Ich Liebe Dich, Berlin

Hey!

Just got back from Germany today! wow, first I would like to say that getting to and from Germany is hard work...REALLY HARD WORK and yes...there is a HUGE language barrier. When people say, 'Oh yes, well, everyone is Germany speaks English...' don't believe them. T-T That was seriously the only problem that we had in Berlin. People could speak English but not very well. It was very awkward and not what we were expecting at all. On our part, we would say "danke" for "thank you" and "Kein Deutscher" for "no German" when people started speaking to us and "Morgan" for "Morning!" but that was all we really knew. So many people kept telling us that many of the signs were in English as well...that was also wrong. Many of the signs (and menus in restaurants for that matter) were not in English. I don't think it would have been as hard if Caroline and I weren't vegetarian and Nikta wasn't vegan, so it was kind of difficult to eat anywhere that wasn't a Dunkin Donuts or a McDonalds. So, with that out of the way...I will explain Germany! ^_^

We arrived in Hamburg, Germany Thursday night/Friday morning. We wanted to visit Shanna's very nice and helpful friend Julie, who was residing there because of school. When we got there (1:00am) we found out that she had to go to school the next day, so we all decided to get up with her. She brought us to the U-bahn (the Tube in Germany) and told us what stop we needed to get off on so that we could take and bus to Berlin. We got at the bus station, had some MickyDs and got on the 11:30am bus to Berlin. It was a smooth bus ride...that took 3 hours... >_< nevertheless we had a great time reading, talking, eating cookies and sleeping. When we finally got to Berlin we tried desperately to figure out where our hostel, BaxPax was. It was crazy because at first we thought that we were staying in the ghetto of Berlin. There was SO MUCH GRAFFITI and punkers that we felt extremely intimidated. It would only be the next day before we discovered that Berlin was like that EVERYWHERE!! Anyway, after we finally found BaxPax we found an amazing vegetarian diner (the only place with an english menu!) on our street called Yellow Sunshine. It was so amazing! When we got back to our hostel we found that we were sharing a huge room with 16 other people, most of them boys. We didn't mind this because there were enough bathrooms to spare and everyone kept to themselves. The only funny thing was that these guys slept in their underwear (teehee). It might be a European thing...it might not...whatever reason these guys were almost naked, no doubt about that.

The very next day, Nikita and I pulled out a map and figured out the walking distance to the center of Berlin. Shanna had found an add in our map that told us about a free tour that started at Brandenburg Gate. We walked a good 30 mins to get to the main part of Berlin, put the city was ahead of Canterbury when it came to fall time so it was a lovely walk indeed. We took the free tour (we found out that it was the same company Nikita and I encountered in Edinburgh) and had a splendid time. We saw what was left of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's Bunker, The National Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe (whew!), and other neat things. It was so beautiful and haunting. Later that afternoon we made an effort to go to a place called Freidrichshain. We had to take the U-bahn to get there. Professor Sanders gave me a list of all these very neat vegan/vegetarian restaurants that were supposedly in this area. We were too late to catch the nifty thrift shops near there but the food places were still open! We got our dessert to go from a CUTE place called *Cupcake* and got to pizza at an Italian restaurant where you could write your name on the wall. It was MMMMMMMM GOOOOOOD food.

The next day (Sunday), all four of us got up early and went to Brandenberg Gate to meet up for another tour that would take us to Sachsenhausen. The nerve center and model for all of the concentration camps (particularly Auschwitz). This was a very disturbing experience. We were almost going to go to Poland for the day and see Aushwitz instead but decided that time would not be on our side. Well, I'm happy to say that I'm glad we didn't go to Aushwitz...Sachsenhausen was bad enough. Our tour guide was pretty good about telling us the stories and the history of the first ever WWII concentration camp. It was so sad. I cried a few times and the other girls were just depressed. When we got out of there Shanna admitted to me that she would have not been able to handle Auschwitz, I agreed with her.

Here is a link to Wikipedia's description in more detail...mind you it doesn't do it much justice though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenhausen_concentration_camp

When we were done for the day, we took a bus back to Julie's in Hamburg and stayed for the night again. The next day, we came home. It was such a thrilling experinece being in Berlin! I would not have given up for anything. <3