Berlin

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In Berlin at the moment, figured I'd give a little update. The last few weeks have been just great! Christoph's family were the best hosts you could ask for and took me all over the town and fed me like crazy. ANDD this is good news for you guys, I got a new website for putting up pictures which allows me to add about 10 pictures at a time and works MUCH faster than putting up one picture every ten minutes as is the case with this blog. I'll put a link for the website at the bottom of this blog entry.

But Berlin is the important one. This city is just amazing, it feels like its own little country. Charlie lives in West Berlin and it's always interesting when you enter East Berlin since you can really notice the difference between German buildings and Soviet buildings (much like their cars, I don't think anyone was lining up for a Soviet apartment either). Things are changing of course with all the money pouring into East Berlin (for new buildings, new rail stations etc.) but there is still a reminance of the Soviet past. We've seen the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie etc. Charlie's Dad is a 'Water Policeman' which means he patrols the rivers and lakes around Berlin and he took Charlie, Christoph and I on a tour with the Police boat and even let us drive around! (I took lots of pictures)

It's so interesting to see how desperate people really were to get accross the wall. We saw a car that had its doors filled with concrete and the Easterners would drive directly at the checkpoint and hope that none of the bullets would pierce the doors. It's such a foreign concept coming from Canada.

I guess I could write a little bit about the cultural different that I've noticed in Germany so far overall. Everyone looks like a millionaire for starters. They driver BMWs, Mercedes Benz etc. They have refined tastes. They will take 20 minutes to make a nice little coffee and cake instead of buying things cheap and prepackaged. They buy fresh bread and fresh meat almost every morning. There concept of nature is very strange. There are no open spaces. People people people people. This place seems so overpopulated. But it almost seems a bit rediculous at times. One family I was with brought hiking boots to walk up a pre-paved trail for the afternoon. You could've easily walked in sneakers but since it was a 'hill' they thought they should bring special boots. I couldn't stop laughing.

The teens are different here for sure. The guys are fairly similar to Canadian guys but the girls are very different. They wear sweaters and they don't like showing skin for the most part. They're more concerned about learning than looking good. Girls aren't scared to talk about politics or show intelligence. Not to say that all Canadian don't think, it's just that the culture in north America puts a higher value on girls that look pretty as opposed to girls who use their brains. Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith etc. etc. etc.

Ah yeah, we also went to a soccer game and Charlie got us tickets right in the middle of the 'hooligan' section where everyone brings flags and one guy stands at the front of the crowd and directs the crowd into massive chants. It felt like the Colloseum in Gladiator, basically 3000 guys shouting at the top of their lungs. I even got yelled at by one of the guys because I didn't know all the words to their soccer chants...suffice to say is was a quick learning curve.

We also went to a handball game which was alright but the price tag was 32 euros per ticket 😞 but for my first handball game I thought it was fair enough. Anyways, time to start rapping this message up!

The link to the new photo website is:
nicholas-mikkelsen.magix.net

I leave Tuesday morning and John has offered to pick me up at the train station in Esbjerg. He has just had his 70th birthday so he says I don't have to worry about bringing any special drinks from Germany (I made the offer since drinks in Denmark are so expensive). Can't wait to see Denmark, keep the messages coming!

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[Nicholai]

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Sorry about all the spelling errors, the internet was acting up so I wrote this as fast as a could so that my message wouldn't get deleted if the internet crashed (it does so quite frequently)