Berlin!

So, instead of doing all those things I listed for last weekend, I spontaneously went to Berlin on Saturday with 16 other people!! One of them, Yasemin, is my next door neighbor, and a few others I had met some days before, but I many I had not met yet at all! It was decided Friday night at a BBQ and though I already had plans for the weekend it sounded like way too much fun to pass up. So Saturday morning we all met up and basically overtook the train for the 3 hour or so ride to Berlin. We toured the city during the day on Saturday, danced until morning at a techno club called Zapata, slept in a hostel for like 2 hours, then went back to Braunschweig Sunday afternoon. Things we saw include:

--Brandenburger Tor: Interesting story about the statue on top. The Germans spent tons of money getting the woman's head to turn so it would face the French Embassy, because the French tried to steal the statue once (or something like that) and they didn't want them to ever forget it.

--Holocaust Memorial: Very interesting memorial. It basically consists of a bunch of concrete blocks of different sizes, and the floor beneath is very uneaven. As you walk through it the blocks get taller until you are surrounded by these massive, menacing towers. It was a bit eerie.

--The Wall: We saw a part of the wall left over from when it was torn down. The division of East and West that once existed was quite obvious just from looking at the difference in architecture on either side of the wall. It wasn't hard to tell which side you were on. For me the most interesting part was the graffiti on the wall; someone had written a message to a family member or friend saying they will be together soon. Overall it was a bit depressing.

--Checkpoint Charlie: Not really much to tell about this, actually. The actual checkpoint was much smaller than I expected, and you had to pay to get a picture in front of it! Lame.

--Painted Bears: The symbol of Berlin is a bear, and there are painted sculptures of them all over the city. For you Kansas City folk, it's a lot like the cows. This is the "European Union" bear:

--Kreuzberg: The Turkish neighborhood in Berlin. We actually didn't do much there except sit in a park, but there were tons of Turkish families there, grilling, playing soccer, etc. It was nice to sit and watch after all the walking we had done.

--Reinstag: The German Parliament and such a beautiful building. Anyone can go inside and watch the goings-on of politics from above. However, there was a very long line so we skipped it. Inscribed on the front of the building is "Dem Deutschen Volke" which means "For the German People."

For dinner I had my first Doener, a Turkish chicken sandwich that is rather hard to explain but very good. At 2 a.m. the night was still young of course (Berliners often party until 7 a.m. or later, and people laughed when I told them that in America we are usually home by 2) and we went to Zapata, a club that played techno music all night and where fire spewed from the ceiling. We found it while walking along Orangienstrasse, a street with lots of very cool-looking restaurants, bars, and other forms of entertainment.

The highlight of the trip, however, had to be when a 46-year-old German man (I know his age because he told me) approached me and began to serenade me in German. He then proceeded to do the Goose Step. The experience as a whole was very awkward but mostly just really amusing.

Unfortunately, all the walking and dancing in Berlin gave me quite a few blisters on my feet, one of which got infected and subsequently very swollen, leading to my first doctors visit in Germany! The doctor prescribed me an antibiotic, and it seems that here in Germany the only antibiotic they have is Amoxicillan...which I may be allergic to. So much excitement here! :) Anyway, my foot, which at first was extremely painful, is now much better but I am still bedridden until the swelling goes down. Thus I am writing this post from my dormroom, where I now have internet, woohoo!!

Everyone here is gearing up for the start of the soccer World Cup this weekend. Europeans are crazy about it, which I'm sure most of you know, and I'm excited to see!

Aufwiedersehen!

Amy