I'm in Vienna: Berlin!

I hope I'll be able to fit all of this into one post... I did so much in Berlin that needs to be talked about that I can't imagine all my photos will fit in one post!

We left Leipzig for a 3 hour drive into Berlin. When we arrived in the capital city, it was really dark and we couldn't see much of anything. We drove by the Brandenburg Gate and around the Victory Column, but that was about the only exciting thing that happened Monday night. I stayed with my group at the Helter Skelter Hostel, a pretty loud, cool, and eccentric place perfect for our young and bubbly crowd. It was a little run down and dirty but we made the best of the situation. Our room was quite... unique? There were concert posters covering every inch of the 4 walls with graffiti and writing all over them. Our beds were lined up against the two walls in rows. We lovingly referred to our room as Little Orphan Annie's room, but it wasn't that much of a hard-knock life. We had dinner at a nice Thai restaurant around the corner from the hostel (my first Thai food experience!) and went to bed early to rest up for the long day ahead of us!

The next morning we met on the bus at 9 AM for a bus tour of Berlin. I would definitely recommend taking a bus tour because we got to see so much of the city in the 4-hour time frame that I don't think I ever would have seen otherwise. Some main sights we saw from the bus were: Berliner Mauer (The Berlin Wall), The Holocaust Memorial, Museum Island, Berliner Dom, Sony Center, The Reichstag, the Chancellor's residence, and the Berlin Philharmoniker Building. Here are some photos I took from the bus, and at points where we got off the bus!

The oldest synagogue in Berlin.. Surprisingly, it was only partially affected by WWII.

The Berliner Mauer! East Side Gallery

"Many small people who in many small places do many small things that can alter the face of the world."

We were all surprised by how thin the wall was!

The Altes Museum on the museum island.

Part of the former National Library, where in 1933 numerous book burnings occurred. Books were torched if they did not go along with Nazi ideology.

Upon first look, this may just look like a couple of parking spots... what's so special about them? WELL! I will tell you. That cobblestone path that intersects all the spaces is where the Berlin Wall used to be! There is cobblestone going along the entire city to mark where the wall once stood.

The Holocaust Memorial.

The memorial is an experiential place and everyone interprets it differently. By going through the stone columns, you should feel a sense of loneliness, cold, etc., the same feelings that the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust.

All the columns are different heights and lengths.

The Brandenburg Gate! ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!")

The Reichstag

I don't remember what this building is, but our tour guide say people in Berlin call it the Pregnant Oyster or Jimmy Carter's Smile.

The German Chancellor's house

Victory Column

The Philharmoniker

After the bus tour, my friends and I explored the city for a little while on our own.

The Sony Center... essentially an enormous shopping/eating complex.

Look who I found!

Holywood... right across the street from the Holocaust Memorial.

Being Ronald Reagan for a minute.

This is an unbelievably historical building. This is where Michael Jackson held his baby out the window!

Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)... There will be more photos of this because I went inside towards the end of the week.

We noticed that the bridge to get into the main part of the city from our hostel was a love-lock bridge. Basically, you and your significant other engrave your names on a lock and lock it on a bridge... there were a lot on this tiny little bridge!

Wednesday, our group went to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie... guess what that means auf Deutsch! We went to the Jewish Museum later on, and after my friends and I went to make our own Ritter chocolate!