!

Here are a few pictures from Dresden, before we move on to Berlin:

"Our Church of Our Lady" ( Frauenkirche)

The Procession of Princes

Zwinger Palace

So now we're off for our first night in Berlin, and then we'll have another free day to explore the city tomorrow.

So once we get into Berlin, we get to our hostel which is SUPER adorable, although it is a hostel now, it used to house a school, so it just had a neat feel to it, and they had all this random but interesting art all over the hostel. Every stairway had cool art, and they had paintings on the walls, and entrance way, and sculptures in the garden, and even had an artist's den in the middle of the garden. It was really cool, such a great vibe for a city which has so much history and pain behind it.

Well when we get to the hostel, my usual roomies: Asa, Alissa and Diya had quite the experience, because like Prague, this hostel had no AC (or so we thought). However, when we got to our room and were getting settled in, Aaron (Alissa's Brother), and some other people were messaging us about how they had AC in their rooms, and so then we were like "what the hell?!?!" and of course after our nights in Prague, we definitely wanted AC if there was an option for it. So we headed to the hotel reception to see if we might be able to get a room with AC, and they did agree and had us change rooms. We were so excited about this (sad how we take the smallest things for granted normally right).......until we got to our new room, which low and behold had AC, BUT it was broken!!!  Just our luck I swear. So at this point, we just gave up our chase for AC and sucked it up, because we still got a bigger room and we liked the layout better.

Anyways, after this whole episode, we had about 1 1/2-2 hours until we had to meet the rest of the group for dinner at the hostel restaurant, so me, Alissa, and Alvix decided to go get some beers and walk down by the river which was right across the street from our hotel. It was great, it was actually kind of breezy by the river, and we got to see some pieces of the Berlin Wall that people had painted on (there are random pieces strewn throughout the city which have been decorated by artists), anyways, we just talked and walked along the river, and took some pictures and enjoyed each other's company ,since our time together was slowly coming to an end soon. After we walked along the river we headed back for our last group dinner together, which was actually really good. It was bruschetta, pasta, and dessert.

After dinner, we all went back to our rooms to get ready to party one last time at the club before we left Europe!! The biggest club in Berlin called The Matrix, was right across the street from our hostel as well,so that was really nice and convenient, go out, have a good time, and stumble right across the street back to our beds.....lol !!! It was a really nice club though, had lounge seats, cages and poles to dance on, two or three different rooms to venture into, and the best part was that they were having a Buy 1 Get one Free night on their drinks ALL NIGHT LONG, which was awesome!!! I stumbled across this discovery when I ordered some wine, because it was cheaper than most of the liquor drinks (as wine seems to always be cheaper in Europe), and the lady handed me 2 drinks. I was stoked, this was about to make for a fun night!  ;)

Anyways, we danced the night away and everyone had a great night one last time!! This trip has definitely been full of a good mixture of history, sightseeing, memories, laughter, partying, and more!!!!

Hostel Art

Hostel Art

Sculpture down by the river

These are three of my favorite paintings on the wall down by the river:

Symbolizing a phoenix rising like Berlin did after the war

Symbolizing two sides divided and the wall in between

8 days left: Off to Germany (Munich)

After leaving Switzerland we headed towards Germany, but first made a stop off in Liechtenstein, which is one of the top four smallest countries in Europe. During this trip I have visited 3 of those 4: 1) Vatican City 2) Monaco 3) Liechtenstein the fourth is in Italy.

Anyways, being so small we just stopped by here as a breaking point in our trip so we could get some lunch and chill out off the bus for a bit.

Once we got back on the bus, we headed to Munich. Upon arriving in Munich, since we only had one night in the city, there wasn't much time to see all that Munich has to offer, but as soon as we arrived to the hostel, the first thing a group of us did was head to the Dachau concentration camp. The camp was one of the first which was established after Hitler came into power. It was so sad to go there and read about and see where so many people were tortured and executed. I mean you have heard about all of this in your history books and classes, but to see in front of you what once was, and to stand upon the area where so many dies, was such a sad moment. Germany has never been on the top of my list of places that I had to visit in my life, but I am glad I am having the chance to come through Munich, as well as go through Berlin near the end of this trip. Although the city does have a lot of sadness and history behind it, they have come far from that, and rebuilt themselves. However, you still sense a bit of dreariness I feel when here.

We had a group dinner that evening, so we left the camp and headed into the city center for our dinner at Augustine's. It was a typical German dish, with sausages, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes with none other than German Beer! I wasn't quite sure how I'd like it, because I'm not a big fan of sausages and have never had sauerkraut, but it was really good! 

As you can see with this before and after:

PhotoBombers: Alvix and Carly  Picture: Me, Phil (our bus driver), and Diya

It was so much fun being at dinner with everyone, drinking beer and laughing and having a good time!!! Everyone was getting in on the "beer" experience of Munich, people were chugging beers, buying 1 liter steins of beer, I mean if their is anywhere to go all out with the beer, Germany is definitely the place! 

Our table at dinner

After dinner me and about 3 other people  decided to head over to the Haufberhaus, this restaurant is famous due to the history of it. It was the restaurant where Hitler would gather his followers and party and give speeches to them. We decided to go ahead and have a beer while we were there. It ended up being a great night because we were sitting with an elderly gentleman who was  a legend at the place. He and his family had been coming and sitting at the same table for the past 45 years. He also because he was a "regular" had his own stein which was locked away until he came and needed it. It was just a cool concept to see that. He was also extremely hilarious due to a bit of intoxication, he was telling us stories about Ernest Hemingway, drew a picture of the US for us and more.  LoL! 

This is the room where Hitler would give his speeches (from the Balcony)

We stuck around a bit after our beers and just watched some German dancers and then called it a night and headed back to the hostel.

We are off to Vienna tomorrow....