reunion in Berlin! (finally)

Ok finally getting around to blogging about my trip to Berlin to see Courtney! Sorry about the delay, I had a final and random things to do (and I just wasn’t in the mood lol) and then my family and aunt came! So I was busy showing them around Strasbourg, but that’ll come in the next post (along with our adventure to Italy in the huge 9 seater van we rented).

Anyways, I got into Berlin around 8pm on Tuesday after a tram ride, train ride and plane ride starting around 12:30. I met up with Courtney after some confusion regarding terminals (I was in the mini terminal and she was in the big terminal) but we spotted each other and ran to each other in slow-mo and embraced. Just kidding. But we did find each other and hug and laugh about our mix-up. Then we took a bus to the metro to go to her apartment. Along the way we stopped for durums from a stand called Mustafa’s. Lately I’ve sworn off of durums, doners and gyros because I read online about the health concerns surrounding them, and they made me want to upchuck whenever I thought about it, but I was able to put that aside and scarf down the durum because it looked like real meat and it smelled amazing. Then we went home and chilled.

On Wednesday, we got up because Courtney had class and I was going to chill at the Stanford center and wait for her. So we went there and on the way got apple cakes and coffee (they have coffee to go! Wonderful country already) Oh and I learned the word for apple: apfel! So yeah, we got to the Stanford center, she went to class, I watched gossip girl and glee and the hills and the city and had another cup of coffee, so by the end of Courtney’s class I was jittery and hyper and ready to explore Berlin!

From the center we went to the center of Berlin and saw where the wall used be by the bricks in the ground (running through streets, squares, parks, everything) and some pieces of the wall covered in graffiti art. We were tourists, so we took pictures of everything (well, ok I took pictures of EVERYthing and Court took cool pics lol). Then we saw a random motorcade, but we have no idea what it was for or who was being protected or escorted. Then we walked to the holocaust memorial, which was really interesting. It’s kind of hard to describe or explain, but it was like a block’s worth size area filled with rectangular blocks of different heights. They were arranged in rows and you could walk in between rows or columns (I’m butchering this description – I apologize, see my pics and use your special imagination). Plus, the ground wasn’t even, there were small hills and valleys so at points, the blocks would be 5 feet taller than me, and it was really cool actually. Courtney told me that a lot of German memorials, unlike French ones, are more abstract and open to interpretation, which I think is pretty cool because you can attach your own meaning and significance to things and interpret them differently.

From there we continued on our walk and saw the Handenburg Gate, which is the really old gate going into Berlin (Berlin used to be part of Handenburg, unless I’m mistaken… feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) and the US Embassy was right by there too. Then close by was a big important Berlin building (I don’t actually remember what it was, but it was big and huge and cool looking and said something about the German people on top) and next door was the Prime Minister’s office (would not want to be her right now, seems like everyone in the EU is mad at everyone else). Then I was getting hungry so we decided to run through the bahnhof (train station) to check about going to the airport from there and then get lunch. The bahnhof was huge! It was like 5 floors and basically contained a mall. There were lots of stores and lots of food places, both fast food and real restaurants. We got my ticket and then got on the bahn and went to find a Middle Eastern restaurant where Courtney had eaten with a friend once. It was kind of hard to find again but we found it and got the sample plate thing for 8 euro. It was for 2 people and it’s a good thing we were both starving because it was absolutely HUGE. We got two plates of food, one with 3 types of salad, hummus, fried cheese, falafel and other veggies and the other with potato wedges, meat, and some other stuff and we got pitas and tea! I felt about 200 pounds when we finally left lol, but it was definitely worth the 4 euro each.

