Berlin

Hey, I unfortunately am going to have to do Berlin in a hot rush as I have another trip this weekend to sum up! So sorry for the delay! So March 6th you see I woke up at 1:15 already packed and ready to go. I met Katie in the lobby and we walked down to breakfast together. Yes at 1 am. We met the other 7 people that we were going with to Berlin plus the two chaperones (one our German prof the other an administrator). This trip was organised by the school and we just had to pay extra money for it, but it ended up being worth it. We got on the mini-bus at 2am and it drove us to some London airport that I cant remember which one it was. We were very tired. To be honest we kind of sleep walked through the whole going through the airport and getting on the plane and flying to Berlin and stuff. A lot of the time we actually slept. We got there we somehow managed to get the S-Bahn (which is soo confusing by the way) to our hostel and put all our things in our room. Next step was a two hour walking tour of Berlin in german. Quite funny when the guy initially started talking and we had no idea what he was saying. He was English so he dumbed down the German for us. We saw a bunch of stuff, all of which can be seen on my facebook pretty much. After that we went for lunch as a group, I had sausage which was amazing, no lie. Then Katie, Elizabeth L, Tessa and I went to see a small chunk of the wall that was still standing then decided to explore around. Katie and I got seperated from the other two and decided to just wander around looking for bookstores. After looking in a bunch of touristy shops we came upon an old used book store with all these really old amazing books everywhere. I was in the search for the Grim Brothers Tales in German and found a complete collection for not that much. Katy also found a book on German grammer and a short story. Quite pleased with our purchases we made our way to the hostel where we were to meet the rest of the group for dinner. We made our way to a traditional german mealed resaraunt. Our poor guides aparently havea bad sense of direction as they got uite lost on their way there. We eventually got there and settled down for a meal. I got very trigger happy with the camera and just went crazy taking interesting photos. We tried some German beer and I had something interesting for dinner, though I dont remember what. I had some nice chats with my German prof about stuff and we basically all had a good time stuffing ourselves and chatting. Next step was to bed and sleepify anough for the next day.

Ooo, one thing I forgot about that first day was the fact that Katie and I stopped into a bakery and each bought something we thought looked/sounded Germanie. She got this interesting brown bread and I got this unrecognizable mass of something that looked to be labeled something about a muffin with Vanilla or something. Basically it turned out to be this kind of bread with cookie crummbled all overthe top and glued on/smothered in this vanilla sugar icingie coating. Needless to say it was amazing and it ended up lasting me that day and the next whic hI will talk about in this paragraph. So we woke up on March 7th at a relatively decent hour, had the complimentary breakfast and then made our way to the Berlin Wall with the group. I got a lot of great photos and it was really interesting to see all the graffitti and statements on it. Our next stop was checkpoint Charlie. This is a museum dedicated to the division of Germany after the war. Really really interesting. Especially all the ways that people attempted or succeeded in escaping; like tunnels and parts of cars and suitcases and other strange methods. After this Katie, Elizabeth L, BJ and I made our way walking through Tier Garten to the Worlds Largest Sex Museum. Tier Garten was kinda sad since it was kinda gloomy out, but there were still some interesting pieces of art and monuments to check out. Once we actually got in the vicinity of the museum it took a good ten minutes to figure out where it was. I eventually spotted it and we made our way over. It wasnt that much to go through it so we paid went through. It was really interesting actually. A lot of historical erotic art. A lot of it Japanese, but other forms too. There were also Bad News Bears, which are little clay-made bears doing inappropriate things. I have pictures i will put up eventually. I later on bought a couple key-chain versions because the actual ones were really expensive. The one I use for my door key now is the one with a giant..."sandwich" or at lest thats what most people think at first, until they see this little bag of the same greenish substance next to the bear. Anywho, if you found that vague enough lets to the next part of my tale!

Oh and the other bear will have to be a surprise for when I come home. Hee! So after the sex museum Katie and Elizabeth made their way (walking) to the CharlotteSchloss (castle) and BJ and I made our way by S-Bahn back to the hostel to meet people for another traditional German dinner. We got confused on the way back because there is also the U-Bahn which is different but they appear the same on the map given. We did make it back in time thank god and the group made our way to a local dinner place. We had two seperate tables that were near each other, but I ended up talking to BJ, Abigale (German prof) and the other chaperon (sorry I am having a brain fart on his name). I had traditional German meat balls or whatever and it was ok, but not my favourite. I kinda wish I had had the sausage instead. But it was really good conversation about various things. I had awhole pint of some kind of bear as we were brought a bunch of different kinds to try at the beginning of the meal and told to choose one. The place was very crowded after a while and they only had one person working so after a while of waiting we just calcuated how much we owed ourselves and left the money on the table and departed. I fell asleep quite easily that night.

The last day, the 8th, our first stop was the Reichstag. This is the main government building in Berlin. We got a special tour of the place. The guy who gavethe tour had a very dry sense of humour and it was quite funny to listen to and watch him. We got to see a bunch of main rooms including the gathering room thing where they do all their legislature and stuff. Walking through it felt like I was in some sci-fi movie. It was crazyness futuristic. When Katie and i went to the washroom we walked through these halls that were way to big and clear the be real and had these huge doors open automatically for us but in some weird sci-fi kind of way. Anywho, needless to say the whole experience was quite interesting. Next we went up to the roof, which is well known apparently. The Reichstag is the most visited government building in the world, which I could beleive as it is quite marvolous. We again all went to lunch afterwards and had some good food, I had this milkshake like thing that was very good. Next we all made our way to the DDR museum that was all about life in the DDR before the wall came down. It was soo interesting. All the differences and things they had to do and stuff. Quite cool. Katie and I made our way to the German Market after that. We wandered around and looked at lots of art as well as old historic items and tons and tons of books. Lastly we both grabbed a sausage, that was seriously one of the best sausages I have ever had! Our next task was to meet the rest of the gang for our ride home. We made the S-Bahn to the airport and chatted about books the whole way. We easily got through at the airport and had not too long to wait to get on the plane. We all got a bunch of German chocolate, which I later found very good. I bought a giant Kinder Egg surprise! It was amazing! Anywho I got really loopy on the plane and ended up pretty much knocking myself out with two gravol which kept me steadily asleep all the way back to Bader. There was only the task of going through customs, but that wasnt so bad. We met up with a bunch of people coming back from Barcelona including my room mate. When we got back to Bader Hall they had food for us even though it was 2am, it was really nice of them though. Not bad either.

So that was Berlin in a nutshell, or osterich egg. Oh well, I will sum up last weekend too...lots o drinking. Just jokes, only ones night of drinking but it was epic I would say. We (Kari, Cameron, Amanda, Heather and I) stole a short table thing from somewhere and put it in the middle of Kari's room. We set the laptop up on a chair just beside it and all sat around the table mixing and drinking drinks. We spent the rest of the night chatting and drinking and watching James Bond films. I did not go back to my room until 7:30am as my brilliant plan was to sober up before I went to bed and watch skins season three on kari's laptop. Needless to say I spent pretty much the entire next day almost in bed. But I got better and I am here now! So lots of love to all you readers out there and I will try to do this sooner next week!