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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

sum up of Berlin

So I got back from Berlin yesterday. It was a great city. I had never really thought much about the city before and it surprised me very much. The city is full of awesome architecture designed by famous architects from all over the world. I couldn't believe I was seeing, in person, some of the buildings I had studied and I hadn't realized they were in Berlin. So it seemed like with every turn of the corner I would be surprised with the building that lay in front of me.

That is what was exciting to me. Since Prague had been almost untouched by World War II, there isn't an overwhelming amount contemporary architecture. So Berlin was very different from the city I've been calling home. It is also a huge city! The subway map was ridiculous compared to the maps I've been looking at in Prague. There were lines going in every direction and all these different colors. In Prague our Metro map consists of a red line, a yellow line and a green line - and I like it that way.

Luckily, I didn't have to figure out much of the navigating...I left it up to others. Nine of us went on the trip. All of us are Architecture (or Interior Architecture) students from Kansas State that went. So most of us have been around eachother for the past 4 years now. Anyhow, the trip on the train took about 4 1/2 hours. It really wasn't too bad considering we took a 9 hour train to Poland awhile ago. Two of our Scottish friends from Prague also came on the trip, but they were staying with two of their friends that are studying in Berlin. They rode with us on the way to Berlin, though. We got in to Berlin at about 10 or 11 pm. It took us a long while to figure out where we go to get to the hostel because we had gotten off at the wrong train stop. With some of the trains in Europe, you have to be paying attention when you're approaching your destination because there aren't really announcements. It would be very easy to completely miss your stop. So, we knew we were in Berlin and got off at the stop we thought we were supposed to, but it wasn't, which really isn't a big deal. The friends of the scottish guys came and helped us out. We made it to our hostel, grabbed a snack, and crashed.

We woke up early the next day, wanting to beat some of the crowds to the popular tourist destinations. We went to the Reichstag first, which is the seat of the German Parliament, and barely had to wait in any line to get in. The building was renovated not too long ago and an incredible dome was added to it. They let people come in and tour it for free. We had studied this building, so it was pretty amazing to be there. It was designed to be very environmentally friendly, so its been talked about in our classes about sustainable (green) architecture. We walked around a bit that day looking at all the buildings in the downtown area. We went to an art museum, which I really enjoyed - there were Andy Warhol and Picasso pieces there. We also made it to the new holocaust memorial there. It is a huge area with these concrete blocks placed in rows along the whole field. It makes quite a statement when looking at it, especially when the sun is shining and the shadows are so strong.

The weather was a bit crazy the whole trip. The first day it would rain and be very dark outside and then clear up and be incredibly blue and sunny-it did this like 3 times while we were walking around. When it was about evening, we were all very tired and decided to stop with the site seeing for the day. Laura, Allison and I decided we'd go into a movie. We'd passed one big movie theater and looked at the selection, so now we were in a different part of town where there was another movie theater, so we decided to go in. We bought our tickets to The Inside Man and headed in. As we sat watching the previews we realized there hadn't been one thing in English yet. And we had intended on asking the ticket lady if it was in English, but had forgotten. In Prague, if the movie title is in English then the movie is in English. They change the names of the movies into Czech if its been dubbed. And we noticed that all the other movie posters in this cinema had been changed...i.e. Big Momma's House was Big Momma's Haus..

Well apparently those rules did not apply to this movie and when the movie finally started, we saw that it was indeed in German. So we, a little embarrassed, made our way out of the theater. We explained the situation at the front desk and ended up getting our money back... thank goodness! At the first theater we had come across it did actually have English movies, but I guess this one normally doesn't. So we went back to the hostel and crashed for awhile. We met up with our Scottish buddies later on in the evening.

The rest of the days we took our time and the group split up to go in different directions at some points. The second day we were there was a really, nice and sunny day. There were lots of people out and about in Berlin. There was a fair going on in one area. We took a break there in front of a museum, where tons of people were just hanging out in the lawn. So we joined in for awhile and relaxed in the sun. Then we decided to go to a soccer game we had heard about. The Scots had gotten tickets, so we wanted to attend our first European soccer game. It was two german teams - the Berliner team and another team. It was at the Olympic Stadium from the 1930's I think. It has been refurbished for the World Cup this summer, so it looked really awesome. I completely did not expect this many people to come to a soccer game between two German teams. I expected a lot, but they announced the attendance was over 65,000! The fans were crrrazy, like I have heard. The game ended in a tie, which may have been good for us since it was crazy enough leaving the game and getting on the subway. There were police officers dressed in their riot gear all around. When the subway arrived at the station people would go mad and push into the doors, so when we got up to the front our strong boys we were traveling with created a bit of a barrier so us girls could get on first.

Easter didn't seem to be a huge deal in Berlin, so that was a little disappointing. We took it easy on Sunday and most of us were pretty exhausted anyways. We went to another museum and then headed out to the death strip of the Berlin wall. There's an observation tower out there and a chapel that was rebuilt out there too. The original chapel had been knocked down and a new, very neat little chapel has been rebuilt with quite a bit of history attached to it.

All went well with the trip, although I'm starting to feel a bit run down now. I'll have to take it easy for the next week and half....and after that week and a half I will be leaving for a trip to Italy! We'll be visiting some of our colleagues that are studying in Italy as well as visiting as many cities as we can. Until then I will be doing some school work!

Have a good one!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wow, Mac, you're traveling so much! I'm so excited for you! have fun in Italy. It will be a blast. Tell Luke I said hi. I love your blog, Germany sounds different from what I expected. Cool! Have fun.