Spring Break: City 4 of 6
Hostel
In Berlin, we stayed at a hostel called the Cat’s Pajamas. It was a very hip hostel and well-priced. The rooms were very modern and clean. Each bed had an outlet and a light. Since we took an overnight bus, we arrived at the hostel before check-in, which kinda sucked because all I really wanted was a shower and a nap. The lobby of the hostel was nice though and Allison and I relaxed there for a while while we waited for the rest of our group to show up.
Photo of the hostel I stole from the internet
Photo I took of the neon sign in the lobby. It reads, "momma, what can I do?"
Activities
The first day in Berlin was slightly uneventful for me. My camera battery was almost dead so I looked around for a shop that could sell me a charger. Luckily, I found one with a man who was nice enough to charge it for me at no cost. The rest of the group went on a walking tour but I stayed back because I desperately needed a shower and I wanted to return to the camera store on time to pick up my battery. I met up with everyone later at the Brandenburg Gate and they filled me in on some of the facts from the tour. After that, we went to a beer garden for dinner (more on that later).
Brandenburg Gate
Berlin Cathedral
The second day, we took a train to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was a somber experience. The most eerie part for me was walking through the barracks where the prisoners were “housed.”
On the final day, we took a walk to the East Side Gallery on the Berlin Wall. I thought the murals were beautiful and uplifting. Each sent its own message of peace and love.
Me, in front of my favorite mural
“The Kiss” depicting Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, kissing East Germany President, Erich Honecker
Henry, Maddie, Nicole, me, and Steph
Save our Earth!
Me
Food
Maybe I should call this section “beer”…
The beer garden we visited is not very common in Berlin or Northern Germany. Most beer gardens are found in Munich or in the South. The food that was served (though I don’t have many pictures) was pretzels with mustard and different kinds of sausage. The beer garden had a fun atmosphere and there was lots of dancing (probably because beer).
Maddie, Nicole, Henry, Steph, Hannah, Allison, me, Anastasia
Large beers
Hannah, Allison, me
One night, a few of us decided to go out for drinks. We went to this particular bar where I ordered a Mai tai. The server brought it out to me on fire! It was pretty cool. A lot of the bars allowed smoking indoors, which was pretty unpleasant. My hair and my scarve smelt disgusting the next morning.
So much excitement here
Something I didn’t expect to find in Germany was all the Turkish food. There are quite a lot of immigrants in Berlin from Turkey and oh my god the food is fantastic. On the final day in Berlin, we went to this brunch place called La Femme. The menus were only in Turkish and German so we all kind of had to guess what we wanted to eat. Luckily there were some blurry pictures but the type of food was so foreign to me that they didn’t really help. Anyway, I pointed at what I wanted and they brought out this amazing dish with a little pot of what I’m pretty sure was just different kinds of hot melted cheese. We also got these sesame seed bread circle things called simit and I dipped them in the cheese. Everyone tried mine and agreed that it was the best. Later I found out that the dish was called sürmene kuymak, which is pretty much just cheese and corn meal. 10/10 would recommend.
Photo of sürmene kuymak that I stole from the Internet
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