The first day in Berlin was long and exhausting. I woke up at 6am to catch a train with the group that was leaving at 6:55. It was a little rough since some of us watch the Bears game the night before at our now favorite Irish Bar, and one of the only bars in town that plays American sports. We were on the train for a little over 6 hours arriving in Berlin at around 1:30pm at the Friedrich Straße station. (I must say that the train we took was very nice and it even had recycling bins…so environmentally friendly).
We walked to our hostel to drop off our bags before we met outside the Reichstag, the German Parliament, for our Berlin city tour. One of the first stops was at the Tiergarten Soviet War Memorial erected in 1945 after the battle of Berlin and the end of World War II. Next on the walk was the Brandonberg Gate, one of the most historical symbols of Berlin. Formally it was one of a few gates in order to enter Berlin. The gate was damaged during the war but was able to be restored. This was truly phenomenal to see at night when it was all lit up. Overlooking it was the Unter der Linden and surrounded by banks, international embassies, and the famous hotel, Adlon Kempinski, where stars like Angelina and Brad Pitt as well as Michael Jackson have stayed. As we walked along we got to the Holocaust Memorial or the more controversial name, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews. This was a very interesting slot of land with 2,711 concrete slab blocks…not one block being the same as the other.
After have a little break to warm up and have a cup of hot chocolate we moved along to see Hitler’s bunker and where he eventually killed himself. All I could imagine was how could people want to live near there. I think I would have nightmares or see ghosts at nights because of where it was located. As we quickly moved along we were taken to a street where many building were destroyed such as Hitler’s huge office. Our tour guide showed us pictures of what it would have looked like. We then continued our walk to see a portion of the Berlin Wall and heard of one escape story done by a man who designed a zip line to have his family escape…so clever, right? We eventually made it to Checkpoint Charlie (or Checkpoint C). This was used as the crossing point to get from East and West Berlin. The east side was guarded by the Soviet soldiers, while the west side was guarded by American soldiers. And that marked the end of our Berlin city tour. A few of us then walked back to shower and warm up for our first night out.
A group of us decided on going to an Indian Restaurant called Bombay, which although it wasn’t German it surely hit the spot! We all kindled about our adventure for the week. The waiter was so nice to us and was happy for Americans to be at our restaurant that he gave us a complimentary round of plum vodka. We all toasted to Berlin and left on a good note. Later that night we headed to the lower east side of Berlin to go to a popular club, Matrix. I tried a shot of absinthe and lasted me the whole night (i.e. 4am). The club was playing all throwback songs and my friend, Annie, and I danced to Brittany Spear’s “Gimme Gimme” song, for example. (We now have to listen to that song every night before we go out, lol.) All the IES people that were there were tons and tons of fun and I could tell that I would stay close with them this whole semester. ☺
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