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So, finally we reached Berlin. To be honest, we were all kind of cranky and tired ... it was raining, and I was kind of ready to go home. So that probably affected my opinion of Berlin, because frankly I wasn't too big on it. I mean, it is chock full of history (ie: everything nazi), but I found the communist architecture and the modernism that replaced destroyed buildings just blah. Anyway ...
Our hostel in Berlin was by far the best accommodations. It was just really clean, there was a pool table, and free breakfast that was pretty good. The girls all shared a room, and we had a private bathroom connected to it. So that was great.
Our flight arriving was about 3 hours delayed, so we got into Berlin late. The first thing we did was go to the Jewish History Museum/Holocaust Museum. Which frankly is just a great way to kick off Berlin. But in all seriousness, it was a nice museum, the architecture of the building itself was interesting. But it was very sad. That night some of us went out to dinner, and i got a delicious pork chop and beer!
Since this was our only full day in Berlin there was loads on the agenda. We walked around the streets for awhile, we saw the first Jewish Synagog, a giant TV Signal Tower, Alexanderplatz (basically a fountain), and a platz with a big statue of Karl Marx and giant stones with etchings of people working. Very communist and peculiar. As we continued our walk, we popped into a bank that the famous architect Frank Gehry designed the interior of. We weren't allowed all the way into the bank, but it was pretty wild looking (see photos).
We then waited forever in line to go up to the roof this government building, Reichtag, to go into the big dome staircase thing, which was cool. You got to see a lot of the city from the top. Next stop was the jewish memorial, which was nice because we had learned about it in glass. It is suppose to resemble a lot of graves, as you can see in the pictures, but also gives the visitor an uneasy, nervous feeling. It was a good experience.
We all had lunch together in Potsdamer Platz, and I got goulash which was amazing! We must have more goulash when I come home. From there we took a train out to a Charlottenburg Palace. It was nice to see a Palace at a different scale than Versailles, it was really nice. There was a pond where there were LOADS of ducks, some very interesting kinds I had never seen before two. And since I love ducks, I took an obnoxious amount of pictures and fed them some. They would walk right up and you could feed them out of your hand!
Our final day, we went to the Tiergarden, a large garden area. Kind of like the Central Park of Berlin. Afterwards we went to the "Topography of Terror", an exhibit on Nazi Crimes held outdoors in the ruins of the old Nazi Headquarters. This was also very sad.
This was the end of the field trip. It was long, but I saw a lot of great stuff. My favorite was definitely Barcelona because the architecture, people, and food was great. I liked Paris more when I went with you all, probably because we stayed in nice place and the weather was nicer. Berlin was my least favorite, all though the people are nice, the Nazi thing still kind of freaks me out, and the overall vibe is way to rigid.
This weekend, I'm off to Sicily to see Sue Graeff and Joe McArdle. We have Monday off from school, so it'll be a nice weekend!
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