Berlin has taught me alot about myself and my ability to adapt and survive in strange conditions. After taking a horrible overnight bus here from Amsterdam on Thursday morning, we found our hostel. It is very nice and clean and in a quirky area that is a bit of a distance from the center of the city. Our first night we stumbled upon a lovely restaurant on the river, and got to see the East Side Gallery, which is a string of beautiful paintings on one section of the Berlin Wall. When I got home that evening, I accidently locked my key in my locker.... with ALL of my belongings. I had to spend all of Thursday walking around Berlin in my pajamas. Yes, that really happened. I had to borrow flip flops from Ashley, and deodorant from Abbe, and then we went to a mall and I put make up on in a store that had testers. I thought the hostel worker would be here at 8 to break the lock, but he didn't come until midnight, and I was getting very panicky. If he couldn't fix it, I would have had to pay 100 Euro for a locksmith, not to mention I would have ruined an entire day and night by waiting on the hostel worker to do it for free. We went out for a nice dinner down the street (I am wearing my Phillies t-shirt and pajama bottoms at La Pizzeria Romantica. Obviously it was very romantic...), and then came back in time for the hostel worker's arrival! He busted open my lock with ease and I cried tears of joy and gave him a kiss. The Brazilian boys and Aussie girls we met here waited for me to get ready, and then we went out for the night - people here don't go out sometimes until after midnight because places will stay open until the sunrises!!
Yesterday was much better. We took a walking tour of Berlin which allowed us to see all of the sites that we previously had difficulty locating. We went into the Holocaust Museum, Topography of Terror museum, and attempted to go into the Reichstag to get a 360 degree view of Berlin, but the line was long and we were hungry. We went back to the same Italian restaurant for dinner and hurried to get ready in time for the pub crawl. There is a group that organizes these things in every city, and we heard they were alot of fun, so we decided to try it. We had a great time, and will definitely do it again in Prague. We had to be super quiet when coming home last night because there is a guy in our room who complained to the hostel staff about how loud we are - which is totally untrue, and besides, he snores all night and Ashley has a hard time sleeping because of it, so really, he's the loud one. I got in a match of wits with him (he used the word "modicom" thinking I wouldn't know what it meant. Too bad that's on the 10th grade vocab list I teach, sucker) and I think he asked to switch rooms. Bottom line is that this is a hostel, and if you don't like the communal atmosphere, don't stay here. Sometimes people come in late and they are loud trying to get ready for bed, but you just have to deal with it because you are only paying about 25 dollars a night for a clean bed and hot shower. I personally don't mind this environment because you get to make friends with people from all over the world!
Right now we are waiting for our Aussie friend Sarah to get ready and then we are taking a bus about an hour out of Berlin to see the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I'm looking forward to using all of the pictures I've taken of sites relating to the Holocaust in my lessons this year when we read Night by Elie Wiesel. Berlin is just steeped in culture from WWI, WWII and The Cold War, and it is just so impressive to know you are standing on historical ground. It's a great mix of old and new, as the nightlife here is very vibrant and the people are friendly and fun - just don't ask them for directions, they have no clue where they are going or how to help you either!! Off to Prague tomorrow morning - this marks the half way point of the trip. 2.5 weeks to go :-)
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