Berlin July 14th

A littol catching up to do...
Thursday night my roommates and I grabbed some wine and walked around the Prague Castle. It was so beautiful to see it at night, it's amazing how places can look totally different in the dark. It had been storming earlier that night but when we got to the top, there were no clouds in sight. We could see all of Prague and pointed out everything we know! We also came to the realization that the night marked 2 weeks left in Prague and we still have some places we need to see before we go! No more putting it off till next week.

Friday morning my program met up at the main train station to catch the train to Berlin. It took about 4 1/2 hours which kind of sucked but the German country side is so beautiful. We arrived at the Hautbanhof in Berlin and took the subway to our hostel/hotel. The train station was massive!! Probably bigger than the Prague airport.

Our hostel is in Kruezberg, a hip part of Berlin and is pretty close to all the main sights via subway. I'm in a room with 4 other girls and we have our own bathroom which is clutch.

A couple of us left the hostel to walk around a bit, even though the sky was supa threatening. We stumbled upon the Topography of Terror, an exhibit of Berlin from 1933-1945 which is on top of the old main Nazi buildings. The buildings were ruined in the war so only parts of the basement remained but it was still pretty eerie to think about all the people that walked through those doors and all the corruption and terrifying ideas created there. The exhibit was really extensive which was awesome. Sometimes people forget how hard the war was on the Germans as well, though nothing compared to those in concentration camps, but Hitler definitely didn't create a better economy and standard of living like he promised.

Next we walked to Checkpoint Charlie which was pretty cool. I though it would be more dramatic but it was just an old US Army shack and a sign saying you have now left the American Sector. Also cheesey photos could be taken with a US Army guard. Saw more American flags than I have all summer! Berlin is pretty different than Munich in that it's modern but not as clean. There isn't much German culture, food, etc that I've seen yet....where are the pretzels??

We had dinner at this really swanky Indian/Thai place but unfortunately, I may have gotten food poisoning or something because my whole abdomen was aching! No bueno. Not to go into much detail but my dinner was expelled during the night...

Waking up was rough and I didn't have breakfast because my stomach was still hurting. It was pouuuring rain like I've never seen it rain that hard in my life. We were going to do a walking tour but because of the rain, we got tickets to a sightseeing bus tour....so Amish and lame and touristy!

We got on for one stop and went to the Atlas Museum which held Greek antiquities. We saw the Berlin Cathedral which was really stunning. All of a sudden it stopped raining and became sunny with blue skies! I'll never understand European weather because it said it was supposed I rain all day.

Next we went to the Paragomman Museum which had Islamic artifacts and part of the gates of Babylon which was sick to see. We got on the bus again to go to the Brandenburg gate. It was interesting to read about the history of the gate and see how much the area has changed over the years of different governments. We saw the Holocaust Memorial and the Reichstag building that had a huge observation dome on top but for appointment only...annoyin.

We returned to the bus (so touristy!) and went around the city seeing various sights. We saw the embassies which each had their own style of architecture for their country which was really cool! We stopped at the Jewish Museum, a place I wanted to make sure to go to. The museum was a really interesting set up, the architect made it for people to try to interpret it. It was probably one of my favorite museums I've ever been to because it was so interactive so you never were just reading something, really sweet other museums should try to do that more often!

I still wasn't feeling well and hadn't eaten so we grabbed dinner at a traditional German place which reminded me a lot of Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Of course it wasn't as good but I got a pretzel.

Hoping this bug or whatever I have goes away by tomorrow, not trying to go on a 5 hour train ride tomorrow while feeling nauseous the whole time.

Berlin is not like what I was expecting it to be which is pretty cool. All the architecture is really modern and interesting. Last day in Germany for awhile!! Supa sad but I will return!

Love and miss you guys! See you supa soon!

Auf Weidersehen,
Whit