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Published: February 28th 2007
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my trip to berlin with my roommate and my friend sarah was a whirlwind tour, for sure, but we saw an incredible amount in such a short time. we arrived last friday at noon, and begin our long return sunday at noon as well. since we had to switch from charles de gaulle to orly in paris, here was the order of how we returned to montpellier: s-bahn, bus, plane, bus, plane, shuttle bus, tram, bus. we got along just fine without knowing any german, although we forgot the phrase "i am waiting for my boyfriend/husband" which we had learned in case of encounters with strangers. we realized we didn't know how to say please, so of course we felt like rude americans. my speaking was ridiculous. i couldn't stick to english because without trying all of my little phrases were in french, but with a mixture of english and sort of german words as well. on friday when we arrived we found our way to our hostel, and after getting lockers and three beds we took the s-bahn to look at the scenery. i saw we were on the right train to head to the 1936 olympic stadium, so we
went there and got to go inside. after that we headed back into the city and took a tour bus so that we could learn where the important landmarks were. it was quite a long tour and it was dark by the time we were finished. because we're silly, we ate at a mexican restaurant. i figured it would be my only opportunity (and it was, since i didn't go out on saturday night with my friends) to say "welches bier ist das beste?" apparently it was something named veltins. it was fine but i only got it since i was in germany and i felt it was something i needed to do. we were very tired, so we returned to our hostel and tucked in early. the next morning we had breakfast in our hostel for a modest 3 euros, and they had a wide variety of tasty foods of which i could take as much as i wanted. we left and took a long train ride out of the city to oranienburg, i believe, which is where the sachsenhausen concentration camp was located. we toured the camp for a few hours, taking our time to look at everything.
after that we visited the touristy landmarks in the city that we had seen on our tour the day before. the sun set and we were still looking around, taking our time because we were planning on heading to the reichstag later in the day, when lines to go inside would be shorter. there is a glass dome on top of the building that is free to the public to tour. so we did that, and then i called it a night, while my roommates stayed up too late for their own good. sunday morning i made them get up a little after 8, and we ate and saw more sights by riding the train around. we walked in tiergarten, the big city park, and looked at some animals that were part of the berlin zoo (zoologischer garten!). we found an arts and crafts flea market, which had high-quality trash that was pretty, and useful. after that we began our trek back to montpellier, which took a very long time. the good that came out of it was that megan and i discovered that the #15 bus runs until late into the night, so if i ever feel a need
to go out at night, i now can. i'll work on feeling the need to now... i tried going to an irish bar last thursday since i was staying with sarah thursday night for our early friday flight, but i had an unfortunate allergic reaction to all the smoke in the air and i wasn't able to breathe successfully until mid-friday. i won't be going out again very soon, i think! this friday i go downhill skiing for the first time in my life. i am taking a beginner course with a "ski monitor" so i hopefully will be all right. my worries are likely because when i picture myself skiing, i picture myself on skis as wide as my cross country skis. i know that downhill skis are much wider, so i hopefully won't get too battered and bruised. i will be sure to take pictures, and i will post them next week. i also have some pictures of my school to share, but i will wait until next week because i have so many here of berlin. until next week, adieu!
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tom
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i'm pretty bummed now that i've switched from t-punkt to verizon. had i known it was called t-punkt, i would have never switched over. . . sighh