Day 15- Class & Homework

Today was just the most exciting day ever, I went to class and then went to a coffeeshop and did homework. It’s nice to have a day that iss truly relaxed, with no crazy sudden adventures or random decisions to go find some particular restaurant that someone wanted to visit. It was a great day!

Unrelated, but I found this street art in a hostel courtyard and I love it. 

Day 14- laundry & homework

I’m pretty sure I slept for a solid 10 hours last night, which was a good change. I met the rest of the Americans at a restaurant called Hallesches Haus. It was absolutely adorable but a bit expensive.

After that, I went back to the hostel, did laundry, cleaned up my room a bit, and worked on some homework. In the evening I went out with a friend for a burger, which was delicious, and then to a rooftop bar called Klunkerkranich, which was truly beautiful. 

Day 13- Dresden!

Today was another cultural excursion, this time to Dresden! I got up early & then took a delightful 2.5 hour nap in the bus on the way there. It reminded me of early morning speech trips in high school...

We arrived in Dresden around 10am and went on a walking tour around the city. It’s relatively small, and I found it both depressing and hilarious that most of the old-looking buildings were actually restored or completely rebuilt only in the last 50 or so years. By the end of the tour, the default response to “so this building was first built in 17-something, and then...” was “it burnt down”, usually at least twice. However, it was absolutely beautiful, albeit way too hot, and fun was had wandering around the cute cobblestoned alleys. 

This building was actually built for one of the Duke of Saxony’s mistresses, who cleverly made him sign a contract when she agreed to be his mistress that she would receive money, her own palace, and his hand in marriage. She ended up in jail in her later years, but she lived the high life for quite some time due to her own ingenuity. #girlpowergoals Anyways, now it’s the most fancy hotel in all of Dresden. 

 This was the square outside of the palaces, and the little green person is where we later climbed 215 steps up inside a tower that provided us some spectacular views. 

This was one of my favorite buildings in Dresden. It was an old church that was built in 1727. It’s called the Frauenkirche, and it’s dome used to be one of the most distinctive features of the Dresden skyline. It was destroyed during WW2, and the citizens of Dresden liked it so much they actually painstakingly numbered and organized the rubble to put it back together. This is what gives it such a mottled color, where old sandstone blocks were put back in their original place right next to new ones during the reconstruction from 1993-2005.  

Next we went to the old royal palace, most of which had been turned into a museum. It was one of the most extravagant museum displays I’ve ever seen, there was room after room of trinkets made from every precious material you can think of. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and I learned lots about the Duke of Saxony (who was also the King of Poland) and his confusing history and family. 

The last thing we did before leaving the city was to climb up a tower in the old palace for a gorgeous view.  

Day 12- brunch, pedal boat, and coffee

Today was Friday, which means we didn’t have class! I didn’t realize but except for the first week, there’s never class on Fridays! I went and got brunch at a super cute place called Belle Alliance. I had Greek yogurt granola in an adorable bowl made of half of a mini melon!

The cultural program for the day was to go to a park and get on some pedal boats, so after lunch we headed to Treptower park. 

It was absolutely gorgeous, with some cute little stands selling food and trinkets along the waterfront. We pedaled around for an hour (by which time I definitely was starting to get a sunburn), before heading back to shore and grabbing some ice cream. 

We wandered back towards Berlin proper and found the oldest tattoo convention in Europe, the Berlin Tattoo Convention! It would’ve been fun to go inside, but tickets were €20 so we went to a coffeeshop instead. 

Afterwards, we went back to the other American’s hostel and watched movies and chatted until 3am before passing out in a common room.. oops!

Day 11- some... regrets

I decided that, after last night, I would just chug some coffee and head to class and be fine. I also decided to treat myself to not one, but two chocolate croissants. I probably could’ve eaten about 7 more... Also, 3 people in my class (besides me) fell asleep during our first break, so maybe Wednesday is a more common night to go out than I thought.

This whole “just caffeinated and go” attitude worked fine until about hour 4 of lecture, where I briefly wondered if my professor was even speaking English anymore. After class, I went back to the hostel and promptly fell asleep until 8pm, when I awoke and grabbed some food, then took a shower and went right back to bed.

