Willkommen Bienvenue Welcome

Guten Tag! I hope everyone is doing well back in the states! Please keep me updated on everything that you are up to! I got back last night from a weekend in Berlin. It was a very nice city. It was not my favorite, but was worth going just to see all the historical landmarks in the city.

The weekend really started Wednesday afternoon. My World Drama class on Thursday was canceled because we had to see a show (Greek drama Ajax) that night instead. So all of Thursday I had nothing to do, and frankly, was a little bored. I did laundry, a little homework and just relaxed. Then at 6 o'clock, my class got on a bus and drove to Utrecht. Utrecht is in The Netherlands and is about 2 hours away near Amsterdam. There was a lot of traffic and we ended up missing the first 10 minutes or so of the show. The show was in Dutch, so instantaneously half the class was bored out of their minds. Everyone was fidgeting and laughing, but I personally thought it was a brilliant production. The actors were very good (Judging just by their vocal inflections and physicality) and it was visually stunning. The stage was racked (It was on an extreme tilt). It started at the audience and went up almost so you couldn't see the top of it and it had all these grooves in it. It looked almost like one of those bumpy slides, just a lot wider and made of wood. In order to get up the stage, the actors had to run up it. A lot of people liked the look of the stage but thought it was stupid to have a stage thats unmanageable for the actors and thought they looked stupid. However, after the show we had a talk back with the actors who played Ajax and his wife, and they said the stage was supposed to represent how unstable and unbalanced their lives were, and the whole point of the set was to throw the actors off balance. Once again, I thought it was an incredible production.

We didn't get back to the castle until around 12:30 and we needed to wake up at 6 the next morning so we could get to the bus at 7. I was planning on packing really quick and then going to bed before 1 so I could get as much sleep as I could, but instead my entire room decided to go outside and smoke. At around 1 when I was about to fall asleep, 10 or so people came in my room and were really loud and obnoxious. At first I played off the whole everyone-is-high-all-the-time thing as funny, but now it is just starting to irritate me. Especially because people don't understand why I haven't tried it, and still continue to try and get me high. Luckily I have good will power and don't believe in peer pressure. After about 5 minutes of people acting like 9 year olds, I decided to be a bitch and kick everyone out. But then of course by this point I was worked up, and could not fall asleep. I think I got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep total that night.

The next morning I woke up, took and shower, finished packing and ran to the bus by 7. In the morning rush, I forgot to check the weather to find out that it would be frigid cold in Berlin, and I forgot to bring a hat or gloves with me. Oh well, it didn't end up too bad. We got on the bus to Venlo and caught our train at 8. As our trip went on, our group got progressively smaller and smaller. Friday morning it was me, Lauren, Jessica, David, Chris, Meredith, Lauren's friend Trevor who was visiting, Blake, Lily, Michelle and Caroline. When we got to Berlin, Lily, Michelle, and Caroline stayed in another hostel and we ended up never seeing them the rest of the trip. Saturday morning Blake left to go see his family friends who lived in Berlin, and we didn't see him again. Then Sunday, Trevor flew out of Berlin. We left with 11 of us, and came back with only 6.

After a little delay with the train, we got to Berlin around 3. When we arrived, we were greeted by blistering cold and torrential downpour. Ok so it was about 50 degrees and lightly raining, but I wanted it to seem a lot more dramatic than it is.


The Berlin train station

We walked out of the train station and got on the bus to take us to our hostel. Our hostel turned out to be really nice. Everything was clean and because there were 8 of us staying together, we had a room all to ourselves. After getting settled we decided to start exploring a little. We decided to try and find the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag. On the way over there I decided to keep making jokes about the Berlin wall. We would walk by a random building and I would go "Oh guys...here I found the wall!" But then after making a joke, one of the times, it actually turned out to be the wall.




I was a little dissapointed because Friday (November 9th) was the 18th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I thought that there would be some sort of celebration going on that we could watch, but there was nothing at all. We asked the guy at the hostel and he said they celebrate in October when they have Unification Day. It was still really cool to be there on that day. I just kept picturing those pictures and videos of everyone gathered around breaking down the wall, and David Hasselhoff singing...

After we walked around the wall a little we continued onto Brandenberg Gates which was absolutely beautiful.



Once again, I just kept picturing those photos we always see in history class of this area PACKED with people when Hitler rose to power and I just could not believe how much this city has gone through within the century.

Behind the gates, there was this art instilation that I had read about online. This artist erected this wall to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and was going to tear it down on the anniversary.


It kind of reminded me of an iPod commercial





The guys (Me, David, Chris, Blake, and Trevor)


The Reichstag


Shakey Face outside the Reichstag





We found out it is free to go to the top of the Reichstag so of course we did it.





There was this really cool modern lookout point at the top that had a great view of the city.

After walking around in the freezing cold for a little more longer, we decided to just go back to the hostel and get something to eat at the bar downstairs. Turns out, the bar attached to the hostel was amazing and was only 4 or 5 euros for a burger. It was one of the cheapest meals I have had since I got here and was amazing. After dinner we went back to the room, talked a little and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and started our day. Our main goal for the day was to find the Jewish Museum. Considering it is on the other end of the city, we took our time and walked and explored a little.


The TV Tower. Kind of ugly, but it helped us find our way home later than night.


I forget what this building was, but it was pretty.


Really nice fountain. I wish it was on.


The sky was really weird. It was really dark and cloudy on one side, and really blue on the other...



The Berliner Dome


Lauren, from California, is not used to the cold and decided to not have any skin exposed to it.


Checkpoint Charlie. In order to get from East to West Berlin, you had to pass through Checkpoint Charlie





Me standing on what used to be the Berlin Wall.

We got a quick bite for lunch at a sandwich place. While eating, we looked out side and it was SNOWING! But it wasn't normal snow. At first we thought it was sleet or hale, but it wasn't ice. It was literally little tiny snowballs falling from the sky. Imagine Dipin' Dots. The same size, shape, and consistency of those.



Snow in Berlin

Finally we got to the Jewish Museum. Not gonna lie, I did not really want to go and thought it would be sort of boring. It turned out to be a really really nice museum that was really informative and cool. It showed the history of Jews from Biblical times up until today. They explained a lot of their traditions and rituals that are still performed today. They also had a lot of interactive things like how to write your name in Hebrew letters.


Yup...they had a yamika (sp?) with the Friends on them.


They had a shabbis dinner set up


...But I was all alone. It really made me miss the Lewins.

By the time we were done with the Museum it was dark and we were all hungry. It took us a while to find a place to eat, but we eventually found it and it was pretty good.


Schnitzel with noodles (Or fries...)


Me and Meredith


All of us at dinner

After dinner we walked back. It was a really long walk, and no one really knew where we were going, but we found our way eventually.

The next morning we woke up early, ate breakfast and got on the train to come back home. Overall it was a pretty smooth weekend. Nothing too exciting, but nothing boring either. Oh well, I live in a castle.