Whoo! I'm on a boat! But not for much longer, haha. I'm currently on my train to Copenhagen, and we just took a ferry across the (...?) sea, so now we're in Denmark! Exciting. I guess it makes sense, but I hadn't thought enough about the route beforehand to realize we would be taking a ferry of some sort along the way. No worries--being up on the deck and feeling the ocean breeze was wonderful. It's just a beautiful day in general :) and going up was a nice break from sitting for the past 4.5 hours. Wow, I can't believe it's already been that long on the train...the time seemed to pass more quickly today, which is nice (and I didn't even sleep very much, which I normally do to pass the time). I realized while up on deck that I don't know a single word of Danish (or Dutch, for that matter), not even hello or thank you. Sigh...just as I was getting a grasp of basic German, haha. Thank goodness I'll be with Saskia :) God, thanks for planning my trip perfectly based on everything else but also on my language (in)capabilities. I'm actually sitting by a Danish mom and her two daughters. Wow, we sure are passing a lot of windmills...Anyway, here I am once again, on my next train to a new city with a couple of hours left of the ride, in need of updating my journal. It seems to be becoming a trend, haha...but it works! I do so much wandering/sightseeing each day that I'm pooped by the time I get back to my hostel. Plus, there's just not much to do on the train. It's a good system. Time to update!
Berlin is big and beautiful, and it's filled with culture and historical importance. It makes sense, given WWII happenings and especially everything with the Berlin Wall. There's so much to see--I think I definitely could have spent another day there, since there's a few things I didn't get to, but nonetheless, I really enjoyed my time there.
It started with my arrival. Whew, and I thought Munich's Hauptbahnhof was big? Berlin's is even more massive. I'm no connoissuer of train stations by any means, but I think it's now the biggest one I've been to. It hosts not only regional and international trains, but the U and S lines run through it as well. It has maybe five or six stories total and a ton of shops/eateries. It's also pretty new, so the glass architecture looks quite nice. Needless to say, I was in awe.
After getting a transport card, I headed to my hostel. It's so cute and homey! I really liked it; it might be my favorite one so far. Nina, one of the workers, was really nice, plus my room was nice and clean (and empty for most of my stay...in my four-room bed, I only had roommates my first night and last morning), and a pretty good breakfast was included! It was a buffet, and they provide sandwich materials so you can make some to take with you (which is what I did yesterday and today). My thrify side cheers. Also, the walls were decorated like in a children's home. Overall, very cute. It definitely wasn't central, but a 20-minute train ride got me there.
After dropping off my things, I went back to the city center to check out the Brandenburg Gate. It's a beautiful arch, and, as I soon learned, it has a lot of historical significance, one thing being that the Wall ran by it. (Sigh, I realized while in Berlin how little I knew about its/Germany's history, especially post-WWII...things like the Wall and the DDR >.< but I'm learning now!) Right behind the gate, there was a Mercedes Benz Fashion Week going on, so I stood outside for a bit and got to see real paparazzi in action. It was quite entertaining.
Then I walked down to the Memorial for Mudered Jews in Europe, which was pretty cool (and free!). The public part is just a bunch of stone columns of various heights, but it covers a considerable area. The info center underground provided more details about the persecution of the Jews during WWII...so terrible. It was a good memorial, though.
Afterwards, I wandered over to the Reichstag, Germany's cool-looking Parliament building, which has a huge lawn in front. There were even a few guys there practicing frisbee tricks, haha. Since it was getting late and I was getting hungry, I set off in search of currywurst, a popular German snack, but it was surprisingly hard to find a stand. I finally found one, and it was pretty tasty. Naturally, I topped off my meal with ice cream and then wandered back to the Reichstag. They told me that visits to the dome were free but required reservations, so I kept walking until I hit the House of Culture and Art, which was hosting some classy music event. Back at the Brandenburg, there was a street performer making big bubbles with a net, haha. The gate is so pretty at night! :) I also saw this fun-looking multicycle vehicle that looked like a lot of fun, but only with a big group of friends. I went back to my hostel, used the Internet, met my roommates (two girls from Latvia), and went to sleep.
The next morning, I got a sweet surprise after breakfast. When I got back to the room, my roommates were gone, but they had left a short note with their FB info plus two Latvian candies on my pillow. :) It made me smile. When I got to Brandenburg, I decided to walk through the Tiergarten to Victory Column, which was further than I thought, but still a nice walk. After seeing it, I kept wandering, got a little lost, and then found the art/culture house I saw the night before. For lunch, I stopped at a currywurst shop by the main station. This time, I made it complete with Fanta and fries with mayo, which I actually quite like, despite my general dislike for straight-up mayo. Satisfied, I wandered back across the Spree River and, after a short break at an art exhibit (sadly, all in German) one of the government buildings, I wandered down Unter den Linden, the main street coming off Brandenburg towards the Berlin Cathedral. I stopped for a bit in a bookstore and read up a bit on Berlin's history, although I'm not sure how much I retained. Next to the cathedral (which was very pretty) was the DDR museum, an interactive museum exhibiting what life was like in the DDR. I went inside and liked it, but not extremely so, but I think I was just tired of absorbing information after a while.
By the time I left, I was craving noodles for dinner, for some reason, so I found a noodle shop nearby. The owners were Chinese, so I chatted with them for a bit before I left. I crossed the street and entered a church and was pleasantly surprised to find a free choral concert going on. It was called "Life has loveliness," and the last song they sang was Sara Teasdale's "Barter", which I sang in high school choir. Their version was different (and not as good) in my opinion, but it was still awesome. Afterwards, I wandered a bit around Nikolaiveirtl, Berlin's old center, which was kind of neat. As I was going back to the square by the church, storm clouds were quickly rolling in out of nowhere, so I called it a night and headed back early. I chatted with Nina for a bit at the hostel, and I found out she likes Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers! Haha.
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