Excursion to Berlin!

I honestly did and saw so much in Berlin, that I had to take out my excursion program to remember all that happened this past weekend. First of all, the weather was stunning. It was warm and sunny, and the autumn leaves looked beautiful against the tall buildings. My excursion group and I arrived around lunch time on Thursday and walked around West Berlin a bit to find food before beginning the bus tour. I was able to admire some of the scenery by the Berlin ZOB Zoo:

 

Next up was the bus tour. Though interesting, it went through the main sites quite quickly so I didn't get to see and admire as much as I would have liked (at least not through a bus window). What I did catch, however, was really quite interesting and I consulted by Berlin travel guide for more information:

This is the Olympiastadion, built for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. I was happy because we were able to get off the bus and take pictures in front of the massive structure. This stadium was designed in the Nazi architectural style and contains architectural components that were influenced by that of ancient Rome. Inside, giant grandstands surround the field and everything comes together as an enormous amphitheater.

Don't the fall leaves look so pretty? I was surprised by how many parks there were in such a large city. It was interesting how they intermingled so perfectly among the buildings. Beneath the tree picture is the Siegessӓule, or Triumphal Column. I apologize that you cannot see the whole thing because I took it quickly from a moving bus!! Anyway, the Column was built to commemorate the victory in the Prusso-Danish war in 1864. A gold figure representing "Victory" was added to the top and she points to France reminding the country that Germany won that war. Here is how it actually looks thanks to Google images:

 

We also drove past the Bundesrat! The Bundesrat is responsible for federal policy, defends the federal states' interests, and serves as a link between the Federal Government and the Federal states. Almost 50 percent of all the laws passed in Germany require the Bundesrat's approval.

Next up, we were able to get off the bus and visit the Holocaust Memorial. It is more formally known as the "Monument to the Murdered Jews in Europe." I gave my presentation here on the topic, so I know lots about this. The architect for this memorial was not German, but rather American! His name was Peter Eisenmann and the project was completed in 2005. Eisenmann received both praise and criticism for his design. The memorial is made up of 2,711 five-sided slabs of stone of different sizes and shapes. They bear no markings, dates, or names. The slabs undulate in a wave-like pattern, as do the paths shaped between the slabs. This is representative of the groundlessness, instability, and disorientation of the Holocaust. One can walk in any direction and find themselves getting lost among the dips in the paths and dark shadows cast by the slabs.

 

After visiting the memorial, we drove (very quickly!! too quickly!!) past Brandenburg Gate. This is all I caught until I went back two days later to take pictures with friends (which have not been uploaded just yet!). Here is the side view :)

At night it is absolutely stunning- it is all lit up with red and green lights!

After the bus tour was over, we arrived at our meeting place to listen to Carsten Sieling give a talk on German political processes, as well as hold a Q and A. Mr. Sieling is a member of the Social Democratic Party and has been a member of Parliament for the Bremen constituency since 2009.  Before, from 2004 to 2006, he served as the state chairman for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Bremen. It was very nice meeting him and listening to him speak, especially because he represents Bremen (home to Jacobs Uni!). I wish I knew and understood more politics, because I struggled coming up with a decent question to ask him. Mr. Sieling was a very kind man though and certainly passionate about what he does! This was me in the main square before going in to meet with him:

WELL, by this point we were all quite hungry so my friends and I went to a restaurant called "Neumanns." It was SO GOOD. And I got to have my first Berliner Weisse!

 

I was content after that. But despite being exhausted and very full, there was still more to do. A group of my friends and I headed to East Berlin that night to check out some of the bars. We came across one called The Lounge which had drinks with very interesting names. Mine was called the Flying Kangaroo....?

 

Safe to say I slept very well that night.

I can't believe how much I have already written about the first several hours. At 8:30 the next morning we all got back on the bus and headed to the Hohenschonhausen. This is the Stasi Communist prison created after the Soviets occupied East Berlin.

It was a prison for essentially anyone who opposed (or was suspected of opposing) the GDR and its Communist policies. The Stasi (police) arrested thousands of people and interrogated them asking for names of fellow opposers among other things. People were imprisoned here and were forbidden from having contact with their families. In some cases, some of the prisoners' children were even given up for adoption. Other times, the psychological abuse such as being put in isolation or being locked in a cell with 12 other people (including decomposing corpses) led entirely innocent people to confess to actions of which they took no part. It was absolutely horrible. The prison finally closed after the fall of the Berlin wall.