Day 10- German Museum of Technology & a pub crawl

Today after class we went on a guided tour of the german museum of technology. It was absolutely massive, I’m pretty sure there’re enough exhibits and things to see to keep me entertained for hours and hours.

After the museum, dinner, and a nap, a group from the same summer program as me decided to go on a pub crawl, and the ticket was only €12 so I decided to join. I think “pub” crawl is a misnomer, because each place was more like a bar than a pub, and it ended at 1am at a club called Matrix. For some reason I associate pubs with a more chill, slightly older audience, so I didn’t expect to be out that late... but we danced and sang and danced some more until 4am, conveniently right when the trains started running again. It was so much fun, and not how I expected my Wednesday night to end. 

Day 9- Class and naps

An exciting day: I went to class and came back, did homework and took a nap.

Something cool that I noticed on the way to the train station is that I walk over where the Berlin Wall used to be every day. It’s weird to think about how it literally wasn’t possible for 28 years to walk across that particular ground, but I can and do every day. The whole city has this small double cobblestone path marking where the wall used to be, but it’s difficult to follow because buildings have often been built right on top of where the wall used to be, and it’s not at all a logical path, so I’m not aware of how many times per day I venture into and out of the old East Berlin. It’s neat to walk where so many important historical events have happened. 

Day 8- back to class, Prinzessingarten, and beer education

Today was another excruciatingly hot day stuck in a classroom, but after class there was another cultural excursion to an “urban mobile garden” called the Prinzessingarten, or princess garden. It was very hip and trendy, but also a really neat use of the space that used to be an apartment building block that was destroying in WW2. What I found particularly amusing was how organized and tightly packed everything was, because the park has a very limited amount of space, with tall buildings on every side.

 I went to a similar sustainable fresh veggie garden-type thing in Montana a while ago (I think that was a trend in 2015ish?), and it was massive, sprawling, and not very organized. It’s always fun to see how cleverly people can use spaces, particularly when they don’t have much of it! Fun fact: the plants are all in crates because the ground is just rock and the ruins of the old apartment complex, so very little can actually grow in the dirt there.

After the garden I met a friend for a beer, and we walked around the Kreuzberg area, which is apparently known for it’s nightlife and being a fun place for young people. They also educated me about different Swiss beers, which was pretty fun. I learned I definitely do not enjoy wheat beer, and I definitely do enjoy this:

Day 7- the laziest day

Today I slept a LOT. It was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday. I went to the coffeeshop right by our hostel and did some homework, because our room is so hot during the day it’s unpleasant to sit in...

But I literally just napped, talked to some friends, got coffee, and then finally ventured out at around 7pm to go find some food with my roommate. Everything is closed on Sundays in Europe, which I have mixed feelings about, but it meant we had to walk to Potsdam Platz to find the restaurants near the large train station there that were open. We settled on a place called Pasta Maria, and both got really really excellent pasta, and will definitely go back again!

Day 6- Potsdam, Pride, and Beer

Today there was a cultural excursion to Potsdam, a city about 30 minutes west of Berlin by train. It was on the border between the Soviet and American occupied zones during the time Germany was split up after WW2, so there was quite a rich history there. This bridge was where the Bridge of Spies was filmed, even though only 4 spies were ever exchanged at the bridge between the American and Soviets.

The land by the river that the bridge crosses belonged to the German royal family, where they built almost literally anything they wanted to, in any architectural style. There was an Egyptian pyramid, a Scandinavian boat house, and an English palace, to name a few.

Potsdam has a gorgeous park, Sanssouci Park, that also used to belong to the royal family, with 3 or 4 palaces and tons and tons of landscaping and statues. We spent quite a while walking around and finding sprinklers to cool us off, and then headed back to Berlin. 

We then caught the tail end of the pride celebration happening by the Brandenburg Gate, and met up with some other students for a drink.

 I’m pretty sure I ended up walking home at 3am with some friends, and by that time my feet were incredibly tired, because we walked 13(!!) miles that day. I’m ready for a lazy Sunday!