I was in Berlin last weekend! It was such a neat city, but let me just say one thing: IT WAS FREEZING!

We started out by using it with our program for 6 hours. I love busing it places because I think the countryside of the Czech Republic is stunning. I love seeing it.

We first had a bus tour through the city, and our program director, Daniella, gave it to us on the bus we came in on. We then went on a walking tour; it was so nice out at the beginning, and I really enjoyed it!

We saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Jewish Memorial. Daniella then took us to Checkpoint Charlie, where she gave us a speech about the history. Due to us being in such a large group, I wanted to stay behind for a second to take a picture. As I was taking the picture, I felt a tap on my shoulder! It was JULIA! Ah, I was so happy to see my best friend from home! I cannot even explain how happy I was. We both started crying and hugging! I only had about 2 minutes with her, but that was enough to make my weekend 10x better!

After my weekend was made complete, we continued to keep walking on the tour. We stopped where the Burning of the Books Memorial is, and it is truly very interesting. They put it under the ground, and you can only see it through a roughly 4×4 piece of glass in the group. They placed it exactly where the burning happened, and inside the underground department are rows of bookshelves. Enough space to hold exactly 20,000 books.

We saw many more things (basically everything you can see on foot in Berlin) on the walking tour.

After the walking tour (which was freezing cold by the end of it), Margaret invited us to have dinner with her cousin. I was so happy that she did this because being with Margaret and Taylor makes me so happy, and Margaret’s cousin was so cool! Her name is Marlene, and she lives in Berlin. It was so nice being able to talk to someone from Berlin and have her show us around. We went to a hipster Italian restaurant that we would have never found if it were not for Marlene! I ate a delicious salad, but Tay and Marg got homemade noodles in their pasta and said that it was delicious! After we went to a couple of bars, we went home, and it was 2 in the morning!

On Saturday, we ate the best breakfast EVER! The reason I say this is that the hotel we were staying at gave me gluten-free bread. WARM GLUTEN-FREE BREAD. It was heavenly. I ate so much of their free breakfast – it was unreal.

 

Margaret, Taylor, John, Kate, and I all walked to the Reichstag building, which was what we were touring that day. The Reichstag building was really beautiful and interesting! We were lucky to have a tour of it, and the dome was all mirrors, and it was fun to walk up the sides of.

We then headed off to the Holocaust museum, which is under the Holocaust Memorial. We spent about an hour there reading all of the facts and looking at pictures. It was extremely interesting! After the museum and lunch, we asked to go to the bathroom in a famous hotel called Hotel Adlon. Daniella told us to ask and see if they would let us in because it has such a stunning interior. After convincing the guards to let us in, we were able to see everything inside, and let me just tell you, it was beautiful! I decided that one day, I will make enough money to buy myself a room there 🙂

We were then kicked out of the hotel (nicely) and walked out of the doors by the Brandenburg Gate! Outside, everything was blocked off, and we were just about the only people who were not police. We had no idea what was going on and wanted to figure it out! Half of our group left to go shopping, but Avery, Kate M, and I decided to stay and check out why so many people were chanting and blocked off by the gate. We asked around and found out that it was a demonstration involving the issues of Syrian refugees!

We spent hours hanging out at the demonstration. We talked to cops, citizens, and each other about the issues. Although we are not supposed to participate in these, it was really amazing standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate and learning about how people feel about an issue. It made me realize how in love with this world I am!

We also grabbed ice cream on our walk home and then took a nap! Saturday night, we went to a club on the 10th floor of a building. It had such a nice view of Berlin, and it was such a chill place. I really enjoyed going there.

Overall, Berlin was pretty cool! It was a large city, and I really enjoyed visiting it!