Please note the disco ball in the background. Really classy commies. Way to ruin an otherwise lovely landscape.**Sorry it's taken me a lifetime to put up entries. I traveled, then it was my birthday and lastly I had to do that whole "school" thing--the reason I actually came to Holland. ; ) I will put more stuff up tomorrow.
Right before my birthday, I went on a five-day whirlwind trip.
My traveling buddies on this one were Aditi and Hans; and our first destination was Berlin.
The day before, I was talking to Hans about the trip and mentioned how Aditi wanted to get to Amsterdam’s airport at five in the morning. I couldn’t believe that she wanted to get there that early. Our flight wasn’t until 8:30. Ha. No, no. Our flight as Aditi soon informed us—was at 6:50am.
Upon our arrival to Berlin, we sauntered down the plane steps and onto a shuttle bus. We stood in the crowed bus for approximately fifteen minutes, waiting and waiting. Finally, the shuttle took off—and drove a whole 100 meters. That was our welcome to Berlin. Once we figured out the bus and metro system, we rushed to our hostel in order to drop our backpacks off and make the famous Berlin Free Tour!
Side Note: Hostel
Our hostel was great—and located in East Berlin. I felt that I reached Ukraine. Almost every inch of East Berlin is covered in Soviet spirit: the overwhelming cement architecture, stoic plazas, pale primary color schemes especially prominent on random metal fences that enclose nothing in particular, large utopian mosaics on various buildings and eye sore 60’s “technological advances” such as a large disco ball on a pick tower.
Also, one can tell that they are in East Berlin by looking at the crosswalk light. East Berlin lights have stout little men with caps unlike West Berlin which has normal hatless people.
Berlin Free Tours are a must for anyone going to Berlin. We had heard about them from anyone and everyone who had popped over to Berlin. The tour guides are young and the entire system sustains itself off of tips. Oh! I almost forgot. The Berlin Free Tours offer two very convenient and easy to spot meeting locations—for Americans. The first--I like to think was targeted toward the Midwestern and East-coast Americans--is across from a Dunken Doughnuts. The second was much more up my alley—next to a Starbucks.
I was over the moon to see this little piece of corporate Nirvana. Despite the fact that I don’t drink coffee, I miss Seattle and the fact that we have one of these on every single corner. And of course, ordered the venti and was a very obvious American. It was wonderful. However, it was one the first times that I truly realized how disgustingly large the drinks are in the US.
But this is all irrelevant to the main event: Free Berlin Tour!
Our tour guide was a charming Scottish chap, Thomas. The tour lasted around three hours and covered (drum roll please) war. We assumed that maybe the city would like to move on a tiny bit from that whole WWII thing—nope. The entire tour and city was a live museum where every step you would the devastating evidence of war—from bullet holes to former Nazi headquarters, ghettos, borders, etc. It was quite incredible and touching how remorseful the German people what transpired
The university where Albert Einstein, Marx, Freud, and even Lenin all studied. Also, the Nazi’s burned 20,000 books in front of it as well.
We spent two lovely days in Berlin and took off to our next destination: Prague. We got there at nightfall and after finding our hostel, took off to see Charles bridge at night.
Hitler's Bunker was right there! Only during the last World Cup did the government finally put a small post that identifies this location as of Hitler's bunker. He killed himself there. Beforehand, the gov't thought that Neo Nazis would turn this lot into a shrine.
Berlin Wall!
Not as impressive as one imagined
This was a guard gate, then a monument against the Commies, then against the Nazis, then against Americans I think--now it's against war.
Jewish Monument
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