Erstaunliche Abenteuer: Berlin

I apologize in advance. I think this post is going to be really long and I am sorry. If you don't care to read the whole post and just want to see the pictures click here because I will only put probably one picture of each thing in order to prevent this post from being super huge.

On Sunday Heather and I made our way to Berlin. We bought a ticket that would allow us to travel on any of the ICE trains which are the Inter-City-Express trains. It only took us about 7 hours of traveling. The main reason we were going to Berlin was so that Heather could turn in some paperwork that she needed for her program that will let her teach in Austria.

The trip started off uneventful and we made it to Berlin with no troubles. Once we got to Berlin that was another story. We had booked a hotel that we thought wasn't that far away but it turns out it took about a half an hour or so to get into downtown. That isn't so bad but we tried to follow the directions that were on the Hotel's website but without success. The website failed to mention that there was construction or something and so the bus to the hotel didn't even follow that route. Lucky Heather had looked up a second way to get there in case the first way didn't work. Smart thinking! It took us I think two hours or an hour and a half from our arrival in Berlin until we finally checked into the hotel. Then we found out that we were without internet because they "didn't have it on our floor" and then you had to pay for it in the lobby if you wanted to use it.

The next day (Monday) was the day we were going to go to the Austrian Embassy so that Heather could finally be done with her stuff and we could just have fun the rest of the time. I, however; got sick in the night and did not feel good at all. Heather wanted to get to the embassy right as they opened at 9am but there was no way I was feeling good enough to do that. I forced myself to get up and go, because we were in Berlin! I wanted to experience as much as I could. So we finally left a little before 9am so there was no way were were going to get there right as it opened.

We were able to make it back to the subway no problem. It was getting to the embassy that was going to be our next obstacle. there was construction on one of the subway routes so that messed up our path and we got really confused. Then when we finally got to where we thought we wanted to go we were still lost. So we spotted a Hilton and we went in to ask for directions. Working for Hilton I knew they would help us. They did and we even got a free map out of it, which we used a lot.

When we got to the right stop on the subway we got up but we had trouble orientating ourselves. Finally after a long time we made it to the embassy. We rang the bell and they buzzed us in and then we sat there for about 20 minutes and then Heather was done with her stuff and we set off to see the sights. Oh yea and I still wasn't feeling well but I managed not to throw up on the subway which I thought was a huge success. Having thrown up earlier that day though my stomach was in pain the whole day which wasn't so much fun but it was worth it.

After we left the Embassy we went to the Tiergarten which was right across the street. This is the huge park in Berlin that at one end has the zoo and at the other end the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). We started off walking to the middle of the park where there is a tower thing called Großer Stern. We climbed up the stairs to the top which was about 280 steps or so I think. It has a really cool view of the city from the top.

Once we left the tower we made our way to the other side of the park. We saw Schloß Bellevue which is the official residence of the president. We assumed it was kind of like our White House. From there we followed the along the river until we came to the Reichstag. This is the parliament building of Germany. Like our capitol building. It was being cleaned and so we didn't get to go into the glass dome on top but it would have been free to do so if it hadn't of been closed.

From the Reichstag it was just a short walk to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). We took some pictures and then walked around to the Holocaust (Jewish) memorial. After we walked through the memorial we stopped to get lunch. We had no idea it would take us an hour to order, get our food, and pay. We just went to a crepe place and it was not that busy. We were really mad when we left.

We completed a little circle and made our way back to Unter den Linden which is a street in Berlin. Once there we were by the Hotel Adlon and the street was blocked off. From what we gathered from the crowed that had formed there was the prince of Morocco or Monaco or something and he was getting ready to leave so he had his huge escort of cars.

We decided not to wait until the prince came out though because we didn't know how long it was going to take so we continued down the street until we came to Madame Tussauds which has a bunch of wax people. It was really fun to go through because they let you take pictures next to them and everything. If you click on the link at the top you can see a lot of the people that we took pictures with.

