Berlin is magical

"My most international weekend"

Oh Berlin!! This was one of my favorite trips of studying abroad. As I already mentioned in my last post I didn't think I was even going to make it to Berlin this past weekend, because of the stomach flu... Luckily it ran it's course and Claudia and I were ready to have an amazing weekend. 

It was just me and Claudia this weekend and it was soo nice to just be traveling with one other person, instead of a group of 11 like last weekend. Don't get me wrong it's so much fun to travel in big groups, but it also can be kind of stressful. We decided to try out couch surfing this weekend too, which was a really cool experience! Claudia figured the whole couch surfing thing out and found us an awesome host to stay with for the weekend, Jonathan! He lived in an old children's hospital (very fitting after us being sick all week) turned into a dorm. It was a little weird at first, but Jonathan was really chill and hospitable. 

 

Since our flight didn't get in until 5pm, Claudia and I dropped our stuff off at Jonathan's and went into the city center to get dinner. We got dinner over by the TV tower and had a delicious Italian dinner. It was so tasty and the city was all lite up with Christmas lights, which made everything so pretty!! 

The start of our date weekend!

The next morning we woke up early and headed to Potsdamer Platz, which is the main city center of Berlin. Okay, so here is one of the greatest things about Berlin they have Dunkin Donuts!!! Ahh I was sooo excited for this and I don't even really like coffee! So of course Claudia and I go and grab a coffee and a donut before sightseeing for the day! We had a jam backed day of sightseeing. First when we got off the tram we saw various parts of the Berlin Wall, pieces of the wall are scattered around the city and almost all of them have been decorated by street artists. We just kind of walked around the city for a bit and there was a Christmas market that we checked out as well.

Next we went to the Dali Museum, probably the first museum I have gone to while studying abroad. The exhibits were really interesting though, I'm not a huge art person but I found Dali's work to be very interesting. Seeing Dali's collaborated work with Disney was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. Also being in the museum kept us out of the cold for a bit. We grabbed lunch at one of the street vendors at the Christmas Market before heading over to the meeting spot for a free walking tour. I got currywurst, which is essentially just a bratwurst cut up and covered in curry sauce (yes it was delicious)! 

On the walking tour we saw Brandenburg Gate, The Holocaust Memorial, spot where Hitler committed suicide, East-Side Gallery, and a bunch of other stuff. It was kind of cool going on the tour, because in our history classes we have been learning a lot about German history and seeing everything we have been learning about was just neat. 

 

Since it was so very cold out and The Hunger Games 2 had just come out, we decided to go to see it at the international movie theater!! It was so much fun to go to a movie (haven't gone to a movie theater since the states)!! Ooh and the whole movie was in English, yay!! And when we got out of the theater the Platz was all lite up with Christmas decorations and this weird performance was going on, but everythings starting to look so pretty and Christmasy!! It was such a good day and we were both in such a good mood, Christmas season is upon us folks!

Holocaust Memorial

After the movie Claudia and I grabbed some noodles and headed back to Jonathan's. We chilled with Jonathan and some of his friends for the night. He took us out to this bar, which was named Szimpla... so of course we thought it had something to do with Budapest and ordered the best beer I've had since Prague! It was so sweet of Jonathan to take us out to a bar, but like did we really have to leave at 2am?!?! -- I'm surprised I didn't fall asleep at the bar!

 

Next morning we went to another market and had an Irish breakfast, I told you it was our international weekend and we were loving every minute of it. There was no one else on the trip to give us grief for doing our own thing!! Then we headed over to the Museum campus and went to the History Museum. So just a side-note we asked Therese, Robert, and Jake what places we should check out in Berlin because they had gone there earlier on in the semester. Well on the list of places to see they said the History Museum was amazing and you could spend hours there... Umm worst mistake we could have made, the museum was to put it kindly a snooze fest. It wasn't until we got back to Budapest that we found out Therese, Robert, and Jake had never even gone to this museum and put it on the list anyways!!! 

 

After the museum we had to stop at Dunkin to get coffee to wake ourselves up. Then off to see the 

East-Side gallery and Check-point Charlie. This was way more interesting than the museum and again it was almost surreal being there. I remember learning about the Berlin Wall for the first time in third grade and seeing it in person was just beyond anything I could have pictured. Oh and also it took Claudia and I about an hour to make it to the East-Side Gallery, because we kept missing out stop on the tram... I told you that museum made us act like zombies for a while! 

We spent the rest of the day just walking around by Brandenburg Gate and even walked around the Tiergarten for a bit. The Tiergarten is the equivalent of Central Park in New York. We mistakenly went to it when it started getting dark out and it was extremely creepy and I thought we were going to die (I'm being dramatic of course, but I did freak Claudia out when I saw a guy peeing in the forest)! Once we were numb from the cold we made our way towards Alexanderplatz to get dinner. Finally Claudia and I had a real authentic German meal, unless you count currywurst which I really don't..  Yum yum yum it was my favorite meal I think I have had all of abroad!! I mean come on just look how delicious that looks!!!

After dinner we headed back to Jonathan's and I took a much needed nap. Claudia kept coming back to the room to see if I wanted to go out. My nap kind of turned into sleep and I thought I wasn't going to make it out for the night, but I rallied! Jonathan and his friends took us to a house party (we went to a German house party)!! How freakin random is that!?! Agh creepy-mc-creeps, a friend of Jonathan's, though was super annoying at the party. 

I was so sad to leave Berlin. It was the first "city" city I feel like we had gone to the whole trip abroad. It had an almost Chicago like feel to it and it was soo international. I can really see myself living and working in Berlin someday... Hmmmm might have to apply for some summer internship here in the future. 

 

The weekend was amazing and I had such a great time with Claudia. I swear I think we were on some weird high or we both just feel in love with this city. We dubbed this trip "our international weekend" and I can say with certainty I will be back to Berlin in the near future. Until next time-- Szia!!