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Published: October 18th 2007
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Trink!
When I first saw this I thought, "Haha, they wrote 'trink' instead of 'drink'" and then I realized that we were in Germany. So, I already started this blog once, but then about halfway through I accidentally clicked off the page and everything was deleted. So, let's try it again.
On Thursday morning we woke up and it was time to set off on the looooooonnng journey back to Berlin. On our way out of Poland we stopped at a mall for lunch. There was a supermarket there so some of my friends and I went and bought a bunch of snacks to help get rid of some of the Polish money we had left. Then we went to IKEA and ate lunch. It was meatballs, yummy! Then we drove some more and got to the border. It only took us about 20 minutes this time at the border. They took my passport again and I got another stamp. Later we stopped again at a gas station in Germany. There I played hackisack with my friends Aleksi and Calle. They were surprised that I could play, and they kept asking me if I played soccer. When I told them that I just used to play alot of hackisack they were like "What!?" I think they were shocked that a girl actually played hackisack.
Hackisack
Playing some hackisack with the guys. It was really hard to get an action shot. It was pretty funny.
We finally got to Berlin at about 5:00. Then we had an hour to go out and do whatever we wanted in the city. First we went to KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens), which was a huge shopping mall in the center of the city. It was 7 stories tall and must have had hundreds of stores. However, it was so big that it was kind of overwhelming so we left shortly. Then we just kind of wandered around the city for the rest of the time. I really didn't like the city very much. Berlin didn't have any of the charm of Krakow. They were no quaint old buildings or neat old churches. It was all just metal and glass. Also, the traffic light drove me crazy. They only last about 2 seconds so if it's a street with a median in the middle it takes two times to get all the way across. It was so annoying! After that we went on a bus tour around Berlin. It was kind of interesting, but it had gotten dark by then so I couldn't really take any pictures. Finally we got to the hotel. I stayed
KaDeWe
The enormous KaDeWe! with some of the girls in the IB (International Baccalaureate, all classes are taught in English) program this time. They were all really nice and, obviously, spoke very good English. At 9:00 we had dinner at the hotel. It was actually really disgusting. It was meat and potatoes as usual. However, the potatoes were nasty and the meat was mostly fat. After that there wasn't really anything to do in the hotel and we weren't really in the city, so there wasn't much to do outside of the hotel either. So, we decided to go to the hotel's pub, Arizona. It was me, my 4 roommates, and this other girl who is from Great Britain. The pub really wasn't very interesting. We only stayed there for about 2 hours. We played darts and I won! I've never actually played darts before where you actually have to keep score. Its quite complicated and involves alot of adding. After that we tried to find something else to do, but there really wasn't anything. So, we just went back to our room and hung out.
On Friday morning we went to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp about a mile outside of Berlin. Almost
Traffic Lights
I loved the walk and stop signals on the Berlin traffic lights. They were so funny. Berlin must be famous for them or something because there were lots of souvenirs you could buy with them on it. everyone slept on the way there, including me. Everyone was quite exhausted from a whole week of traveling. At Sachsenhausen we got to meet a "time witness", someone who was actually a prisoner of the camp. He was a man from Norway and he showed us around the camp and talked about his experiences for about 45 minutes. However, my Swedish isn't good enough for me to understand Norwegian yet, (Norwegian is practically a dialect of Swedish the languages are so close) so I couldn't really understand what he said. Then our bus guide lady led us around Sachsenhausen for another hour and a half. It was soooooo miserable. It was cold and rainy out and everyone was so tired and hungry. You could tell no one really wanted to be there. Plus, since the guide was talking in Swedish I couldn't really understand what she was saying so it was really boring for me. I think if we had been there on a better day and hadn't been traveling for so long it would have been better. Anyway, after that we drove for about an hour to another concentration camp, Ravensbrück. However, before we went there we had lunch
Berlin Wall
A section of the Berlin Wall that is still standing. at this nice little restaurant. It was meat and potatoes again. However, for dessert we all got these huge bowls of ice cream. That was really nice. After that we visited Ravensbrück. Ravensbrück was a camp for women and children so it was really different from Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz, which were pretty much the same. We spent about two hours at Ravensbrück. By that time the sun was shining, it was warm, and we had all just eaten big bowls of ice cream, so everyone was much happier and it was alot more interesting. We then left Ravensbrück to go back to Berlin to the airport and go home.
We got to the airport at about 4:30 and our flight was supposed to leave at 7:10. So, we went to go check-in. We waited to check-in for about 15 minutes, but no one ever came to the check-in counter to check us in. Then we found out that we couldn't start checking in until 5:30. So, I went with some of my friends to wander around the airport a bit until 5:30. When we came back at 5:30 we had to wait another half an hour until the finally
Statue
A cool statue in Berlin. started checking us in. When I looked at the board it said that our flight would be an hour late. However, that wasn't really a big deal since we had a two hour layover in Helsinki anyway. So, after everyone was checked in we all went through security. Then we had to wait in this little waiting area until our plane came. In the Berlin airport, apparently, all the shops and stuff are outside of the security area. So, once you go through security there's nothing to do. It was about 7:00 and since our flight was supposed to be an hour late we figured we would have about an hour to wait. So, we waited. I basically just talked with my friends and we watched the news in German. We were all surprised to find out that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work. None of us could quite figure out how work on the environment leads to peace, but apparently it does. So, when 8:00 rolled around we were still waiting, and then came 8:30 and we were still waiting. Finally, at about 9:00 we boarded the plane, 2 hours late. We were then
Statue 2
Another interesting statue in Berlin. scheduled to get into Helsinki at 12:15, as in about 15 minutes after our plane from Helsinki to Vaasa was supposed to leave. That was certainly a problem since it was the last plane of the night and if we didn't make it we would have to take a bus all the way from Helsinki to Vaasa. Ugghhh! So, we all sat on the plane and hoped that we would make it in time or that the next plane would wait for us. In the end the next plane ended up waiting for us, seeing as we were over 50 people and there were only like 10 other people on the plane besides us, and we all practically sprinted between the gates to make it. Then we sat on that plane for an hour waiting for them to transfer our luggage. I guess the airline didn't want to have to find a way to get 50 extra bags to Vaasa the next day. So, at about 1:00 AM we finally took off for Vaasa. I sat next to the girl from Great Britain and we talked the whole time. Then we got to the airport around 2:00. Jari was there
to pick me up and by the time I got my bag and we got home it was about 3:00. Then I quickly packed for Oulu and went to sleep around 4:00.
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Mallory
non-member comment
KaDeWe
It sounds like you had a really nice trip overall! Glad you got stamps on your passport!!! I can't believe you didn't stay at KaDeWe longer! It's a MALL Kenz! :-) The "trink" thing made me laugh.... love you!