Hello hello! Blogging has turned out to be a lot more
difficult to keep up with than I imagined… I’ve tried to keep a journal before
too, and that lasts about 2, maybe 3 days and then I forget about it.
Unfortunately my blogging has followed a similar pattern. I’m going to try and
fill you guys in on what I’ve been doing for the past month. I’ve visited SO
many countries! Estonia and Finland were a trip I took with my core course here
at DIS. Ventured to the sunny beaches in Portugal, where I stayed at a surf
camp and had the time of my life. And this past weekend I traveled to Berlin,
Germany. And boy do I have some stories for you. I’ll have to start with my
most recent travels and then work my way back in time. Go make a cup of coffee,
maybe even microwave some popcorn, because this is going to be a long string of
stories. Good luck ;) Hope you enjoy!
Berlin, Germany:
Friday, November 2nd:
I got home from class on Friday in the afternoon and packed
as fast as my brain and hands could coordinate. My host mom, Jani, drove me to
the airport after our traditional Friday night pizza dinner =) I met up with
two friends who I had planned to trip with, and together we flew to Berlin. I
was surprised; the flight was less than an hour long. Maybe I’m just used to
long flights. It was just amazing how this fantastic city was only a 40-minute
flight away. Just as I got comfortable in my Easy Jet plane seat, it was time
to get off again. I arrived in Berlin around 9:30 pm. Upon arriving we
purchased a “Berlin Welcome” card, which included a 48-hour transportation pass
and lists of touristy stuff with discounts. That book saved me a lot of money I
have to say. Personally, I HATE being a tourist. But on this occasion, it was simply
inevitable. I had a little more than two days to spend in Berlin, and if I was
going to even attempt to get a full experience, I was going to have to strap on
my neon green backpack and stick my nose in a map. Between the three of us, we
managed to get around pretty well.
Saturday, November 3rd:
We woke up at 7 am the next morning… 7 AM. Let me just inform
you that I am not a morning person, not even a tiny bit. 7 am was not my idea
as you may have assumed at this point. It was in fact the brilliant idea of my
friends. And while I felt like the walking dead that morning, it was definitely
a good decision. Sleep when you’re dead.
We had plans to go on a “Fat Tire Bike Tour” of Berlin.
Their mission statement: Walking is stupid. I loved it from the start! The bike
tour was 5 hours long, and while it was tiring, I was able to see more of
Berlin on bike in that amount of time than I ever would have been able to see
if I was walking. It also gave us a good view of how the city worked and the
general areas of the museums we wanted to go to. Also, our tour guide, Kieran,
was hilarious. He hailed from Ireland, and came to Berlin to visit for a
weekend… 10 years ago. He fell in love with the city and has now made it his
profession to make hundreds, maybe even thousands of other weekenders, like
myself, fall in love with Berlin as well. And let me say, he does his job very
well. Even though I was completely frozen by the end of the bike tour, I had
fallen in love with the Berlin.
Kieran took us to a beer garden for lunch. YUM. I had potato
leek soup with sausage, a bread role, a hot chocolate, and a lovely pint of
beer. Quite the combination eh?? The only thing I was sad about was that I had
to sit outside because there was no more room inside the restaurant. At least
there were heat lamps. It started to drizzle during the second part of the
tour, but I didn’t get too wet thankfully. That night we went to this fantastic
Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. I had never had Vietnamese before, but my
friends assured me that it was delicious… And it was!!! I got a simple noodle
soup dish, and some special type of prawn spring role appetizer. Mmmmm, I wish
I could eat it all over again. The restaurant was very trendy… ****NAME??*****
After dinner we hurried over to a church where we heard they sometimes held
concerts, and we had previously bought tickets for the “concert” tonight. I
think this is where the language barrier began to give us some issues. We were
expecting an orchestra concert of sorts… that was not the case. We entered the
church, not to a bigger room that we were expecting, but a rather small chapel
room with. We had not bought tickets to an orchestra concert, but a church
service. There was a conductor, a chorus and an organ. We were probably the
youngest people in the church, everyone else looked like grandparents. While it
was not the orchestra concert that I was expecting, it was still a treat for my
ears.
