Berlin

February 6. 2019

Berlin, Germany. So far one of my favorite place I have been so far. There are many reasons for this. Normally I am not a big history fan, but Berlin is such a historic city and I loved learning more about it. I saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Cathedral Church (it was HUGE), East side gallery (the Berlin Wall), Checkpoint Charlie, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was one of the most interesting thing I saw. The way that it was designed was to make you feel a sense of being lost. The stone columns that were built were all different sizes and the ground was uneven. The way that the memorial was designed was quite unique.

I also went to the museum that is located underneath the memorial. The museum is free and if you want a audio walk through it is 3 euro. I paid the 3 euro because the holocaust has always caught my attention. Walking through the museum, listening to the recording, and reading the real stories of the people involved was very overwhelming and very sad. It still amazes me how many people were killed and how many stories are forgotten because of the lack of information. It is also interesting how many stories were recovered. I remember reading about how post cards were found and sent because people would throw them out train windows in hope that they arrive to their loved ones.

Seeing the Berlin wall up close was also really unique. It was cool because in Cincinnati there is a part of the Berlin wall located downtown. Seeing the actual wall up close was so cool! There were so many interesting murals on the wall. One of my favorite was of 4 windows and the one was captioned Berlin and had a picture of the Berlin Wall, the another window captioned Everywhere and it was plants and trees, the next was China and it had the Wall of China, and the last one was of Mascow. This was was just very interesting to me because of the way that the artist perceived the different places in the world and how they were able to make it come to life.

Also I loved the food in Berlin!! I tried some German food such as Wiener Schnitzel which is made of veal. I also had Bratwurst with sauerkraut and a traditional German Beer (yum!). Besides that I found out that Berlin has ~normal~ American food such as burgers!!!! I had 2 burgers while there and a quesadilla!! It was so nice to not have to eat pasta and pizza for the weekend!!!

I stayed in this super fun hostel called the Circus Hostel! I highly recommend it!! They have a bar in their basement and on Thursday nights they have Karaoke! It was a blast! Everyone was singing and having a great time.

Overall I loved Berlin and I could have definitely spent more time there! There was so much to do and so much to learn.