SURPRISE!

Hi All!! So before I update everyone on my incredible weekend in Berlin I will start with where I left off in the week on Thursday. On Thursday for my Paris class we started out on a walking tour to see different areas and look at the history behind certain buildings and see why they were built in certain ways. It was really interesting and really nice to spend some time out of the class room. After the tour we had a break then discussed about the book we read for that week, Ferragus. After that class I headed over towards literature class and sat through a lovely three hours of note passing with Erin and Caroline. After class I was really excited because Laura and Paige were coming into Paris for the weekend and this was going to be my only chance to see them. Things got skrewed up in translation and I ended up not seeing them but I hope they had an amazing time! Instead me and Julie went to this resturant called Indiana, which was actually pretty politically incorrect considering there was a giant picture of an Indian on the cover of the menu. It was Tex Mex chain and I got some quessidillas. After dinner I showed Julie to her first gelato experience of this trip and we were both in love. This really was such a bad discovery. After gelato we parted ways and I walked home. Living walking distance from Julie and Amanda really is so great and so nice. After I got home I packed and did some other odds and ends before leaving for BERLIN on Friday!

Friday morning I woke up at 7:30 am jumping up and down in bed. I was just so excited to leave for Berlin and see two of my best friends I haven't seen in months! I sat in bed for a while, made sure I had everything packed and ready to go. Then I headed to class with my suitecase in hand. Not the easiest way to travel around the metro but there aren't many other options. First I had theatre, then phonetics. Both really just consisted of counting down the minutes until my flight left! After phonetics I ran out of the building and went on my journey to the airport...alone. Julie and Becca are very lucky people and don't have class on Friday so they got to go early Friday morning. I on the other hand wasn't leaving till 8:50. So my ride started on the metro, then I went to the RER then the shuttle to the airport. It was quite an extensive journey but totally worth it all. I got to the airport super early so just checked in and got some food (I chose a salad over nutella to go....Paris is making me a changed person) and did some homework. After sitting in the wrong gate for an hour I ran over to find the actual gate I was suppose to go to and hopped on the Berlin flight. Who knew that you could sit where ever you wanted on an easy jet flight. I opted for a window seat, and after what felt like five minutes (more like an hour and a half) I was in Berlin. I was so filled with excitement! I ran off the plane and found a taxi. It was about a 20ish minute trip to the hotel. Once I got to the hotel I put my stuff down in Julie's room and ran up to Marissa and Michelles to surprise them...they weren't there. Okay no worries, I'll try again later, and then later, and then finally I found them! The surprise was absolutly great!! Check out the video on my facebook! They had no idea and we were all so excited and happy to see each other. Unfortunately this all took place around 12:30 am so we were all totally exhausted and went to bed shortly after.

Saturday was the day we all knew we had to prepare for. This was when we were visiting Sachsenhausen. This was a concentration camp just outside of Berlin. A little history- This camp inparticualr was actually set up to be a model camp for concentration camps. It wasn't a death camp as much as a work camp. Regardless this was one of the most interesting/scary/eerie experiences of my life. It was something I was very glad I saw, but my stomach was in knots the entire time. The first thing we saw when we came in was the Tower A which was also the gate to get into the camp. On top of the tower was a clock. We learned that it is actually only a painted on clock becuase when the Soviet's liberated the camp they stole the clock and painted on the time 11:07 which is when the camp was liberated. We also saw things like, where the Nazi would hang out, they called it the Camp Casino, the prisoners called it The Green Monster. Walking into the camp was so strange. It was just surreal considering this is an event I have been learning about since I was born. To see something like this in person was unbelievable. We also saw the special barracks where the Jews were kept, the prison that was for the "special prisoners," and the gas chambers. These were all things that were so hard to see. For me the hardest part of the trip was when we left the camp. It was just weird that it is so easy for us just to walk out. We were affected by the horrors in person for 5 hours and then were just able to leave. As we all know this was not the situation during WWII for these people. That was probably the one thing, that in Julie's words, irked me the most. I really don't have the words to describe these emotions so I will leave it at that.