 

I think we all deserved a break after listening to our tour guide tell us so much of that information. We went to Alexander-Platz right after and my friend Maia and I did some much needed clothing and jewelry shopping!! I will spare the details on that though ;)

Around 4pm we headed to the Reichstag Building for a tour. This building is very important in Berlin. It is home to the Bundestag, which was newly elected upon German reunification in 1990. It is a meeting place for the German parliament, particularly important figures such as the Federal President (Joachim Gauck) and Federal Chancellor (Angela Merkel).

My favorite part was going up into the dome (representing the German people as the highest influence in the Welfare State) and looking out onto the Berlin skyline at night.

My friends and I then headed over to Haus Der 100 Bier! It's a famous pub located on the Ku'damm. We had more incredible food and a great, great time together!! Until the check came :)

 

I (fortunately) was able to sleep in on Saturday morning. Around 10:15, I went to the Neues Museum, which is home to Ancient Egyptian art and artifacts, including the famous Bust of Nefertiti! The museum was BEAUTIFUL. I could have spent all day in there reading every panel, taking my time with the audio tour, and admiring every ancient artifact within the museum walls.

 

                                The body's insides were put in these jars before mummification

After my museum trip, it was almost time to go. Our bus was on its way to Potsdamer Platz, the famous shopping center and home to the Sony Tower, but it made some important (still quick) stops along the way.

In order, here we go:

Checkpoint Charlie:

The Berlin Wall:

Finally, we arrived in the beautiful Potsdamer Platz where I had an incredible chicken curry wrap and some yummy German chocolate pastries.

We then went back to Bremen! I fell asleep instantly.

If I learned one thing on the trip, it's that all of Berlin can't be done in just two and a half days. Oh, and the red Berliner Weisse flavor is much better than the green flavor. Prost!

A Weekend in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is only a 40 minute plane ride from Bremen, so a couple of my girlfriends and I decided to go for the weekend! For just about a 48 hour trip, we did A LOT. Our plane left at 10:30am on Friday morning and we landed in Amsterdam around 11:15. We quickly navigated the bus system from the airport and found the bud headed towards the main city center.

This "I amsterdam" is one of three around the city. This one is located in front of the airport. The other two apparently get moved around and pop up in new places all the time!

When we arrived at the city center, our next step was to locate our hostel. We got a little bit turned around, but eventually we found the street we needed. The hostel we stayed in was actually a Christian hostel. It was very clean and the people who worked there (most of whom were our age or younger!) were incredibly friendly (and religious). It was overall a very good hostel and quite clean. I was even able to buy tickets for museums right from the front desk, which helped to avoid the loooong lines that form rather quickly.

After we locked up our belongings in the hostel, we were starving. We found a Doner kebab restaurant which had massive sandwiches and drinks for about 7 euros or under:

Clearly, we decided to eat there. The food was really good, but a bit too much! I couldn't finish all of that.

As my friends and I walked around the city some more, we came across a number of really cute Dutch food shops and souvenir stores. We were all surprised about how much English is spoken in Amsterdam. Even the Dutch sometimes speak English to each other! It's funny- I'm not used to everyone understanding English, so my initial reaction was to first speak in German. I was always met with a few blank stares. There were also so many Americans there. I heard American accents on every corner. Regardless, the Dutch shops were quaint and all the food was fresh and delicious:

 

OH! How could I have forgotten? Amsterdam has TONS of canals. They are all gorgeous. The buildings lining the streets are also pretty. The houses are narrow because in the olden days, only so much square footage was allotted per property location. To make more floors, the staircases had to be made very, very narrow (they were almost vertical!!)- a drunk person's worst nightmare essentially. The houses also tilt sideways because the foundation is built on sand and other unstable terrain. Finally, many houses also lean forward in order to hook larger belongings (such as pianos) to the roof to be pulled upwards through windows so as not to damage the outer walls of the house.

 

We were lucky to have some spots of sunshine because for the most part the weather was pretty awful- lots of rain showers. We had a scheduled boat around 7:15 pm, so we decided to go back to the hostel for a bit and get our room settled. Afterwards, we headed to the Red Light District, as it was on the way to where our boat tour would begin! It was interesting to say the least, but an experience that's for sure :) We had a good time overall in that part of town. And some pretty great laughs. For instance, a Catholic Church and a kindergarten are located right in the heart of the RLD. We learned that parents and teachers tell the children that the reasons why the girls in the windows are in "bikinis" is because they are waiting for their boyfriends to pick them up to take them to the beach! Also, the Dutch men there don't hold back with their lewd comments towards passers-by ;)

 

Entering the RLD..........................Coming out of the RLD

By this point we were all still pretty full from the massive Turkish Doner Kebabs we had earlier, but we stopped into a bakery for some pastries (like actual pastries kids could have too). We had a bit of time before the boat tour began, and we wanted to get out of the rain for a little while.

