Berlin!

I can't say that Berlin (or anywhere in Germany for that matter) was on the top of my desired list of places to visit this semester. The only reason we ended up going was because a friend had to switch a flight, and Berlin was the cheapest place that he could switch it to. The flight was only 50 euro and I had nothing planned for the weekend so I figured, why not? Definitely one of the BEST decisions of my time here. Berlin was absolutely incredible, my only regret is that we only stayed for 2 days...I would have loved to stay longer. On Friday, we walked around Hackescher Market and took care of the first order of business, trying a real bratwurst. Delicious! We also walked all along Oranienburger Strasse, a very popular street, and took a tour of the Neue Synagogue, which was one of many synangogues destroyed during The Night of Broken Glass. That night we picked out a restaurant from one of our guidebooks to eat at. A drunk man on the metro gave us directions and after about ten minutes of walking were rethinking our decision to listen to him. However just as we were about to give up we saw some twinkly (aka Christmas) lights behind a gas station. Bingo! The drunk guy was right after all. Despite its initial location, the restaurant was fantastic. Great food, incredible beer (that's an understatement) and it was on a deck over the Spree river.

On Saturday, we woke up bright and early to see more of the city. We ended up taking a 5 hour walking tour, led by a kid from Ireland who knew just about everything about German history, all for FREE! It was to date the best and most informative tour of anything that I have ever been on, and it was the cheapest :) In my opinion they should have these in every city because it was a great experience, and really made me appreciate Berlin. We got to see all of the famous (and infamous) sights in Berlin, some of which I didn't even know existed. Unfortunately I forgot my camera for this trip...stupid...so here are some of Meredith's pictures:

The Reichstag

Hotel Adlon
(where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a window)

Holocaust Memorial

The sight of Hitlers bunker

Berlin Wall

Us with the Berlin bear :)

Checkpoint Charlie

Bebelplatz - sight of Nazi book burnings
"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings"

Berliner Dom

Bratwursts!

Brandenburg Gate

We definitely covered a lot of Berlin, but theres always more. Had we been able to stay an extra day, we would have gone to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, revisited some of the spots of the tour, and gone back to Checkpoint Charlie to get a 'West Berlin' stamp in our passports. All in all though it was an unforgettable trip, and for me it was incredibly touching. Although Berlin wasn't an original attraction for me, it is one of the places that I think I would love to return to in the future.