Wednesday:
After a fantastic, mostly-bread breakfast in the hotel (no waffle maker, but certainly superior to any American hotel breakfast I’ve ever had in my life), we set off on the metro to the Brandenburger Tor, a poignant reminder of the division of Berlin because of its location in a no-man’s land during the Wall period. Near the Brandenburger Tor is the American embassy (which we will hopefully never visit because that would involve a lost passport) and the Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson infamously made the news when he dangled his son over a balcony. We then moved on to the Holocaust Memorial, which consists of stones of various heights, which increase in size as one walks towards the center of the monument. We all had various interpretations of this abstract site, which included the observation that the set-up resembled a cemetery and that one becomes increasingly intimidated as one walks toward the center. After the Holocaust Memorial, we toured the Bundestag (not the Reichstag, because there is no more Reich!), where we sat in the viewing area of the primary meeting room to hear about the German government and the building’s history (all in German!). We learned that governmental transparency is a focal point for the German government; citizens can watch government proceedings and read the transcripts online, and the clear dome at the top of the building represents this transparency. Two other notable highlights from the Bundestag stop as a whole were David’s question about filibustering (which he asked in German in front of a large audience) and Finn’s acquisition of two new pens (gifts from the ladies who took our bags and were impressed by his German skills). We then had a discussion with one of Markus Koob’s interns on a variety of topics. The intern had a sense of humor and handled some of our more interesting questions with ease. After this meeting, we ate in the Bundestagrestaurant, which has a beautiful view over the river. We then headed back to the Topography of Terror Museum, where we learned about life under the Nazi regime and checked out one of the longest still-standing segments of the Berlin Wall. After a bit of free time at the Potsdamer Platz (where many of us had ice cream for dinner), we watched an improv theater show at the Disteltheater. The theme of the show was the contents of the viewers’ pockets, and Constantin won show tickets and dinner for two (a package of pasta mix) because his speaker/portable charger inspired the funniest scene, as voted upon by the audience (which, luckily for him, was 40% us). Happy but tired, we returned to the hotel to recuperate for more adventures. ~Addie E.
Thursday:
After waking up at about 8.15, we began our third day in Berlin with breakfast at our hotel. Once breakfast was finished, we took the U-Bahn (metro) to the Mauermuseum (Berlin Wall Museum). At the museum they had first person accounts of what it was like during the time of the wall, pictures, and most importantly of all, an intact section of the wall viewable from a platform above the museum. The section included a watchtower, anti-vehicle defenses, and search lights, so that we could see exactly what the wall looked like back during the days of the GDR. This experience really opened my eyes as to how the people of Berlin lived during this time period. After the Mauermuseum, we went to Unter den Linden by way of the U-Bahn and walked to Alexanderplatz. We saw the Berlin Cathedral and visited the Ampelmann store before heading over to lunch at a German sandwich shop. The Ampelmann store is a store dedicated to selling products bearing the Ampelmann himself, the character one sees on the crosswalk lights in Germany. Once we were done eating lunch, we headed over to the base of the Berlin TV Tower, where we saw a very ornate fountain, and where we could see the full height of the Berlin TV Tower. After chilling in front of the tower for a while and even playing with a small dog, we went up to the restaurant inside the tower for coffee and cake. This restaurant is special because it is higher than the Eiffel Tower, and most importantly, it rotates around the tower. We got a 360 degree view of Berlin from the restaurant. From there, it was pretty easy to tell where East and West Berlin were by looking at some of the buildings. It was very surprising for me to see how Berlin looked from above. For a city of it’s size, it has almost no skyscrapers like in America. After the TV Tower, we took the U-Bahn to our next location. We walked from the U-Bahn to an old Cold War era bunker, where we learned about the Fluchttunnel (escape tunnels) people built during the times of the Berlin Wall. Our tour guide walked us through the tunnels of the bunker, showing us the many routes that people tried to take out of East Berlin. Some of these ways were as extreme as crawling through the sewer towards freedom, where someone might encounter some GDR placed gates. The only way around was to go under the gate, with your head in the sewage. One thing that section of the tour me wonder about, was how long were people in the sewers for? Did they get lost very often? How did they know where to go? After walking through the bunker, we went back above ground and walked along the old site of the Berlin Wall to an old house. In the 150-year-old basement of this house, we saw the site of one of these Fluchttunnel and a cross- section that showed us what it was like inside. To save time, these tunnels were often very small–only about a meter tall at max. This museum/tour really showed us how oppressive the communist government in Germany was, because it forced people to go to such great lengths to escape its grasp. To finish off our third day in Berlin, we went to a German restaurant that specialized in Spätzle, a very popular German food. I really enjoyed the Spätzle; it was some of the best food I had eaten in a while. It was a very nice restaurant, although we did have a few insect issues because they left the doors open and a bee flew in. On the way back to the hotel, we had a humorous encounter with a local who had obviously had too much to drink and repeated everything that was said over the train intercom, and that concluded our second-to-last day in the great city of Berlin. ~Parker P.
Friday:
The day started at 8am with 30 minutes to get ready, eat breakfast, pack, and leave our bags downstairs. Everything was done successfully and efficiently except for breakfast, which I had to sacrifice for the group. We later rode the U-Bahn to the Olympiastadion, the Berlin Olympic Stadium, and walked around until our tour guide arrived. Despite first impressions otherwise, our tour guide was the kindest, most informative, and most entertaining guide on our trip and we enjoyed the VIP lounge, sat on unnecessarily expensive dining chairs, and visited the players’ changing rooms. The tour was a blend between historic, informative, and intriguing. Afterwards we left the stadium to go to get lunch. We took the U-Bahn to Theodor-Heuss-Platz and found a street full of snack restaurants to grab a quick bite of German food. We settled for the German-beloved Turkish Döner, consisting of a delicious assortment of meat with a salad all wrapped in a pita-like bread sleeve. After taking a brief subway ride to the hotel, we picked up our bags and loaded them into a bus. The bus took us to the airport, where we waited for an hour before we could check our bags. Waiting allowed us to talk about our exchange students that we would reunite with in the following hours. Sadly, checking our bags did not mark the end of our waiting period, since we had to wait 30 minutes for the plane and an additional hour of weather delay, but that only made our excitement skyrocket. After a speedy flight to Frankfurt, we landed and eagerly picked up our bags. We walked towards the automatic sliding doors. And once we stepped through them, we saw the people that we had connected with two months prior. The exchange part of the trip had finally begun! I met my student’s parents, making sure to leave a positive first impression, and unpacked my bag in this house I would call “home” for the next two weeks. I ate a typical Schnitzel with my exchange student’s grandmother and parents, and then went to my room to catch up on what happened in the last few months. After a long night of catching up, we went to bed knowing that a long day was ahead of us. The first full day with our exchange students was close by. ~Teo F.
