Taken from Journal: November 3rd (Saturday)

I am currently sitting in an American type bar waiting for my dinner. The last 2 days in Berlin have been eventful to say the least and I have fallen in Love with Berlin and Germany in general. Ironically Germany was the country I really didn't mind if I didn't visit. I was only doing it to get Andrew a christmas present. Berlin however has become one of my favorite cities.

So yesterday I woke up a little late and by the time I got myself up it was about noon. To my very pleasant surprise my hostel is right in the center of everything! (I mean, when its 1am and you take a taxi to your hostel because the S-bahn isn't running things can be overlooked lol). So I just kinda wandered around wasting time till 1pm where I went to the Bergantor Gate to take a free tour. The tour was good, saw the Bergantor Gate, Reinstaig, the Holocaust Memorial (one of the most moving memorials I have ever seen). We then went to where Hitler's bunker stood, to the Berlin Wall (which wasn't all that spectacular), Checkpoint Charlie (3rd checkpoint when traveling to west berlin) and then lunch. After our lunch we went to Babel Platz which was the place where the Nazi's burned books (yet another moving memorial) and across from the Platz was Humbolt University where Einstein taught. Our last stops were at Museum Island where we saw the Altes musem and the Berliner Dom (church built in 1902). Overall the tour was awesome..oh...and I forgot to mention one thing IT WAS POURING THE ENTIRE TIME!!! And I didn't have an umbrella. (which is probably why I am sick now lol). So after all of that I went back to my hostel, changed and went to a Pub crawl. I ended up meeting a bunch of girls who were also studying in London and a bunch of british boys too. We all hung out that night and had a great time just going around bar in Berlin.

So that was Friday. Today was cool too. I had originally set out to do a concentration camp tour, but since it was such a nice day, randomly decided to go to the Berlin Zoo. Unknown to me, Berlin has the largest zoo in the world and contains the most species! who woulda thought!? I walked around the zoo for about 2 hours and then walked around the surrounding city, taking pictures, watching street performs, eating berliner currywurst (interesting, but I'm not a fan of sausage lol). I went back to my hostel, took a little nap and then headed out to dinner where I currently am at now.

Overall I have had a great past 2 days in Germany and it's been amazing. I already don't want to leave, and I'm still here for 2 more days lol.

Oh! 2 things I forgot! Yesterday I went to the DDR museum which was really cool. It is a really personal museum that allowed you to read journals and books from young german students (all in german obviously), but all really cool regardless. I cant imagine what it would have been like growing up as a young boy back then. Today I went to the Perganom musem. It was pretty cool. The reconstructed and entire city which was cool, and the gates of Istar where there and huge alters and friezes from ancient Babylon. It was a small musem, but cool. Can't wait for tomorrow!!