Remembering Berlin

So, as today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about my trip to Berlin. :)

Berlin was so much fun. I spent one week there with my classmates and our homeroom teacher. We had to leave the school at 11:00pm and drive for nearly 10 hours before we reached the city. After arriving, we went sight seeing around the city. Among the things I saw were the Reichstag, Brandenberg Gate, Victory Tower, Potsdamer Platz... just to name a few. Unfortunatly it was raining, and very cold, but we were able to stop for Starbucks. I was excited, i haven't seen a Starbucks shop since I left the US. All the girls in my class were excited about it too. It was interesting to cross from former East Berlin into Former West Berlin. Even today, it wasn't really difficult to tell the difference. I must say though, the pedestrian traffic lights in East Berlin were so much more entertaining than in West Berlin. To remember the Wall, a line has been drawn in place of where the Wall once stood. In the afternoon, we went to the Story of Berlin Museum and the Berlin Atomic Bomb bunker. In the Evening we went to a theature and watched an improv. show.

The museum was so interesting. There was so much information and things to see, I wish we could have stayed longer. I saw a section of the Berlin Wall that was on display there, and even got to touch it. It is one thing to read about history, and something totally indescribable to actually see it.
The Atomic Bomb bunker was pretty cool too. Personally though, I think I would rather take my chances out in the open than to suffer 2 weeks of stuffy, hot conditions with barly enough oxygen to breath.

The next day we went on a bus tour around the city. Unfortunately for me, it was all in German, so I didn't understand a lot of what the tour guide was saying. But I still got to see so many cool things. Later that day, we went to another museum that had things on display from ancient cities. It was unbelievable some of the things people were able to build centuries ago. In the evening we went to the Reichstag. I actually got to go inside the Reichstag!!! It was great. However, once again, the presentation was in German, and I didn't understand much. After the presentation, we went up to the roof of the Reichstag. The view of the city was spectacular. Unfortunately, it was freezing cold, and we weren't able to stay outside for very long.

The next day we went to the DDR museum. It was pretty cool, and most of the things had English and German explanations, (acutally, most of the museums had English, the tour guides spoke German with us though). We also climbed to the top of the Victory Tower. The view was amazing there. Many people before us though, had felt the need to befoul the beautiful building with there childish graffiti. Most of the damage was done to the staircase and not to the outside, thankfully. That night, we went to see the musical, "Dirty Dancing". It was very good, even though I didn't understand much of what was being said. The dancing and singing were very good.

The following day we went to the Holocaust memorial. It was only recently built (finished in 2005). It is composed of 2,711 concrete blocks. At first, it appears that they are all somewhat of the same hight. But as you walk through them, the ground begins to dip down, and you find yourself sourounded by the massive, towering blocks. I thought it was a very fitting memorial. There is also a museum underneath the memorial that has information about some of the victims of the Holocaust. I wish we could have spent more time there.

During our last day in Berlin, we went to the Berliner Unterwelten, which was a bunker for civilians during WWII. Inside there were also a lot of things from WWII that were found in the rubble of Berlin after the war was over. It was all very fasinating, but I was very clostrophobic and nearly had to leave. I didn't want to miss anything though, so I convinced myself to finish the tour. We aslo got to stop and look at Check Point Charlie. That was probably one of the coolest things we did. Afterwards we went to the Topographie des Terrors, which was a section of wall that had information about Hitler and the Nazis. The last thing of the day was The Blue Man Group. They were HILARIOUS!! I loved it. They didn't speak, so I didn't have to worry about not understanding, and if the anouncer said anything, it was done both in German and English. We went back to the hostle afterwards and packed our things for the morning.

The next morning we left. We drove to Potsdam, where we took a tour of the Ssanssouci Castle. It was so beautiful. One room was decorated with thousands of sea shells on the walls giving the impression that you were in some underwater palace. I would love to live in a castle.

Berlin was an extrordinary place, but I was happy to come home to Austria.