                                                    YUM <3

We also popped into a couple of souvenir stores and did some shopping along the way.  The main market square is quite beautiful with its churches and palace.

Our boat tour meeting location for the Boom Chicago company was located in the back of a bar, so we hung out for a bit for the rest of our tour group to arrive (it had stopped raining too). It was a cool place. Some of the Dutch performers were putting on a comedy show about the American election, and we were told that the 11:30 pm performance would be performed completely through improvisation with all the actors drunk. It sounded like fun, but we still had more to do that night and wanted to see how tired we'd be...Here are some pictures from the boat tour:

I learned all about the history of Amsterdam on the tour, and got to see some of the major buildings I didn't get to see during the day, such as the Mayor's House and the Mint Tower (Munttoren). It was very enlightening and certainly one of the highlights of my trip there. The city is absolutely stunning at night, and all the bridges are lit up. The canal sparkles and you can see the reflections of the narrow houses in the water.

So of course, after such a nice historical tour, why not stumble upon a Museum of Torture?! =D

                                             Yup, this was it! And in a sketchy area too....

It was a medieval museum filled with torture devices. It had descriptions about each torture device next to the structure, as well as some pretty gruesome pictures on the fall. Overall very cool. And the lights inside the museum were like a neon red and blue....

 

Again, I'm a psychology major, so all of the information about torture and the psychological/societal reasons behind it are fascinating to me.

It was getting late and it was now very dark outside. We were EXHAUSTED, so me made the long trek back to our hostel. We relaxed for a little while and met our new roommate from South Korea, and then we all fell asleep.

The next morning my friend Katie and I woke up early because we wanted to get on line for the Anne Frank House before it opened. Fortunately it was not raining very much that morning, because we had to stand on line for a little while.

                                            Located in front of the Anne Frank House

The Anne Frank House is where Anne went into hiding with her family for over 2 years during the Nazi occupation. She hid with her parents, sister, and another family, as well as a family friend, in the Secret Annex above a warehouse for a jam company with which her father was associated. Everything in the house was in excellent condition. I highly recommend a visit to the house. I was able to go through the warehouse rooms, past the secret bookshelf, and upstairs into the Annex. I even got to go inside Anne's room, which was still decorated with the cheerful pictures she had pasted onto her bedroom walls during her time there. Of course, out of respect, no photography was allowed. It was a very touching experience being there, and also quite sad. I am very happy that I went. Her diary is one of my favorite works of non-fiction.

After the Anne Frank House, Katie and I met up with Fiona and headed to the Van Gogh museum. The original museum was closed for renovations, so all of the artwork was moved to an even larger museum, the Hermitage Museum.

Although the museum was very, VERY crowded, I saw all of Van Gogh's most famous works and learned a lot about him as an artist. Again, no photography was allowed. He went through a number of different phases in his artistic career, spanning from simple sketches, to studying flowers, peasants, Japanese art, the simple beauty of nature, and of course, portraits. I also was able to see some other Impressionist artists' works too, such as Monet and Renoir.

After the Van Gogh museum, we went to a tiny Italian restaurant. We were getting tired and the weather was pretty awful by this point- I was wearing a rain coat and my sweatshirt underneath still got soaked! Katie wanted to check out another museum, so she went off and did that while Fiona and I found our favorite bakery again and enjoyed hot drinks and cake while writing postcards. A few hours later, we all met up at the hostel. Exhausted. And drenched.

I saw and did more than I had initially anticipated. I had such a wonderful weekend and I would love to return to Amsterdam again one day. It really is a beautiful, charming city. There is still so much I didn't get to see (like the zoo and the other famous museums!) so a trip back is certainly on the agenda for the future.

Safe to say, I'm still pretty tired. We got to the airport at 5:45 am Sunday morning.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat :)

Back to Hamburg for the Day

On Saturday, my friends Tania, Jeff, Juliana, and I went to Hamburg for the day. Tania and Julie hadn't been yet, and there were still more things that I had not seen (it's the second largest city in Germany). It was raining pretty hard at first, so we decided to go to Kunsthalle, which is the main art museum in the city. It was BEAUTIFUL. I have grown quite the appreciate for art here.