After that we went to the East Side Gallery, which is a display of the Berlin wall that’s been covered over with paintings and graffiti (but decorative, not gang related). It’s also in actual spot as the Berlin wall was, they didn’t move it, just painted it and made it into an art display. We took probably 100 pictures there (ok, maybe not but a lot) and I really enjoyed just meandering around the paintings and Courtney would explain some of the poems or phrases on them- lots of things of or relating to freedom, strength, perseverance, etc. some of them were really interesting, some were moving, some were creepy, some were uplifting, there was something of everything. There were some pieces of the wall that were left blank (not sure if it was on purpose or not) but people had taken sharpies or other markers and left their mark on the wall too. Some people left really cool statements (as opposed to something like Mary Smith was here! 2/9/09 or something like that), like one in my pictures I can’t remember exactly what it said but it was along the lines of live life: party hard, laugh often, love freely, don’t give up, conquer life. It was better than that though ☺

Then I was crashing because I didn’t sleep well that night and I needed a nap lol so we headed home and picked up some dinner things on the way (spinach, goat cheese, pears and apples – we wanted something light for dinner after our gigantic lunch). Then I napped and Court did her homework, we ate dinner and got ready to go out. We met up with Courtney’s friend Bianca and went to a cub (I don’t know what the name of it was though). And it was really fun! There were two dance floors, one with more techno/europop and the other with American hip-hop and rap. We would dance for a little bit on one, get bored of it or decide we wanted to escape a guy or something and the go to the other one. We ended up dancing until 430 am, when the bahn starts running again (otherwise we’d have to take a cab home) and in the process, I met a guy from Boulder, CO and Courtney met a few pro basketball players. No big deal haha.

Then we went home and crashed! Court went to class and I just kept sleeping till around 1pm, when I finally got up, showered, had nutella for bfast etc. Then Court got home and we went to Alexanderplatz with the intentions of finishing our cultural tour. We were both still pretty tired from the night before, though, so we got to Alexanderplatz and walked around and it was really cool around there, then we went to the mall to get some food and obviously, getting food turned into going shopping haha. We both got a few things (including coffee from Starbucks, I’ve never appreciated a frappacino to go so much). After that we went home and munched on various things (carrots, apples, cheese, nutella, etc) for dinner since we were full from lunch again. We watched some recent episodes of the Hills and then promptly crashed.

On Thursday, we got up and I went with Courtney to the center again while she had class. We got apple cake and coffee again and I made quick work of her pretzels lol. After her class we again attempted to finish the tour (this time with more success). We got to Alexanderplatz and then went walking and got some food and coffee at Dunkin Donuts (so euro, I know haha, but it was sooo good, my first bagel in 5 months) and walked to a fountain to eat and chat. We saw the communist TV tower and a pretty church, walked through the tourist area, got called beautiful and sexy by creepy men selling souvenirs (wonder if I could’ve gotten a discount…) and walked to the book burning square. Oh and a guy tried to court me with a leaf (I mean, come on, I’m worth at least a flower lol). We took pics by the communist statues and the river and the book burning square and the churches and the chocolate store. The story of the churches was pretty cool – there’s a Protestant and a Catholic church in the same square (also by an opera house) facing each other and the Protestants built the Catholic church and vice versa (apparently as a show of peaceful coexistence). The chocolate store was amazing also – they had like 4 counters full of truffles! I got two little ones: one with almond crème and one that was Irish coffee and they were both soooo good! I honestly don’t remember what we did that night for dinner, but we didn’t go out.

Friday was my last day in Berlin and we just kind of chilled for most of it, ran some errands and did a little more shopping before going home and getting ready to go out again. We met up with Courtney’s friends who were going to a concert (Bootie in Berlin- it would’ve been awesome to go because I love the type of music they do – it’s all mashups and remixes- but I had an 8 am flight the next day and the concert didn’t start till 12 and my friends in Stras and I had plans for our “last night” in Strasbourg because people we leaving and we wanted one last night of going out together so we decided to meet them for drinks before but not go to the concert). So we were in East Berlin and the feel was so cool because it was so different from West Berlin. Honestly, if I knew German better (read: at all) I think I’d like Germany better than France. Not that I didn’t fall in love with aspects of the French culture, people and place, but Germany is both familiar and foreign I think. It’s much more like the US in the attitude about working and the people look more American to me (probably because Germans were one of the main groups of immigrants in the US and the French weren’t).


anyways, Saturday I left and was back in France and then soon I'll have to blog about my family coming to Strasbourg and our trip to Italia! bises!