... and the sun burnt out tonight...

Well aren't you just the luckiest person ever?! You get TWO (yes, that's right, TWO!) blog updates from me in less than a one-week span. Woohoo. I'm jealous of you.

Soooooo... this past Friday, myself, Kelsey, and Hannah packed our bags and headed out to meet the bus for the school-organized trip to Berlin, Germany at 7:30 PM. You see, this is what time the bus was supposed to arrive. In reality, however, they had us sit around doing nothing for 3 and a half hours before the bus finally arrived just before 11:00 PM. That's ridiculous, even in France.

But alas, all the same, one 17 hour bus ride later, we arrived at our hostel in Berlin. Our hostel was certainly not awe-inspiring by any means, but it was adequate I guess, and fairly close to some cheap eats as well as a metro stop. On the subject of cheap eats, allow me to say that France is soooooo expensive compared to the rest of Europe. Excluding London, every place I've visited has been easier on the pocketbook for food and entertainment than France. I may have picked the wrong country! Now that's not to diss France or anything, because there is a lot I like about the country too, but it certainly doesn't top my list.

So that afternoon, after munching down a delicious pineapple-and-chicken-curry-pizza, we went for a walk and checked out the Berlin Wall's East Side Gallery, which is the longest still-standing piece of the Wall. It gets tagged and spray painted on a regular basis, and was painted in 2000 to restore the drawings that were in place back in 1990. It was quite something to see. I didn't realize there was that much of it still up.


We then walked a bit more up to a little square area where we browsed in a couple of souvenir stores. We were tired at this point, so we basically just grabbed some french fries for dinner and retired to our hostel. We toyed with the idea of going out that night, but eventually gave up and went to bed, exhausted from our travels.
The next morning, we got up early and went out for one of the free walking tours of the city. The idea is, you don't pay for the tour, but you tip as you feel is appropriate at the end. Our tour guide was really good, and she showed us the main sights, including: the Brandenburg Gates, the spot where Hitler's bunker was found, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the other remaining segment of the Berlin Wall, Allied Checkpoint Charlie, some churches, Museum Island, Humboldt University and Book Burning Square, and the Berlin TV Tower.


At the conclusion of the tour, we walked back up to a couple of the sites we had passed, and took a quick walk through the Topography of Terror exhibit, which contained lots of information about the S.S. and the Nuremburg Trials, right in the spot where former S.S. "interrogation" chambers had been. We then caught a metro back to the hostel, stopping for a 2 euro kebab on the way, and changed to prepare for our evening.

That night we went on a pub crawl with the same company that organized the tour. It cost 10 euro, but included pretty much all the free orange juice + vodka shots you could want between bars, and also a free apple schnapps shot with every drink you bought at any bar along the way. It was a good time, we met some fellow North Americans, and enjoyed a bunch of drinks, including a couple of 50% absinthe shots. Hey, 50% is no big deal when you have a half-empty bottle of 140 proof sitting in your room.


The next day, we woke up reasonably early, and headed for the Olympic Stadium, which is where Berlin hosted the Olympics in 1936, where the Berlin football club plays, and also where parts of the World Cup - including the finals - were held in 2006. So yes, this is the scene of the crime of the Zidane headbutt. It was huge, and really cool to see.


After the stadium, we left for the Reichstag, which is currently the seat of the Berlin parliament debate chamber. You can enter one ventricle of the building and climb up to the roof, where there is a glass dome that is really impressive and gives you a great view of the city. We also sampled a bratwurst outside, which is far superior to any kind of hot dog you can find in France.

Once all of that was done, we were getting tired. It had also been beautiful sunshine and 25 degrees celsius all weekend, which was fabulous, but also takes its toll on you when you're walking around all day. So we lay out on the grass by the Reichstag for a bit, then decided to walk back over to Pariser Platz and up the street to a nice little shopping district.


After killing some time in H&M and Galleries Lafayette, we metro-ed back to the hostel, grabbed another pizza, and waited to get back on the bus home (it was only 40 minutes late this time, but had an idiot of a driver who couldn't figure anything out).

And that ended a fun weekend. Berlin is an awesome city, with oh so much history. It also had a few things that reminded me of home, such as:

Anywho, that's it for the time being kiddos. I've got a group project to hand in next Tuesday, so I need to get around to that the next couple of days, so don't expect any super exciting blog entries too soon.

Your truly.

Dan