Level 1-4: Berlin, Deutschland

Oh yeah, no interesting title this time. I figured that announcing that I went to a different country would probably count as interesting enough. That, and I'm really hungry as I'm writing this. Bear with me if I repeat things, if I misspell words, if I repeat things, or I start typing in German.

Samstag, den 19. Februar

We arrived in Berlin at 8:30. On the plane we had the most amazing sandwiches - fetta, spinach and tomato. If I could've bought more to take with me I would've. I had half a mind to ask the German guy sitting next to me if he didn't want his, it was that nice. But I didn't, and then he ate it, and then the plane landed. We made our way to Wombat's Hostel, checked in, put our stuff away, and went up to the bar.

The bar at Wombat's was alright - the music wasn't so loud that I couldn't think, but I still couldn't hear anyone who wasn't sitting directly opposite me. I think the others liked it a lot though - I'm just a lost cause when it comes to things, places like that. I can't socialise if I can't hear anything anyone's saying, so it's not really my sort of thing. Then again, "my sort of thing" includes political comedy and playing L4D2, so not liking things like that might be one of my smaller problems.

Sonntag, den 20. Februar

Sunday began with the most expensive bowl of cereal in my life - breakfast was provided at Wombat's for €3.70, and while everyone else helped themselves to portions which would more than justify the price, it was a bowl of cornflakes and an instant hot chocolate for me. I think I wasn't paying attention when everyone else decided that we would not eat lunch.

We took a train to our first destination - a flea market - and promptly walked in the wrong direction. However, as it turned out there was an information centre about the Berlin Wall where we were walking, so we had a look-see in there. I bought a bunch of postcards - which I will send, guys, promise - including a couple of places which I hadn't yet been to, because I am a proper tourist. There was a large section of the Berlin Wall there, which we were very excited to see - over the course of the week we discovered that there's actually pieces of the wall all over the place.

After we had fully explored the museum, we travelled back the way we had came and found the flea market. There was a lot of cool stuff there - and a lot of junk too, don't get me wrong. Aisling bought SimCity and Rose managed to buy a watch from someone who didn't speak English - with minimal help from me. I tried on some very stylish glasses (read: Drew Carey nerd style) but didn't buy them.
Eventually we finished up there and made our way back to Wombat's. We went to a falafel place just around the corner and I had the greatest falafels ever - although the negative degree weather outside might've had something to do with that assessment. Apparently Rose has been pretending to be a human being all this time, but her secret was revealed because as she doesn't like hummus she obviously has no heart.

Montag, den 21. Februar

As we had spent the previous day outside the city centre (read: three kms away), today was our first chance to do some proper touristy sightseeing. We made our way to as many things as our frozen feet would allow us: the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (more commonly known as the "Holocaust Memorial", but there are actually separate sites for each group of persecuted people), Babelplatz and the Jewish Museum.

As with every visit I take to a museum, I didn't have time to look at everything - and as I didn't end up going to any other museums while I was there, I'll definitely get a three-day museum pass when I go back in summer. There was a cool exhibit with heaps of pictures of sukkahs - people building huts on their apartment balconies and things like that. Rose, Yve and I spent a lot of time in the sections about ancient and middle ages history - we ran out of time before we could have a good look in the modern history section, but we kind of had a little bit of an idea of what would be covered there anyway.

We wandered around Museum Insel ("Museum Island") for a while, trying unsuccessfully to find the Berlin Guggenheim. Strangely enough, Museum Island is named so for a reason - and the names of the museums there are just as helpful. There's the Old Museum, the New Museum, the Art History Museum and the German History Museum. And so on. As I said, I didn't manage to go to any of them - but when you're in a city which was founded more than 750 years ago, the history is kind of all around you, not just kept safe inside ridiculously old buildings. That's my way of justifying it, anyway.

This is a modern building.

 We went wandering to find dinner, and I had gnocchi - it was so good it made me forget I don't really like gnocchi. Aisling had a quiche-y thing which they insisted on calling "tortilla" - although Wikipedia tells me that "tortilla" can also mean an omelette-y like thing as well, so apparently it's just us being ignorant rather than Germans being strange. (English people insist on calling oat-based slices "flapjacks", which is confusing on multiple English levels.) We then proceeded to get lost for an hour on our way back to the hostel. Luckily, Yve spoke in German to an old lady who told us how to get back.

Back at Wombat's, the others went up to the bar again while I stayed back in the dorm and finished reading Angels and Demons. Yep. I won't go into detail about it here, because I'll write a separate post about the books I've been reading.

Dienstag, den 22. Februar

On Tuesday, we visited the same places we passed on Monday. Except this time, we actually found out what they were. For this, we have to thank George. He led the tour group like a boss. He was pretty much somewhere between Aragorn and Altair with an American accent. Thank you, Missouri, for not being interesting enough to make him stay there. At the end of the tour, George said that he would be running the tour to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We had already discussed going there, so we decided then that we would go there on Wednesday.

We returned to Wombat's in the afternoon and met up with Caitlin and Janet, who had spent the past few days in Stuttgart. Caitlin shared many stories which she had heard from her distant relatives, as well as her photos of the crisp white snow which had completely covered the ground during her stay. I was very envious.

Then it was -12°C the next morning. My envy froze to death.

