Monday, June 6, 2011

Berlin

The last stop on our European Adventure was Berlin.
Berlin was really interesting, the city is full of so much history.
It was like AP Euro History had come to life.

The Brandenburg Gate

We went on a bike tour, which was a lot of fun and really informative.
I learned that...
  • Berlin was completely destroyed by WWII, so the city is almost entirely new
  • A lot of the old-looking buildings were just made to look old by burning the stones
  • The hills in Berlin are actually piles of rubble
  • Synagogues and other Jewish centres have 24/7 security people patrolling the building
  • The Victory Column is adorned with cannons stolen from the French and was moved to its current location by the Nazis
  • The Holocaust Memorial is just down the road from the site of Hitler's Bunker
     

Humboldt University
Some famous alumni: Einstein, Marx, Engels and Bismark

The Reichstag

Otto von Bismark

The Victory Column

A REAL old building

Hotel Adlon
aka: the hotel where Michael Jackson
dangled his baby off the balcony

"Luxury apartments" in East Berlin and the site of
Hitler's Bunker (it's just under the parking lot)

We did our own tour of the Berlin's Cold War history.
Basically, we went and saw all the things related to the Berlin wall.
Every so often the murals on the Berlin Wall are whitewashed and new ones are painted, pretty cool, huh?




Checkpoint Charlie
(for crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin)

Paul on the East Side of the Wall
(Cobblestones run throughout the city that mark
where the Wall once stood)

We went to Museum Island (but not inside any of the museums...)




The best quote from the trip: "The best view of Berlin in from the TV Tower because you can't see the TV Tower". (The TV Tower is that disco ball on a stick on the right).

We also went to Europe's largest chocolate store - Fassbender & Rausch!
(I thought Belgium or Switzerland would have Europe's largest chocolate store, but no, it's in Berlin).




We went to the Holocaust Memorial which is this giant piece of interactive art that has no set meaning, but is very, very cool.
The blocks are all different heights and they get progressively taller as you move towards the middle.



We went to the Reichstag on our last night to climb up the glass dome.
The view was amazing and the whole experience was super cool.
You walk up with looong spiral ramp while listening to an audio guide that describes the view to you.





We also did other German things like...

Drink a litre of beer in a beer hall

Wear Birkenstocks

Appreciate Ampelmännche
(the little crosswalk man)

  Oh, and beer is cheaper than water in Berlin.



Paul, my dad, and I also went on a Berlin Underworld tour, which was SO cool.
We went into an old bunker, which was pretty scary, but cool at the same time.
Some of the rooms were set up to show how they would have looked back when they were in use, and other rooms had various artefacts from WWII.
It was really neat.
Sadly I don't have any pictures because cameras were prohibited :(

1 comment:

  1. Yaaay! Lots of posts! So I can procrastinate studying for my exam tomorrow!

    Looks cool. Sad I missed it. Also sad I never got to drink alcohol while in "fancy dress" in the UK and plank.

    Miss you. Have fun with Aunt Cyn.

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