After pretending like we knew a bunch of famous people we made our way down the street some more, Unter den Linden seems like a really long street when you don't feel 100%. At the end of the street is the Berliner Dom which is a church. I have seen pictures of it from my cousin Brenna and I was really surprised at how big it was. I had no idea that it was actually really huge. Heather and I stopped there at the church and sat on the grass for a while and rested in the sunshine.

Once we felt a little rested we continued our journey to the TV tower in Alexanderplatz. There was a fountain there in front of it too and I think the Rathaus which is the town hall. We weren't for sure if it was or not, we just assumed it was. We were able to get to the train station that is right there at Alexanderplatz and take a tram to the East Side Gallery which is where there is still a section of the wall that is standing that has murals painted on it. It was pretty interesting to walk along it.

Then to finish our day we went to Checkpoint Charlie. Just a few tram stops away and we were there. I was expecting more and I was kind of let down. It was still cool to see but I was expecting it to be different. The traffic still goes by it so you have to watch when you are taking pictures that you don't get run over. There was a museum too but we never went in. We probably should have but we were really tired and hungry so we ate supper and then made our way back to the hotel.

The next day we started off by taking the bus to the airport. On the first bus there was an old man in a wheelchair and when the bus driver stepped on the gas the guy fell backwards and then we had to stop and wait for the "krankenwagen" ambulance to come get him. I said that his head didn't hurt very much but it was more his chest so we were hoping he wasn't starting to have a heart attack or something. When we finally were able to continue on again our bus driver turned around and said he had to go back and wait for the police. So heather and I had to switch buses to make it to the airport, but we made it.

From the airport we took a train that would take us to a city called Potsdam. It was about a half an hour ride and then about a five minute walk and we were at the Potsdam-Park-Sanssouci. This park was so huge we spent about four hours in it and I am sure we didn't see all that we could have. We entered the park at the Neu Palais which translates to new palace. The palace sits right across from these other buildings which happens to be the University of Potsdam. How freaking cool would that be to go to school right across from a palace? I think it would be cool.
(not sure why this is highlighted sorry^^)

We walked around the Neu Palais for a while and then headed down to the other palace called Sans Souci. This palace was about a mile away so it took us a little while to walk it was all through the "park" so it had statues and trees/bushes that were cut all fancy. I bet they have a ground crew of probably 20 full time just to keep that place up. At Sans Souci we walked up the steps and then around the building. The line for tours was super long so we didn't wait we just walked to the front and sat down on the steps for a break.

After Sans Souci we walked to the "guest house" which was pretty much just another palace right next door. The guest house had its own lawn/garden area. then we walked to an old windmill. It was huge you could see it spinning from really far away. That led us down a path to the Orangerie which is just a huge greenhouse that is pretty much a palace just for your plants. The sign said it was the last huge structure built at Park-Sanssouci. It is crazy to me that they had such a huge building just for their plants. I guess if you never left the place you would need something to occupy yourself.

After we got done at the Orangerie we planned on stopping by the roman baths and then by another little villa thing on our way to the train. We found the roman baths and they were cool but you couldn't go in them because of 'technical' difficulties. At the little villa we also couldn't go in but we looked in the windows and you could kind of see inside.

We finally made our way out of the park through this huge gate, it was pretty awesome, and then made our way to the train station. From Potsdam we made our way to the Berlin Zoo. First we had to make a stop at the Waldorf-Astoria since it is a Hilton hotel to take pictures. Unfortunately the inside isn't finished so I could only take pictures of the outside. Then we went to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche which part of it was under construction. You could still go in the bottom part of the one that was under construction. Then in the other part of the church there was a bunch of square windows that were made from 23mm thick blue glass. as well as the bell tower and it lights up at night.

Then we finally made it to the Berlin Zoo. We walked around there for a couple hours and it seemed like an eternity for me because my feet hurt and I am not super excited about zoos like Heather. Once we finally left, since lots of stuff in the zoo were closing, we made our way back to the Brandenburger Tor to eat supper. Feeling refreshed we walked around for a little bit and then went back to the hotel.

Whew I think that is pretty much it. If you made it than congrats! To save you from having to go back to the top here is the link again to the pictures because I won't put them all on here. Click here for pictures.