germany part 2:
tuesday 22/2
today we took a walking tour of berlin with the GREATEST tourguide known to man - george from missouri. yes i am going to marry him ok, he was hilarious and knew so much and was obviously incredibly passionate about history. he knew so many anecdotes and odd facts about things; we saw the brandenburg gate and holocaust memorial (again), then the carpark where hitler's bunker stood, remnants of the wall including another look at checkpoint charlie, the war ministry, bebelplatz where the book burnings occurred under nazi control, and we were taken through the history of east germany while under soviet occupation up until the fall of the berlin wall. it was so fascinating and (like in year 10 and 11 history with mr allan as i'm sure my parents are aware) having someone who knows so much, is clearly fascinated by it and has numerous facts to share entrusted with teaching us about it made the day fly by.
we then walked back to our hostel visiting mcdonalds on the way where yve and i sampled vegetarian burgers, and crashed for a few hours before going out for dinner.
wednesday 23/2
today we visited sachsenhausen concentration camp which is about an hours train ride out of berlin. to say it was confronting would be an understatement. it was a really interesting day and once again we learned a lot but i was so drained by the end of it - especially when the last 5 minutes involved a mad dash sprinting up the street to make the last train for the day. i feel like being in europe for the year it's a really important thing to see and to acknowledge the horrors of our history so it isn't forgotten etc.
the others then headed back to the hostel while yve, rose and i carried on to visit the visitor centre of the holocaust memorial. again, i think "enjoyed" is the wrong word, but it was incredible to see and read all the first hand accounts of life during the 1940s.
that evening we met a group of people from melbourne! it was so good to meet people who know all the places we know and made it really easy to make friends.
thursday 24/2
georgie and i woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast in the hostel while the others went to go on a tour of potsdam. we decided to walk to the east side gallery and 3km later we reached it. it's basically 1.5km of the berlin wall still standing in its original position; but it has been entirely decorated with commissioned artworks and all of them have a very political message. my photos of the gallery still wont upload but they will be up on facebook soon. i really loved being there, it is one of my favourite memories of berlin.
friday 25/2
i'm a little bit ashamed to say that georgie, janet and i slept most of our last day away after a busy thursday night which didn't see us in bed until the sun was about to come up. at 3pm we all woke up in a panic and went out for lunch. then georgie and janet went for a walk while i wrote some postcards and my travel journal.
can you tell i'm sick of writing about this holiday now? it was amazing, berlin is beautiful and cool and really interesting, there are so many things i would like to do that we just didn't have time for and i would love to go back some time soon.
Saturday 12 March 2011
Sunday 6 March 2011
march 3 - berlin!
saturday 19/2
woke up, finished last minute packing of makeup, toiletries, toothbrush etc. and after a last scout of the flat we left - trekking down the hill with a detour at poundland to buy sweets for the plane. we took the A40 bus to heathrow airport and checked in a lovely 4 hours early. of course this meant we spent 4 hours eating and looking for food at regular intervals.
once on the plane we realised our entire day had been spent sitting in transit in an airport but we were finally on our way!
my first impression of berlin wasn't over exciting. the airport was abandoned and i couldn't speak the language; what did i expect?! it was cold and dark; we took a bus to an underground train station and from there took the train to just around the corner from wombat's - the hostel where we stayed all week!
after unpacking we all headed up to the "wombar" where we cashed in our free drink $1 bill and soaked up the awesomeness of being in berlin. yve, georgie and i then went to explore the streets around our hostel to find somewhere else to go out but we gave up eventually and headed to bed.
sunday 20/2
after a leisurely buffet breakfast we went looking for a flea market yve had heard of and along the way we found a memorial to the berlin wall. we spent an hour or so looking around the visitor centre and really getting a feel for the history of berlin. we also visited a "ghost" underground train station which was shut off during the soviet occupation of east berlin and learned more about that.
eventually we made our way to the flea market but at this point i was absolutely freezing and ready to go home. luckily it was quite small; and packed full of interesting vintage (or just second hand) items. we spent a good half hour drooling over a case of expensive rings and i almost bought a black velvet dress - saved at the last moment by realising it had a tear in the top. still, georgie had to drag me away because i insisted " i'll sew it up, i will!"
on this evening (yes i went out every night ok everyone stop judging me please) georgie and i went up to the bar and met a girl from new zealand and her room mate who was from boston in america! again we didn't stay very late as we were quite tired and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around.