After the camp we had a 40 minute train ride back to Berlin, and our tour guide gave us some suggestions for dinner places. We decided to go to this place called The BallHaus. It was a ballroom/resturant thing. It was fun. They had great pizza! After dinner we all headed back to our hotel and showered. It was pouring rain ( a common theme of the weekend) and everyone was exhausted. We decided to stay in and all get caught up. We went up to Marissa and Michelles room and just joked around and shared stories about all the things we've missed the past two months from each other lives. It was the perfect way to spend the night. After some hours of that we said our goodbyes and all went back to our own rooms.

Sunday morning we woke up super early and had our breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast wasn't half bad I must say, I have started to enjoy granola a lot more. After breakfast we headed to the Jewish Museum. I was really excited to go there but obviously my stomach started to act up and I couldn't even make it there. Julie stayed with me and once I started to feel better we explored the area of the museum and wandered our way and found Checkpoint Charlie (more about that later). After Becca and Steph (her friend from Texas, studying in London) finsihed at the museum the three of them went to the zoo and I went on the walking tour the other girls took on Friday. Even throughout the rain the walking tour was absolutely awesome! I got to see so many sights and learn so much history, and I was able to navigate myself around the Berlin metro system by the end of the day. The walking tour I took was free and it was called the New Berlin Walking Tour. They have them throughout a lot of cities in Europe. We started the tour at the Brandenburg Gate.This is a giant structure in Germany that has been around since the 1700s I think. On either side of the Gate is the American Embassy and the French embassy. There is a statue on the top of the gate that is a sign of peace. When Napoleon came to power in France he took this statue out of Berlin. Later Berlin got it back and changed the face on the statue. Now it looks as it is either watching over the French Embassy, or giving it a dirty look. That is up for interpretation.Also in this area was Hotel Adlon, made famous for Michael Jackson dangling a baby outside one of the windows. We made our way through Berlin seeing the parliment building and then stopping at a Holocaust memorial. There are many memorials throughout Berlin commemerating the different groups of people that were murdered throughout the war. This specific memorial was dedicated to the lost Jews. It was beautiful site, very interesting a different. After that we headed over to where Hitler's old bunker used to be. It is a now a dirt parking lot that people bring there dogs to, to do their buisness on. It was very scary being on that sight as well. So many terrible plans were enforced on the area I was standing on. What a difference 50 years makes in the same area. After that we saw a memorial called the June 17 Memorial. It had something to do with a ralley between East and West Berlin, I can't remember the actual story, but it happened on my sister's birthday. We then saw the Berlin wall, or at least the remains of it, and Checkpoint Charlie. This is a checkpoint at the wall that was very hard to get through from going from one side to another. Once the wall was destroyed people were able to get through checkpoint Charlie and that's when people really realized that the wall was down. We had a quick break after that for lunch. I ran into a girl who I went to camp with for two years, Melissa Stone. I acually ran into her on the concentration camp tour and then again at lunch. I sat with her and her friends because I was all alone on the tour. After the break we saw the Nazi Book Burning memorial. After that I had to leave the tour early and make my way through the pouring rain back to the hotel.

The metro took longer than expected so the girls met me at the metro stop with my bag. We said good bye to Steph becuase she was taking a seperate flight than us at another airport. Then we made our adventure to Tiegel airport. We took the metro to a bus. Rode the bus for about 30 minutes just to find out that we passed the airport 25 minutes before that point. We hopped off the bus and hopped into a cab. Once we got there check in and security was a sinch. I bought some snacks, and a magnet (my one souvenir haha) and waited for the plane. We got on the plane smoothly, me and Becca actually sat together, and it was a smooth, quick flight home. I then proceeded to go tram, RER, then two metro stops, then I finally made it home! Everything about the trip was totally totally worth it. I was so happy I got to see my friends and all the really incredible things that historical Berlin has to offer.