The inside of the museum was divided into different areas such as Renaissance/Medieval works, modern art, sculpture, and even old coin collections. We really had fun with the mirrors in the coin exhibit...

 By the time we left the museum it was bright and sunny! I was really happy I was able to visit the art museum because I couldn't last time. I hadn't visited the sites on the water either, so we decided to take advantage of the weather and head over to Binnenalster, the small lake. There was a pretty fountain in the middle and we got to see some great views of the city!

I had already seen the Rathaus, but Tania and Juli hadn't. I didn't mind going again because it is GORGEOUS. As I mentioned in a previous post, the architecture dates back to the Renaissance. We even got the opportunity to go inside the Rathaus, which I was not able to do last time either. We spent a while there admiring the architecture on this now beautiful, sunny day.

Next we made our way to the old St. Nikolai Kirche (which I had also seen, but again everything is so pretty that you need to go twice). Afterwards, we walked about a kilometer or two to the oldest part of Hamburg. The Deichstrasse is one of the few surviving streets in the old town:

We were getting pretty hungry at this point, and last time I was here Jeff and I had found a delicious looking "Texas American Barbeque" restaurant on Reeperbahn. So guess where we went back to? ;) It was not nearly as bad as last time because most of the men were inside the bars watching the football game that was on. And we found the barbeque place! It was magnificent! We had not had any food like that since before we all left for Germany. It was definitely a great way to end the day.

I have an exciting trip somewhere this week and every week for the remainder of October, so stay tuned :)

As for Hamburg, I'll be back again for the Christmas Market!

Marienburg Castle

Today is a German national holiday celebrating the final unification of East and West Germany. I spent the day with my host family. We began the morning with a delicious breakfast, followed by a visit to the GORGEOUS Marienburg Castle (Schloss Marienburg). It is located in Lower Saxony, south of Hannover. The castle was constructed in 1858 as a birthday present from King George V to his wife, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, for her 40th birthday. It was my first visit to a castle! I even took 2 guided tours- one that went through the main rooms of the castle, while the other took me to the very top tower with an incredible view.

The castle can still be used today as an event location for weddings, receptions, and even concerts. How nice is that?! :)

Hannover

On Saturday I went on a day trip to Hannover! I was not able to see everything that I wanted to because I was only there for about 5 hours. SO, like Hamburg, I'm going to have to go again at some point...

But what I did see was beautiful. As soon as I arrived with my friends (our Jacobs semester ticket also gets us to Hannover for free!) we took the first street we saw and made our way to the Opernhaus. According to my travel book I had with me, the Opernhouse was built in the mid-1800s by George Ludwig Friedrich Laves. He was Hannover's most important architect and designed the Opernhaus in a Neo-Classical fashion. The Opernhaus had some surprisingly low-priced tickets which, now that I think about it, is very encouraging for a return trip!

After our visit to the Opernhaus, we made our way down Willy-Brandt-Allee (a very important man during the Cold War period- he was the 1969-1974 German Chancellor and entered the occupied GDR from West Germany to make amends).

We finally reached the STUNNING Neues Rathaus. Situated on a vast garden, "the gigantic town hall symbolizes the lofty ambitions of the wealthier citizens at the beginning of the 20th century" (Eyewitness Travel: Germany, 444). Just look at how beautiful this building is:

I was so excited that I was able to go on the grand staircase inside! It was absolutely beautiful and I wish I could get all dressed up and attend some special event there. I was able to see that two wedding events were happening that afternoon and I even saw the bride all dressed up getting her pictures taken in the garden :)

Oh, I forgot to mention: before we arrived at the Rathaus, my friends and I popped into one of the old Churches. This Church was destroyed in both WWI AND WWII. It has not been reconstructed since:

 

 After the Rathaus visit, my friends and I really wanted to check out the Niedersӓchsisches Landesmuseum. This museum is known for its famous picture gallery, which holds German, Dutch, and Flemish medieval  and Renaissance collections such as the works of Rembrandt, van Dyck, and Durer. There was also a natural history component to the museum with special collections anywhere from indigenous Tanzanian tribal items to dinosaur bones to beautiful minerals. We were there for about 2 hours and were able to see everything. Unfortunately, we couldn't always read the captions and information for what we were looking at because 99% of the time it was written in complex German.

Besides the usual tourist-geared activities, I did manage to steal away for a few minutes and spend time in one of Hannover's parks...and children's playgrounds. Fall is indeed here :)

 

 We were very lucky to have good weather for most of our day trip. I hope I'll have the same when I go back again one day!! There is still so much more to see!