hotel berlin, berlin!

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day 9

flight to Berlin today! All went well for me at security except forthe fact that my bracelets set the alarm off so i had to go in the full body scanner which showed metwl on my wrists, pants button and bra so the lady had to pat me down. oh well, I was well of compared to theother people in the group.Four people endedup getting stopped. Brandy had toothpaste in her bag, just wasnt thinking afterbrushing her teeth this morning, beth ended up not having evything actually in her bag so they dont know why she got stopped andpoor brissa packed all of her souvenirs in a bag and brought it, not thinking about the bullet that she bought at the army museum. evryone was ragging on herbut i dont really think i would have thought of it either. Luckily the bullet had something in it so thst it isnt abe to be fired again, otherwise she would have gone to jail for 24 hours. im not sure why the forth girl got stopped. after that eventful trip through security, we finally grabbed a little something to eat. i had eaten something at the restaurant for breakfast but not a lot because the evil lady kept yelling at us because we were bring food out. she even started counting the muffins, like calm down its not that serious.

Once we arrived in Berlin, we went up to our room to unpack a little bit but we also had our walking tour so we had to get ready for that and man is Germany cold! Or room was also in east chuck... We had to keep walking so long we thought we missed it. The hotel has an atm in it so since my mom was amazing enough to turn my credit card into a debit card, i trie to take money out but it woukdnt work. It wouldnt work for a lot of people so i knew it wasnt just my card.





The first stop on the tour was to this church that had been destroyed and parts had been rebuilt. They made a cross out of the nails that had been used in the original church which was pretty awesome. There was also this awesome mosaic. There was a new church built right nearby which was cool to see but people were praying so i felt like I was intruding.

Peter kept the tour going by showing us some buildings that were built either before or after the war and some that were built after the wall came down. It was cool to see how much the architecture was different and the specific Nazi architecture. We then had some free time to eat. The restaurant was in German so I have no idea what the name was. I want that hungry because new countries always make me nervous, plus this language barrier was pretty rough. I also only had the money I was given for food which I didnt want to spend just in case. Some girls had gotten really cheap noodles earlier so my plan was to just get those when we got off the tube. Rachel ended up not finishing her meal so she let me have some which was nice and really good since the tube "ausgang" (way out) brought us up somewhere that wasnt near the noodles. But I was able to get some money from the bank because after dinner we went to the meeting place a little early and Dr b heard i had no money so she brought me to a bank.





The hotel had good internet so we got it in or rooms so I skyped with my parents and tried to watch TV but there were only German channels... And bbc which is what we watched.



Day 10





German breakfast is so weird! They we've meat for breakfast like really who does that? I decided to stick with a croissant thank you very much. I tried the pancakes but the syrup was too sweet and ruined it.

Our first stop of the day was checkpoint charlie. It wasnt really much ofbanything but it was actually pretty cool for just being a sign. Checkpoint charlie is what people going in and out of the american sector of berlin had to go through. Then we went in the checkpoint museum and even though you couldnt take any pictures. It was full of first hand stories of how people escaped from East Berlin to get into West Berlin. People got really creative so it was really interesting to read. Some people escaped by getting false papers or stealing others. One person escaped with the help if some people becaue they carried suitcases onto a train and before the inspectors came to check on them, she hid by kaying in the two suitcases. People hid in oil drums, hollowed out parts of cars, kayaks, and even a fake cow.

Peter brought us to potzdamer platz for lunch which is basically a giant mall. We went to play off for lunch because it seemed american and we werent reeady for too much german just yet. But no, we were wrong, the whole menu was in german so we just kinda guessed. I got a delicious burger but they put weird garnishes on it so i wanted to try them. Some where normal like cucumbers but then there was this weird white thing that i smelled and it didnt smell like anything so I tasted it. BAD LIFE CHOICE. Worst decision of my life. I spit it back out into the napkin. I could see the waiters laughing at me but i didnt care. Then we waited for the check for like ever and it turns out you have to ask for the check, that could get a little annoying. Then some lady kept talking to us in german and we were like um....english? Then we learned how to say no german, do you speak english? in german, so I have to remember that.

Then we went on to the Jewish Museum and I gave my presentation about persecuated chikdren who did not end up in a concentration camp. We ended up with a tour guide and she was pretty annoying. She kept talking about the arcitecture granted it was pretty cool, but i really didnt care, but then again if we didnt have the tour guide we would have never found out about the building. The walls are slanted to symbolize the jews world being uneven and turned upside down and closing in on them. The ceilings and floors are also slanted. There was also the holocaust tower which was this blank tower with only a light in the far corner. It is uo to interpretation but some people think it symbolizes hope or even the lack of hope because the light is far up and unattainable. The most special think about this museum are the line of 'voids' that run through it. It is just empty space from the ground to the ceiling of the building. These are symbolic of the parts of jewish history that are forever lost due to the holocaust which i thought was pretty cool. In one of the voids, an artist made 10,000 metal faces, all handmade and unique. Although its controversial, the artist is allowing people to step on it. I didnt really get why it was controversial until i walked cross it, I felt like i was the one injuring the jews and there was nothing i could do about it. It was not a good feeling. The rest of the museum was kind of sad too, even though they were celebrating the lives of the jews and all of their history dating back. I think it was sad mainly because the holocaust was what we were concentrating on even with everything else in there. There was a letter in there from the holocaust from a jew talking to her family when she first arrived in the camp. It was a nice long letter that was well thought out, right next to it though was her last letter. She was telling her family that she was safe and she was being moved and not to worry and she would send them another letter as soon as possible with her new address. She was sent to auschwitz and was killed upon arrival, never to write another letter to her family. The museum also had a interactive system where it had everything that the jews were banned from doing. They couldnt go in swimming pools or sit on benches in the park unless they were designated as jewish benches that were the color yellow. If for some reason a jew was allowed to still work, they had to replace the sign outside their shop like this one dentist had to. The museum had his new sign, it had a jew star and something that said he could only servie jews. You can read all you want about the subject but seeing it in person is totally different.

For dinner we just grabbed the noodles from the tube, they were really yummy and super cheap, ill probably get them again at some point.

I also went down to the bar to spend some time with my friends, and ordered a swimming pool. It was delicious, it had blue caraço with coconut and pineapple.



Today is Shelly's birthday so I skyped into her party and seat on her mantle for most of the time lol

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