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Published: February 26th 2008
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Pure Joy
So excited and pumped to see Ryan I am very lucky. I have a great friend, Ryan, who is living and working in Berlin as an English teacher for a company. As luck would have it, another great friend of ours, Brian, chose to come visit Berlin this past week, so I decided to join in the fun. I was excited about visiting this city because of its history and from everything Ryan had told me about it. I also think German is cool and ridiculous to say, almost like a secret code, so I was in awe most of the time.
I arrived late Thursday night full of excitement and adrenaline to see my friends. They got there a tad after I did and I was bouncing off the walls. I asked so many questions on the way back to Ryan's, but they were both very tired, it was as subdued conversation, but we were all really excited about the next few days. Ryan lives a little bit north of center but was close to a U-bahn (their metro) and it was really quiet which was nice.
The next day Brian and I slept in as Ryan had to go work in the morning and
Jetlagged
Brian was still working on full function when they picked me up then we met up with him near lunch time. He works in the very center of the city, which is really clean and sharp looking. We strolled down to Checkpoint Charlie, or what they've left of a larger border crossing ... it's mostly just a stand, but there are walls all along the sides near by so you can read about the history of this site. We crossed over a part of the wall, they've left a 'scar' all across the city where it once stood.
We were hungry so we hopped in a deli like place and I munched on some bratwurst and potato salad, yummy. We walked all around the city ... he showed us a famous concert hall in between two identical churches built at two different times ... odd, yes. We could see the TV Tower from where ever we were. We walked by/across/over the Book Burning Memorial which is where many 'prohibited' books during the war were burned ... really impressive.
We saw memorials commemorating all of those who were innocently killed during the war. We crossed the Spree river and saw part of Museum Island and stood in awe and entered the
Sunglasses
Found him UNDERGROUND ... Berlin Cathedral. Ryan told us it was actually built pretty recently for how old it looks....the inside kind of vouches for that. It was REALLY big and REALLY nice and had a REALLY big organ inside.
We walked down Unter den Linden (under the linden ) which led us straight to the Brandenburg Gate. The US is building their new embassy right next door, huge building, looks really nice. We ran into a bunch of people posing with the statue of a street performer ... quite amusing. Right around the corner we ran into the Reichstag (official government building, as Berlin is the capital), Tiergarten , and walked to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was really interesting. Ryan gave us a schpiel about a way to see it as the war starting w/out people realizing it and then it just grew (it makes more sense if you look at the pictures). It made a huge impact.
We walked to the Reichstag to check out the line for the dome and decided to return the next morning. We crossed a huge 'mall' area and headed
Piece o' Art
Ryan showed us where he finds random pieces of art ... like this ... to the Hauptbanhof (Central Train Station) which is brand spankin new and really nice and cut through there for some warmth and headed to the Modern Art Museum known as MOMA close by. We saw some really neat and weird things there. We decided to head home for a bit and do some research for where we'd dine later that night ... give our feet a rest.
Ryan lives with a very German woman, Iris, who is a hoot and loves, loves, loves to talk in English. She helped us look for a place to eat and came with us. We were headed towards our potato themed meal .... and then it happened .... as the boys were taking money out of the ATM at the top of the stairs, the U-bahn was arriving and Iris was at the bottom of the stairs rushing us to hop on ... I began running and made a typical clumsy maneuver by missing the bottom two steps, landed awkwardly on the top of my right foot, and rolled along the platform. I was more stunned than hurt at first, so I insisted we continue on to dinner as we were all famished.
History
One of the walls describing Check Point Charlie When we switched trains, we met a rather drunk German man who questioned Ryan about his American politics and preferences ... when he changed the subject and started to hit on me, Iris took over and chewed the guy out in a very confident manner. It was awesome. We hopped on, hopped off, and made our way to our meal. It was DELICIOUS. And the half liter of beer was unbelievably good. I could eat that meal every night, pork, potato dumplings, and sauerkraut. My luck came around again in my having some sacks to rest my foot on during our meal and for a good hour or so I'd forgotten I'd hurt myself ... then we stood up to leave ...
Ouch. We caught a cab to a hospital nearby and I was frantically calling my Spanish health insurance company. Everything got cleared and what not and we spent a couple of hours in the ER instead of the wine house we'd made plans to go visit. After some tugging, pulling, twisting, and x rays, the doctor told me I more than likely ruptured some ligaments, but no breaks or fractures. They wrapped me up and gave
Check Point Charlie
The American soilder is looking over what used to be the Russian side me a really uncomfortable pair of red crutches with built in reflectors ... fannnnnntastic. I was also told to stay in the following day and keep my foot elevated, no dancing, no sporting, no partying... yes sir!
We went home afterwards and stayed up chatting and pretending to make plans for the following day ... I was pretty bummed as I was so looking forward to everything we were going to see and do the next day ... But because my friends are so amazing, we worked out a brilliant plan.
We slept in quite late, and while I was convinced I'd stay in with my foot propped like the doctor said the boys would not leave me home alone. We went out and walked slowly down the street, and after a while reverted to many piggy back rides, to a doner kebab. Best 2 euros I spent that weekend. Heavenly meal. We made our way into town and went to Museum Island ... perk to being on crutches at public monuments/museums and such is that you get free wheelchair usage ... even if there isn't wheelchair access to every part of the museum, but it was nice
Wall scar
This reminder runs all along the city, there isn't much of the wall left up to sit and roll.
After we museum hopped, we went to dinner close by at a restaurant called the 12 Apostles, known for its pizzas ... they were delicious. Mine had barbecue sauce. Amazing. We quickly caught a tram and went to a concert in the concert hall we'd seen the day before. It was just what I'd wanted to do. How can you go to Germany and not listen to some live classical music. Priceless...as was the inside of the concert hall. We called it a night afterwards and chatted up a storm before lights out as we had an early morning for me to go catch my flight.
I was so glad to have been where I was when my incident happened. And I am so grateful to have two amazing friends help me the way they did, they were so great and didn't let my lameness tamper with our weekend. We still had a great time. It was really refreshing to see Berlin, I really enjoyed it and hope I can return one day on both feet.
I am currently not going to work for a bit to give my foot time to heal.
Beauty
Chocolate model of the Brandenburg Gate ... really hard to keep my hands off of. This store was amazing. I've visited the ER in Madrid to get a second opinion and got better bandages. I'll hopefully be back to function level before my spring break, but for now I'm keeping it elevated and iced. Gives me some time to do a lot of researching and reading.
I hope you are all well and having a great week so far!!! I miss you and think of you often!!!!!! Take care, don't run down stairs EVER, and keep in touch!!! Besos
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