Springtime (for Hitler) in Germany

SPRING BREAK (the real one, that is) began in Berlin. Basically... Berlin was awesome. The food was cheap, the people were nice, and there were endless things to do. What I really would have liked to do was a bike tour out to the countryside, but, alas, there was not time for this. Perhaps some day...

Laura and I arrived on Friday, a day later than everyone else. Our plane got in that afternoon, but by the time we figured out how to use the S-bahn we ended up getting to our hostel at 7 p.m. Now, let me ?postface? that by saying that public transportation is awesome in Berlin, but confusing if you don't know it. The S-bahn is the above ground metro, while the U-bahn is the underground. The S-bahn trains come much, much less frequently than those of the U-bahn, which is more comparable to any other city's metro. I didn't even attempt the buses. So, we arrived at the hostel and it was amazing. It was incredibly nice. There was the reception area that also included a bar, a bunch of tables, and a pool table. People were hanging out there every night that we were there. The hostel was also Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy themed. Which was hilarious. And also awesome. There were posters of the books up on the walls and quotes up and down the support columns and weird lighting and such. (There were also some Futurama posters - I definitely approved of this place). Our room was up on the fourth floor of an attached building, some place that looked like it had once been a really nice loft. I only got a picture of the shared lounge space, but our room was super nice, too. There were six of us, but the room was quite large, and we had a bathroom attached, as well.

Fancy living room/lounge

Pool table in the downstairs lounge

Tables lit up by candelight

Saturday we started the day at the Brandenburg Gate, where I saw all sorts of odd people. Darth Vader, for one. From there we made our way to go up into the dome that's nearby, but it was, unfortunately, closed. So we hopped over to Checkpoint Charlie for a little while

Oh, hello there!

Top of the gate (or "tor" as they say in German)

This was some sort of memorial, I believe to Holocaust victims. However, I can't honestly remember.

These are all over Berlin and mark where the wall once was

Checkpoint Charlie

Note how I accidentally focused on the guy at McDo

and then went to the Jewish Museum. And let me tell you, this museum is so cool (and that I don't have any pictures, which is super sad, because I had to check my purse but didn't take out my camera first). It's not just a Holocaust-related museum, although there are really interesting parts dedicated to that, but it's also a Jewish culture and history museum. When you go in, you begin at the bottom, which is the learning center, with interactive videos and such. After that there's the Axis of the Holocaust, which tells stories of specific Jewish people, and the Holocaust Tower, which is a really large, empty space with only some natural light. You can also hear what's going on outside of the tower and it's very echo-y. Then there's the Axis of Exile which leads to the "Garden" of Exile. This was similar to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (also in Berlin, but I didn't have time to go). Big concrete blocks. It was also built on slanted ground, so it was surprisingly difficult to walk around and I kept walking into the blocks. There is then the Axis of Continuity, which leads to the other parts of the museum that describe the history and culture of Judaism, as well as things about other religions. It was all sooo interesting, and I could've spent several more hours there if we had the time. But afterward we got some really good and really cheap Chinese food and then went to see the still-standing portions of the Berlin Wall!

Om nom nom

Artists were commissioned to decorate the remaining wall

Hey, hey, we're the Monkees!

More cool art

Following the wall we went to... duh duh duh RITTER SPORT. Yummmmmmm. There's a set-up they have where you can create your own chocolate bar - you pick out 3 ingredients to put in and whether you want milk or dark chocolate and then come back in 30 minutes to pick it up! It's awesome. I chose to get orange nibs (or some word like that...), yogurt crispies, and hazelnuts. It was freakin' delicious. They also had a store attached where the sell all kinds of bars for 79 cents a pop. You can only imagine how many I bought. And have now eaten. But let's not think about that...

Chocolate in German

All sorts of ingredients you can add!

Sooo many flavors available - love the pfefferminz!

A giant chocolate stairway to heaven

My creation!

So, as you must realize, we were all very satisfied with our visit. I think Saturday night might have been when we ate inside a U-bahn station... or maybe that was both nights. Again, I really can't remember. (Update: I remembered that it was dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday.) However, the U-bahn station one stop over from our hostel was huge and had a bunch of restaurants and a grocery store in it! I tried some random German sodas, which were good, and at one point I got a panang curry meal from an Asian restaurant. And I can't believe I've only finished with one day, because my typing skills are really starting to disappear. I could not figure out how to spell 'satisfied' for a few minutes. But we did a lot in Berlin - I expect you'll see much less detail when we get to Madrid. But I digress...

Sunday morning we met at another dome and were planning on going to a museum, but ended up stumbling upon a market where we spent our morning. They had tons of cool artisan stuff and jewelery and antiques and basically everything you could think of. We also saw a marathon going on! (Which reminds me that I forget to mention earlier that Justin Bieber performed in Berlin the Saturday night we were there - remember this for later blogz.) So I ended up getting a really cool ring and some posters. Example of how cool they (the posters, that is) are:

Yeah. These are the guys business cards - I actually ended up getting a little version of the pink guy on the left, which came free with two larger ones! If you know me - hopefully you do, given that you're reading this - then you probably know how I might go crazy over stuff like this. Obvs. (And now I've broken down into using abbreviations and z's at the end of words. I'm really losing it, and it's not even that late. Only almost midnight.) In fact, that picture is slightly terrifying.

Marathon we ran into

 After the market we went to the Topography of Terror museum, which is where the headquarters of the SS were. It was really interesting, and surprisingly warm out, so I ended up chillin' (literally) in the basement for quite a while. The information inside the museum was about various peoples lives during the Holocaust and outside it showed where certain things were (some structures were still standing). Then we went to a tea house, which was not actually Russian, as we thought, but Tajiki. Tajikistani? I'm unsure of how to say that. But in German, it's called the Tadshikische Teestube. Cute, no? It was a really beautiful room, where you sat on pillows on the floor and got little pots of tea to yourself. I also ordered an apfel strudel. Again, yum.

Pretty columns!

Sugar, not rocks. Or, rather, rocks of sugar, if you will.

My orange pekoe black tea

Apfel strudel!

We then went to grab some dinner and see the Sony (I believe...) Center, which was huge! We ended up eating at an Australian restaurant which actually served kangaroo and alligator. Zoinks!

Bike light!

Candle at the restaurant. Yes, I take too many pictures of candles.

The following morning we had to leave Berlin on an early flight to Madrid. So, we somehow got ourselves up at 4:30 in the morning, packed, brought our sheets down to reception, and hopped on the train (with only a few difficulties) to the airport. Thank god the German transportation system is always on time.

Random updates of my life:

-I have an interview for an internship for the festival tomorrow - hopefully all goes well!

-I've been sick since Spring Break and thus have been napping a lot - I had a feverish nap-dream the other day about pancakes, noodles, and my bizarre cinema prof.

-I'm going to Avignon/Arles this weekend. If you don't already know this, Arles is where Van Gogh painted, and, for a little while, Gaugain. You should check out the history between those two... we've been talking about it in my art history class lately and, man, it is weird. Who chopped off Van Gogh's ear? Was is really Van Gogh? Was it Gaugain? Tell me your theories!

Look for a blog about Madrid early next week, perhaps!