Welcome to the hot mess edition of Samantha's blogg. (luckily I can check this before I post because I initially wrote addition instead of edition). I haven't slept in 24 hours, and I wont be sleeping until after class tonight...aka 7:30pm (It's 8am now). Hopefully the important details of this post aren't forgetten. I should just start at the beginning.
Imagine 13 American's taking the midnight bus to Germany, with no idea how to get anywhere when we arrive. This is the beginning. We get on the bus only to discover that all the perks we paid for; the free hot drinks, movie, bathroom, are all apparently broken. Thank you orange ways bus. Not to mention the entire 5 hour trip the air conditioning must have been on. Note- chinatown bus beats the hungarian bus.
So the arrival... 5:30 am. For those of you who know me, know this is the worst time for me to be existing, especially without coffee. Very long and lost story short we make it to the hostel around 7:30am. We walk in, the hot messes that we were, and find this amazing hostel with a bar, tons of couches, bathroom for free and a breakfast spread. Apparently even though we signed up to check in at 7am you cant until like noon. That's fine. Germany is just a big fat liar all around. So we buy the breakfast for 5 euro- which is pretty much an entire week of groceries in Praha, and have an amazing (sarcastic) breakfast of bread and jelly and weird meat and cereal. They did have brewed coffee so I forgave the entire country for everything else.
It was here were we decided to split up and some of us went exploring and others wanted to sleep a little. First stop- the German parliment building, which was so beautiful. There is a center dome that you can walk up in a circle and see the entire city of berlin. They gave us headsets too and learned a lot of history of the city. We were also able to see parliment in session, (The building is built so you can see them, representing Germany's new transparent government after all the communism) which was really interesting. After that we just walked around the city a bit, getting lost and suprisingly finding our way back. We saw the Brandenburg gate, part of the wall, and the sony center. Ahh and we had lunch at this small German resturant and had the most amazing currywurst mit pommes. Tasted soooo good!
After this it was time for a little rest back at the hostel. We got coffee and after some sleeping watched German MTV for far too long. The other group was across the entire city at this point so we decided to just find dnner ourselves.
Interruption: it snowed non-stop in Berlin this entire trip. There was not one milisecond in which I was not cold. The last day here I had on 2 pants, 3 pairs of socks and like 5 shirts and was still cold.
So we decided on this thai/malaysian/whatever resturant... in Germany. Everything was sooo amazing. Like beyond amazing. Food, drinks, everything was great.
However, you do notice that the German people stare at you once they can see that you are american. I mean, it is obvious, since we are all speaking english or awful German, but it does make you aware that they are judging you!
Full day 2: we got up early to go on a 3 hour FREE tour of Berlin. While waiting found a DUNKIN DONUTS!!!!!!!! real coffee brewed in a pot (which you can not find in praha). It litterly made me the happiest camper of all time. I was ready for that 3 hour tour. ( in the end I was still beyond freezing and the fact that my toes didn't fall off due to frostbite from that tour is amazing and I think I should write a book about it: "how to survive the tundra") The tour began with a lot of things we saw the day before, but our tour guiide, Adam, who I was in love with because he was adorable and had his nosed pierced, knew so much and was really into his job. We learned the entire history of Berlin, which was super interesting because as it turns out I know basically nothing about that city. I had no idea it was that important. We also saw a longer part of the wall, checkpoint charlie, or the place where people could pass from East Berlin to West Berlin if they had documentation, the place where HItler's bunker is, the only Nazi building still standing, which is still being used, the place of the largerst book burning, and so many other really interesting places. Haha we also saw the hotel that MJ hung his kid Blanket out of in that famous picture. Go Berlin!
There were many things that intriged me about Berlin. First off it was so cool to see some of the buildings that made it through the war and they had bullet holes in them. only 10% of the buildings in Berlin are still standing from before the war. The rest had to be rebuilt afterward. At first I was not all the imporessed with Berlin, but after finding all that out, I loved it. I also find it really interesting that I lived when it was East Germany and West Germany. It's not really a big deal now, but it will be when I'm the oldest person on the planet and no one else can say they were alive for that. It was really surreal to walk through and see all these places where Nazi's occupied, because you know it happened but to see it is something completely different.
That night we went on a pub crawl that is offered in Berlin. It was really fun to meet different people traveling from around the world. We even met a few Americans. It was definitely an experience and everyone should try it. Thats all Im going to write about this part.
The next morning we went on a tour of Sachsenhausen, a Concentratin Camp just north of Berlin. This was a really powerful trip, and Im so glad I was able to go and see this. The camp was opened in 1936 and was actually the blueprint for all the other camps. While a lot of the buildings had fallen down, a lot of the original foundation still stood, as well as a prision, the pathology center and morgue (which still had actual blood stains on the floor) and the crematorium, were still standing. It was a really overwhelming momment that I wish everyone could go through. Just imaginging everything that went on there and the hate that still exists amazes me.
Later we met up with everyone and had drinks at this place that serves 165 different kinds of beer, and th service was great, especially for 12 annoying Americans.
It was at this point where things began to look like they did at the beginning of the trip. We made it to the bus station, made it on the bus to once again find that everything was broken, and we were on our way. Halfway through the trip I noticed people began moving towards the back of the bus where I was sitting. I asked someone who replied that it was so hot his shoe was melting. I was absolutely freezing, as there was air conditioning at the back and normal heat temperatures at the front. Plus the stupid bus kept stopping. It was around 4am that I began to completely lose it and I knew that If we didn't make it home soon, people were going to get hurt (and I was thinking about how I can't have anymore dunkin donuts coffee... thanks Praha).
Overall it was a really succsessful trip and really really fun.
except right now Im about to fall asleep and I have a Czech quiz in a few hours.... lets hope I can stay alive through all of this.
Welcome back to Prague!!!!!
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