Berlin!

So last weekend we went to Germany [sorry if this ends up being kind of jambled, I am in a computer room with loud people, not just one, but a bunch…and that makes it hard to focus].

Anyway, it was great [smile]. Whit and I flew out of London on Thursday afternoon and found our way to our great hostel. It was by far the cleanest and nicest. So then we go out in search of dinner and end up talking with a guy in German about George Bush [smile]…funny. We end the day watching The Matrix with two great Canadian guys that we met in the lobby.

On Friday our roommate Kamani flew out and met us in Berlin. My atm card didn’t work anywhere [I tried it on 4 different machines!]. We go on a three and a half hour walking tour around Berlin in the freezing cold. We were soooo cold! The tour was great and really really informative. He brought us into the very contemporary architecture area [it was super!], and of course he showed us part of the Berlin Wall, and we saw Checkpoint Charlie. He also took us to a square that has two churches and talked about how the one church is in the movie “Around the World in 50 Days” and Jackie Chan is running out of the building [in the movie it’s a bank].
After the tour we then got dinner at a Kebap place [which was excellent] and then walked up the Reichstag at night.

http://www.proasyl.de/serien/thierse/reichstag.jpg

Even though it was freezing, it was really awesome. The tour guide talked about how the government is now all about the citizens, and how the glass dome in the middle is very symbolic, because when you are up there you can actually look down onto the congress [because of this we had to go through all sorts of security stuff]. Our tour guide said that anytime the congress is in session they can look up and remember what they are there for: to represent the citizens.

Saturday we got up and had a wonderful breakfast at the hostel and then went into the Jewish Museum which was also really cool. The architecture was really cool, and the symbolism was pretty awesome too. Mom fixed my atm card for me [apparently, even though they know I’m in Europe for a semester, I took out a little more money than I normally do so they decided that my card was probably stolen; okay, whatever!] [but yea for mom for fixing it after the stupid international 1-800 number didn’t work for me!].
Then we went back to Checkpoint Charlie to check out an exhibit of crosses that was set up. Each of the crosses was for a person that died trying to get to the other side of the Berlin Wall; each cross had a name and some had pictures of people.
Then we definitely got lunch at a Mexican restaurant [smile!]. It was soooo good! Even though it took us like 30 min. just to get the single waitress to take our drink orders [we gave her the whole order, ‘cause by that time we knew exactly what we wanted].

Then started the crazyness [grin]. We started our 7 hour shopping fun [smile]. I came away with only a Berlin hoody [which is soo much fun], and some earrings, but we had a really great time. And Whit came back with tons! She now has 2 new pairs of shoes and a new coat and…hmm, that might be all. Kamani came back with some great new clothes too.
By the time we get back to the hostel we are completely exhausted. Our feet hurt, our legs hurt and the only thing we can do [when we finally get up to the fifth floor in the elevator] is lay in bed.
Then we met our roommate, who was really nice. She was from Brazil, but studying agriculture outside of Berlin. But she doesn’t speak any German and her teachers only speak in Deutch. She was neat to talk to.

So Whit and I left on Sunday morning and on the train to the airport we met this old German woman who started up a conversation about my backpack [“rucksack”] and then she explained to us in German, how to say “my mother speaks German” “Muttersprecken” (and I spell worse in German than I do in English). She was great.

And then we came home….and I’m going to die if I stay in the computer lab anymore because this group of freshman Skidmore girls are driving me nuts! They will not shut up and have completely taken over the room I am in! Ahh….I’m out of here.

LOVE TO ALL<><,
*maike rinaye*