We finally got back to the hostel at around 10pm and we were
exhausted, but we still wanted to go out of course. We honestly couldn’t bring
ourselves to go back into town, and thankfully the hostel had a bar…. And it
was karaoke night. WIN. Did we sing? …yes. Were we good? …No. Was it loads of
fun?? …ABSOLUTELY. We sang the Bohemian Rhapsody and Somebody To Love by Queen.
And our stage name was Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice ;D …Power Puff Girls anyone??? It was a
really fun night, and we still got to bed at a reasonable time (at least we
thought it was reasonable, you might have a different definition) ;)
Sunday, November 4th:
That morning we forced ourselves out of bed and ate at the
buffet breakfast in the hostel. Then we ventured out to the East Side Gallery.
This was my favorite visit (next to the bike tour). The remains of the Berlin
wall had been decorated and painted with breathtaking art. Some sections were
brightly colored, some I couldn’t even make heads or tails of, and some even
made me cringe. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
After the East Side Gallery we made our way back into the
center of town and went to the DDR museum. Okay, I don’t know about you guys,
maybe I’m just really bad at history, but a first I thought, Dance Dance
Revolution museum??? No Sarah…. No. It really stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republik. It was
an interactive museum where people can go and see what it was like to live
during the socialist regime in Berlin.
**INSERT DDR PHOTOS**
For lunch we feasted on Germany’s famous currywurst . We weren’t sure what exactly to expect, but it was DELICIOUS.
**PICTURE OF CURRYWURST**
After our fantastic lunch, we ventured to Checkpoint
Charlie. It was the crossing point between East and West Berlin. Many people tried and failed trying
to cross this boarder. But the people who did manage to successfully cross the
boarder had the most amazing stories. People hid in enlarged gas tanks of cars,
squeezed into dashboards, lay inside suitcases, and even managed to fake their
identity.
People crossed the boarder by pretending to be a cow!! Imagine asking someone how they crossed the boarder... "My buddy was the front of the cow, and I got the butt. I was a cow butt." But hey, it worked!
Even though we loved Checkpoint Charlie, we were tired of
museums, so we decided to try and find a well-known Christmas market near one
of the main metro stations. They had rides, food, beer (obviously =P), hats and
scarves, and tents with random gifts. My favorite tent was one of the more
unique ones; it sold these beautiful star-shaped paper lamps. I couldn’t stop
myself from buying one. They looked so plain when they were folded up, but once
you add light, they become vibrant glowing stars.
It was quite cold outside at that point, so we decided it
was time to grab some dinner. Kieran, our bike tour guide, had also suggested
this Asian tapas restaurant. I only found out what tapas was about a month ago.
My friend said to me, “we should go to a tapas bar!” and at first I thought she
had said, “toppless bar”…… I thought she was crazy. I guess I wasn’t hiding my
horror well enough, and she quickly corrected herself and explained what it
was. It’s basically a series of small dishes. So, after you’ve had or shared
these dishes with your friends, you suddenly have a large food baby. When I
have a food baby, I always name it Beatrice. Food babies don’t deserve to have
pretty names. ***Disclaimer: If your name is Beatrice and you are reading this,
I apologize. Get mad at your parents, not me.*** Anywhoo, we got about 9
dishes, 3 per person. Mmmmmm, it was soooo yummy.
We called it a night after that and went back to the hostel,
packed, and were in bed by 10pm. Call us the most boring college students ever,
but you could also say we are also the most responsible… After all, we did have
to wake up at 4am the next morning. Sounds fun right? We had a flight at 7am,
and we arrived back in Copenhagen at 8am where I went straight to my 10am
class. Choosing this oddly timed flight also saved me about $80, so it was
worth it.
I wish I had more time to spend in Berlin, it truly was an
amazing city and I absolutely think everyone should visit if they have the
chance. Thanks for reading =) Hope you enjoyed it!
Xoxo,
Sarah