monday 21/2
today we visited checkpoint charlie; the jewish history museum and tried (and failed) to find the berlin guggenheim. checkpoint charlie was fascinating; to be in such a historical spot and to stand where so many people have stood was unbelievable. my history nerd came out and i spent ages reading all the "first hand experience" posters etc. next we walked to the jewish history museum where we kind of split off into 2 groups - agreeing to meet up after an hour. georgie and i spent what felt like forever wandering the museum and visiting a kind of "message tree" where you write a wish on a paper pomegranate and hang it off the tree. some of the messages were really lovely and some were incredibly sad. it hadn't really registered with me that we are actually IN EUROPE and that not everyone will speak english until i was reading messages off the tree and only understood a tiny fraction of the languages.
after the jewish history museum we tried to find the guggenheim but got terribly lost and ended up walking up potsdamer platz admiring the shops and took our first look at the brandenburg gate.
next we headed to the memorial of holocaust victims which is really...confronting in a weird way. the memorial itself is very effective and its a very sobering experience.
on monday night we finally made friends! yay!
georgie, yve and i saw the same girl from boston as the previous night and the people she was with invited us to sit with them. having a group of people to be with was really nice and as the 2 canadians were doing similar work to us (although they both have a good 9 years on us), it was fun to swap stories and joke around.
installment 1, finally complete. i just got home from a night out with georgie in london (lots of fun, enough said) and i'm going to eat pasta and watch the notebook.
ill finish this off tomorrow. sorry i'm so lazy, every time i got to blog i get distracted by something else.
woke up, finished last minute packing of makeup, toiletries, toothbrush etc. and after a last scout of the flat we left - trekking down the hill with a detour at poundland to buy sweets for the plane. we took the A40 bus to heathrow airport and checked in a lovely 4 hours early. of course this meant we spent 4 hours eating and looking for food at regular intervals.
once on the plane we realised our entire day had been spent sitting in transit in an airport but we were finally on our way!
my first impression of berlin wasn't over exciting. the airport was abandoned and i couldn't speak the language; what did i expect?! it was cold and dark; we took a bus to an underground train station and from there took the train to just around the corner from wombat's - the hostel where we stayed all week!
after unpacking we all headed up to the "wombar" where we cashed in our free drink $1 bill and soaked up the awesomeness of being in berlin. yve, georgie and i then went to explore the streets around our hostel to find somewhere else to go out but we gave up eventually and headed to bed.
sunday 20/2
after a leisurely buffet breakfast we went looking for a flea market yve had heard of and along the way we found a memorial to the berlin wall. we spent an hour or so looking around the visitor centre and really getting a feel for the history of berlin. we also visited a "ghost" underground train station which was shut off during the soviet occupation of east berlin and learned more about that.
eventually we made our way to the flea market but at this point i was absolutely freezing and ready to go home. luckily it was quite small; and packed full of interesting vintage (or just second hand) items. we spent a good half hour drooling over a case of expensive rings and i almost bought a black velvet dress - saved at the last moment by realising it had a tear in the top. still, georgie had to drag me away because i insisted " i'll sew it up, i will!"
on this evening (yes i went out every night ok everyone stop judging me please) georgie and i went up to the bar and met a girl from new zealand and her room mate who was from boston in america! again we didn't stay very late as we were quite tired and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around.
monday 21/2
today we visited checkpoint charlie; the jewish history museum and tried (and failed) to find the berlin guggenheim. checkpoint charlie was fascinating; to be in such a historical spot and to stand where so many people have stood was unbelievable. my history nerd came out and i spent ages reading all the "first hand experience" posters etc. next we walked to the jewish history museum where we kind of split off into 2 groups - agreeing to meet up after an hour. georgie and i spent what felt like forever wandering the museum and visiting a kind of "message tree" where you write a wish on a paper pomegranate and hang it off the tree. some of the messages were really lovely and some were incredibly sad. it hadn't really registered with me that we are actually IN EUROPE and that not everyone will speak english until i was reading messages off the tree and only understood a tiny fraction of the languages.
after the jewish history museum we tried to find the guggenheim but got terribly lost and ended up walking up potsdamer platz admiring the shops and took our first look at the brandenburg gate.
next we headed to the memorial of holocaust victims which is really...confronting in a weird way. the memorial itself is very effective and its a very sobering experience.
on monday night we finally made friends! yay!
georgie, yve and i saw the same girl from boston as the previous night and the people she was with invited us to sit with them. having a group of people to be with was really nice and as the 2 canadians were doing similar work to us (although they both have a good 9 years on us), it was fun to swap stories and joke around.
installment 1, finally complete. i just got home from a night out with georgie in london (lots of fun, enough said) and i'm going to eat pasta and watch the notebook.
ill finish this off tomorrow. sorry i'm so lazy, every time i got to blog i get distracted by something else.
Tuesday 1 March 2011
sorry for the lack of updates!
my berlin post is half way done, but i'm going to bed now to try and shake off this cold once and for all.
tomorrow! promise!
tomorrow! promise!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)