Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany so it was always a definite place of interest on my list when I decided to study abroad in Deutschland. We left for Berlin on a Monday. I woke up at around 7am and made my way to the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) where Ture, our program director, was waiting for us. I thought Berlin would take longer to get to but it seemed that we arrived after only a short nap on my part. Once we got into the capital city we made our way to the hotel: "Hotel 4 You(th)." We checked in, surveyed our rooms, and made our way down to the streets to look for a snack before our next event. The next thing planned on our schedule was a bus tour through Berlin. Our tour guide for the evening was Andrew who had spent some time in New York so he had quite an interesting accent. We visited all of the touristy places in Berlin such as the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie. I really enjoyed all of this. The only problem was that it was very overcast in Berlin and we started the tour a little late in the evening (around 4) and it startes to get dark around 5 here so I was forced to take many pictures in bad weather and at night. However I really enjoyed seeing the various landmarks in Berlin. I gound it crazy to think that only 20 years ago this was still a divided city. After our tour a few of us got some dinner and went to bed. We were tired and it was only day 1.

On our second day in Berlin we had a walking tour of the Kreuzberg area of Berlin scheduled for us. I really really liked Kreuzberg because it was super urban and artsy but our tour guide started in the most unsafe part of the area and the drug deal a few of us witnessed going on behind us was a bit unnerving. Kreuzberg had really interesting street art and we went into this music school that had art all over its walls inside. I really wanted to go to the East Side Gallery but we didn't have time on our tour. The music school was really inspiring though. I could have stayed there for days.

After our tour of Kreuzberg we went to the Museum of Jewish history and although it was very interesting, our tour guide wasn't very good so I kind of had to look at things on my own. After the museum we went back to the hotel and just hung out a little before our group dinner. We ate at this fantastic traditional pizzeria not too far from our hotel and then came back and began to get ready for our big night at the election party hosted by the US Embassy.

We actually almost didn't get into the affair. We got there at around midnight and there was a relatively long ling out front. The bouncers were telling us that there were too many people inside and that they weren't letting anyone else in. We waited in line in defiance (largely on my part) and were determined to get in. Thankfully a lot of elderly people deemed it time to go to bed so we took there spots inside. Even though we missed the interview portion of the night I'm really glad we got to go in because it was definitely a historic night and I was really happy to be somewhere special. Inside, the party is in full effect. On the first floor was a large video screen with a map of the Unites States and the various projected Blue and Red states. It was actually a really eerie feeling looking at this map of my country standing in Berlin. Upstairs was the food and open bar. It was really funny actually because this was obviously a party about America but the food that was available was mostly traditional German food like Pretzels and Currywurst. I wasn't complaining though. There were several discussion panels but no one was really paying attention to them because music was playing and we were all looking to the various television screens they had set up around the venue to keep up on the results of each state. I had one glass of wine and that led to many more because the waiters would come around and if they saw an empty glass they would just pour some more in. They also had several computers with internet access and a large screen that was set up with Skype so I called my mom but the screen wasn't set up with headphones so I had no idea what she was saying back to me. We left the party after we were satisfied with the way things were turning out (around 4am) and headed back to the hotel to get about 3 hours of sleep before we had to be up the next day.

I woke up to the news that Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States of America. He was all over the German television stations they had available in the lobby of our hotel. It was a good morning. After breakfast we made our way about 40 minutes outside of the city center to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. If the setting wasn't bleak enough, the weather certainly enhanced the experience. It was very cold and windy and overcast which I actually really enjoyed because it helped me to get a small taste of what it may have actually been like to have been here; cold, alone; almost starving. However I got to leave after a couple hours instead of being forced to live there for years. I'm glad that they give tours of places like these so that it never ever happens again but after a couple hours I was ready to leave. It was getting to be too heavy of an experience for me.

When we got back to the hotel most of us slept. 3 hours is definitely not enough time to function fully. After a few hours of sleep I was ready to go again and got a bite to eat and then tried to decide with my friends what we would be doing that night. The night ended up being a big mess with everyone separating. However my friend Paola and I found our way to a club (typical) that was like a converted train depot. It was a lot of fun and although we had a difficult time getting back to our hotel it was worth it. I couldn't visit Berlin without experiencing at least one club! It was our last night there afterall because the next day we would be heading to Prague!