Mittwoch, den 23. Februar

We hopped on the train to Oranienburg, where Sachsenhausen is situated. Most of the buildings there are reconstructions, but there were still original sections of the sleeping area - and the 'medical centre'. Where they would perform experiments and fake autopsies... I couldn't bring myself to go into the autopsy room, though I still can't work out why. Something about it being the exact same room made me uneasy, I guess. Even knowing that mercifully, the people captive there can't feel any pain any more by the time they reach that room, it was a bit too much for me.

Sachsenhausen was one of the concentration camps instrumental in the Nazi's counterfeiting attempts. If you've seen The Counterfeiters (starring Karl Markovics who you may recognise as Ernst "Stocki" Stockinger from Inspector Rex), Sachsenhausen is where it's set. It is also notable for having part of an original building destroyed in 1992 by Neo-Nazis. You know, it's one thing to read the words "Neo-Nazis", and another to see something that actually exists, damaged by people that also actually exist. It becomes a bit clearer in your head, anyway. All in all, it was an emotionally trying day.

Jeez, I could never be a serious non-fiction writer. That paragraph tired me out.

It was on the way to Sachsenhausen from the Oranienburg train station where we realised that George's super power is to walk deceptively fast. He wasn't that much taller than me, but he must've taken really long steps (hence why he is part Strider), but you couldn't tell that he was. As such, it took us a while to master his skill, and manage to keep up with him.

We returned in the evening and had Asian food for dinner, which was quite nice. I bought a Fanta... which was yellow. No, I don't know either. Maybe Europe has banned the colouring which makes Fanta orange.

Donnerstag, den 24. Februar

Caitlin and Janet didn't join us on Thursday, as they went on the free Berlin tour which we had done on Tuesday. Unfortunately their guide wasn't as impressive as George, and according to Janet took a bit of artistic license with some of the history. Oh well. Aisling and Georgie chose to sleep in to recover from their late night, so Yve, Rose and I headed off to the East Berlin TV-Tower. Although it was foggy, you could still see pretty far, and our previous thoughts about Berlin being quite a small city were proven completely incorrect.

They also had little signs with historical information.

Cool story, bro. :/

From there we headed to Bunte Schokowelt ("Colourful Chocolate World"), which touted itself as having an information centre/museum-y thing upstairs which was really just some dodgy propaganda about how really, really good their chocolate is.

Turns out, their chocolate is really, really good.
 

This photo isn't over-exposed. The chocolate is just so nice, it has its own aura.

We then had a leisurely stroll through Tierpark ("Animal Park"). Let me just say, deciduous trees are the creepiest type of tree, and I don't care if people think I'm racist for saying that. It also turns out that trying to choose where you're going in the manner of a text-based computer game is a really terrible idea. "You are in a park. There are paths leading north, east and west."

We wandered somewhat aimlessly for a while, then made our way to Potsdamer Platz. It would look amazing in summer - a huge fountain in the middle, and a glass roof which would let all the hypothetical sunlight in.

We had originally planned to go to a museum in the evening, but with all our wandering we decided to call it quits for the day, as the next day we were going to go to Potsdam.

Freitag, den 25. Februar

We went to Potsdam.

I include all the pictures, because it was very much a visual experience, and as completely different from Berlin as possible.We'd spent the whole week in a built up, still-being-reconstructed city with scaffolding and cranes and concrete and graffiti, so stepping into a city of 17th Century Prussian palaces was somewhat different. It was nice just to walk around, too, without any pressure about getting to certain places at certain times.

Not that we'd planned it to be that way. Originally we'd signed up for a tour, led by a guy from Perth, Paul - who looked a bit like Paul Rudd, I think. Unfortunately, we were the only ones who wanted to go, so Paul took our tickets back and returned our money. He told us how to get there by ourselves, and so we did. Unfortunately for Rose we didn't run into Paul again, so her marriage proposal to him may go unanswered. I would've challenged her, but Paul and I had irreconcilable differences. He went for the Dockers.

On our way back from Potsdam Yve and Caitlin bought pretzels, which I forgot to steal some of. This meant that I was in Germany for a whole week and didn't actually eat any German food. :/ Oh well. At least I'm going back in the summer. Then I can have all the bratwurst and currywurst I want. (Or can afford, anyway.)

It was allegedly delicious.

We took the train back to Berlin in the evening - we managed to get on a fancy long-distance one which was going to Frankfurt. It played a little fanfare whenever we stopped at a station. It was quite cheery, really. Or maybe we just felt like that because we were sitting down, warm, and eating. You know how it is.

And then suddenly it was all over. After some slight technical difficulties (is it still a "technical difficulty" if it happened in real life? Maybe only if real life is the Matrix...), we got to the airport on time, boarded and unboarded a plane, and then like magic we were in England again. And now a month later I'm writing about it. Isn't the passage of time interesting?

I'm going on a school trip with the Uppers (about grade 6 / year 7) so there definitely won't be any updating next week. I'll try and write about Bath (the city, not having a bath... I haven't had a bath since I came to England, actually... MY ROOM ONLY HAS A SHOWER STOP JUDGING ME) before I leave, and then I'll be up to date. At least until I go to Italy for three weeks. Yeah. Oops.