So.... Berlin was quite the adventure. I went a few weeks ago with four friends of mine here: Becca, John, Bradley, and Anthony. We flew into Hamburg and then took a train to Berlin from there. I had never experienced Germany before so as you can imagine I was very excited to be there.
We finally made it to Berlin after all the traveling and we decided to take a taxi to our hostel, which was a quaint little place called John's Cozy Little Backpacker's Hostel. It was late and three of the people we were traveling with were getting over being sick (one was on antibiotics, one had just gotten over the swine flu, and one had sinusitis!) so a few of us grabbed a drink at a local bar and then we al decided to call it a night.
In the morning we were set to see all the tourist sights. On that first day we saw the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag which has a beautiful glass dome as a ceiling. In between the sight-seeing we made sure to stop at some of the German Winterfests to try some new type of wurst (which were all amazing by the way) and some gluwhein (hot mulled wine mixed with fruit)... Germany has got some good food!
In the afternoon we met up with a friend of John's that lived in Germany named Torsten and we hit up another Winterfest with him. He showed us some places to go and helped us order the best things to eat and drink. It was really nice having a guide there to help us. I even learned a few phrases in German to get by.
The next day we dicided to venture out of the main part of Berlin and go see Potsdam, which was the residence of Prussian kings until 1918. We visited the largest palace there and took a tour of the inside. It was gorgeous! Then we went outside and got some more food and hot drinks at the Winterfest there.
We went to the Sachenhausen concentration camp just outside of Berlin too, which was a very tough site to see. The camp was HUGE, and I couldn't believe how many people they were able to cram in there at one point. While it was very interesting to read all the history behind the camp and to take a guided tour, it was honestly really rather depressing.
We also went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was close to the Brandenburg Gate. There were hundreds of stones which when separated created curvy paths that went up and down. The entrance to the museum was hidden within the stone sculptures and was all underground. Again, the museum was very interesting, yet sad.
We also saw Checkpoint Charlie, which was really interesting. There was a museum that explained everything about East and West Berlin and about the Berlin wall and the methods used to sneak people from one side to the other and all that jazz. It was really fascinating, although sometimes disturbing.
We went to this club one night called Matrix (Ill never forget the name) and I decided to set my purse down for a second and within NO time at all I turned around and it was GONE! While there was no place to lock up our luggage in the hostal I decided I thought it would be safer to carry all my important documents with me while we were out... That means my passport, my Spanish residency card, my camera, my IPOD, and all my credit cards we stolen at the same time! I couldnt believe it! And this was the night before we were going to leave so I knew I wouldnt have enough time to get a new passport in time to catch my flight back to Mallorca! While the others had tickets planned to go back to the islands too, I decided to stay back by myself and get things sorted out. The owners of the hostal were really understanding though and they let me stay for a couple more days. I made it to the US Consulate in Berlin the next morning and by late afternoon I had a new temporary passport. I was surprised at how easy it was to get things sorted out.
