Saturday, March 22 - Departure

Our last day in Berlin started with checking out of the hostel. Once more, we walked through OUR neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg to a restaurant named 1900. It is situated on the Husemannstrasse, a street which was completely renovated in the style of the turn of the 20th century (hence the name of the restaurant). But before we entered the restaurant, we all had time to have a look at a local farmer's market. They offered an "all you can eat" buffet for brunch and it was amazing - the variety of food ranging from cerial and rolls to scrambled eggs and bacon, various cheeses and salads, olives, smoked salmon to deserts - mind blowing and filling.
After our extensive brunch, we picked up our luggage, walked to Schönhauser Allee S-Bahn stop and traveled to the Berlin Tegel Airport. This was the time to say goodbye to the city that has hosted us for a week.
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Friday, March 21

We got up at nine to eat breakfast and then took the U-Bahn to the Olympic Stadium, which also serves as a soccer stadium. After looking in the gift shop, we went into the actual stadium. Although I’m not that interested in soccer, I thought that the stadium was pretty impressive. We went through the rows of seats to the other side. After a while, it started raining so we headed back to the U-Bahn station. We took the train to Schloss Charlottenburg. There, we had lunch at an Italian restaurant where the portions were really large. I thought that was the best meal that we had that day. After lunch, we had the option to either go to the Schloss Charlottenburg or to the Egyptian Museum. I chose to go to the Museum but it turned out that they had moved the museum to a different part of the city. We then had the option of going to an Art-deco museum. We didn’t go there because some of the people really didn’t like art, so we split up into groups and wandered around the area. There wasn’t much going on because it was Good Friday. We met up again at six or so and started for the U-Bahn station. On our way there, we watched a local kids’ soccer game for a while. Luke had the idea of going back to the Sony center to watch a movie. We went there and bought our tickets. There was still some time before the movies started so we split up and found places to have dinner. I had really good ice cream at the mall after dinner. Two movies were playing that interested people: U2 3D and 10,000 BC. I went to U2 3D. It was really cool. I had never seen a 3D movie before and the music was great. We went back to the hostel after that.

Esra

Thursday, March 20

"We started off the day having breakfast at nine o’clock. I was going to wake up early and get a Döner with Ted and Nate. I was too tired so I slept in and just had the usual breakfast. After this, we took the U-Bahn down to the Pergamon Museum. When we got there, I was given the impression that the main part of the museum was going to be an Egyptian portion. We went inside and found out there was no Egyptian exhibit in the Museum that we were in. I found this information out by asking a museum staff member in German! I was so proud of myself. The museum was filled with Greek sculptures and modern building designs. Nate and I were bummed about the non-existence of the Egyptian exhibit, so we left after briskly browsing through the museum. We went to a crepe place and I ordered a delicious Nutella and banana crepe. I also picked up souvenirs for my mom and my sister. We all met back up at 12:30 and went down to Ku’damm. For the first time ever I rode a double decker bus. It was very fun to sit up top and enjoy the marvelous views of Berlin. When we arrived, the place was packed with a cornucopia of stores. The first thing that was explored was this wonderful church that had been damaged in the War. They made the actual church into a memorial and put a modern church right next to it. We visited both. The modern church was filled with beautiful tiles and an absolutely gorgeous organ. The old church was also pretty spectacular. It was amazing to see the artwork on the ceiling and there were some neat artifacts including a huge key smothered in gold and jewels. We than split up for three hours and went shopping. My shopping experience started out on a bad note. There was a six-year old beggar asking me for money. I kept telling him that I had no money and that I was sorry. I turned around to leave and was then kicked in the leg by this kid. If he weren’t a kid I would have had a word with him, but since he was young, I just walked off laughing. I had KFC for lunch, which was a huge disappointment to Uwe. Oh well, it was delicious despite the fact it was not exactly quintessential German food. After the lunch, we shopped around for a while and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the city. We then proceeded on with the day and took the S-Bahn back home. Uwe showed us this wonderful Currywurst stand. It was delicious. We then cooled down for a little while in the hostel and than took the S-Bahn to a bowling alley. I am currently bowling at this present time and am having a blast."

Jeremy

Wednesday, March 19

Today we woke up one hour early to see the Reichstag. I thought that the Reichstag was cool because we got to climb into a large glass dome and see most of Berlin from above. After visiting the Reichstag we traveled to the Holocaust Memorial. The Holocaust Memorial is a section of Berlin filled with over 2000 cement blocks of different shapes and sizes. You get a very eerie feeling when walking through the Memorial because it is confusing and you lose your general sense of direction. After exploring the maze of cement blocks, we went to the underground part of the Memorial. This area had lots of information about what happened in the 1940’s. I found that reading about how many people suffered back then was very depressing.

Teddy

Friday, March 21 (Day 5)

We started off with a trip to the Olympiastadion built for the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. Students seemed to be impressed with the stadium and the local soccer team Herta BSC and you will soon see some fan gear of that club at Hanover High. We had lunch at a very good Italian restaurant and visited Schloss Charlottenburg afterwards. My personal highlight today was following Nate's suggestion to watch "U2 3D" at the IMAX at the Sony Center. Some of us did, others went to another show. The U2 movie was quite an experience - I have never seen Bono, The Edge & Co that close and I would state that this was better than my 1993 Zooropa Tour concert experience in the Berlin Olympic Stadium.
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March 19th (Day 3)

After an early breakfast, we started our day with a visit to the Reichstag, home of the German parliament. While we left a little later than planned, a brisk pace brought us to our 10:00 tour just on time. The Reichstag was burned down in 1945 so much of the building was rebuilt in a modern, more minimalist style than one would expect of a historic building like the Reichstag. We did see some remnants of the older structure throughout the tour, such as the preserved signatures and graffiti of occupying Russian soldiers on some walls and a piece of the old tunnel between the Reichstag and one of the adjacent parliamentary buildings. Other highlights included the prayer room, which had a unique style and catered to all religions, and the suspended rowing boats in one of the buildings symbolizing the healthy competition within government. Our time at the Reichstag ended with its newest addition, the huge, glass dome on top. With a panoramic view over the city, the dome definitely stands out and is a busy tourist attraction. After spending some time looking out over the city, we left the Reichstag to get some lunch and have some chill time.

From the Reichstag we went to the Sony Center, where we all scattered for a couple hours for some shopping, eating, and the odd pool game. Our next stop was the holocaust memorial, just down the street from the Reichstag. The memorial itself was very unique in that there was intentionally no symbolism or reference to the holocaust in any way. It was basically a square filled with 2,711 large cement blocks of varying heights. After walking through it, we went underground to the memorial museum. While this may not have been an as uplifting end to the day as the chocolate store, it was certainly an interesting and touching exhibit containing both pictures and pieces of writing from the holocaust. Following that, we made a quick stop at the Stasi museum, which had some interesting pieces on the Berlin wall before heading back to the hostel.

Our dinner, at a restaurant called Oswald, had a nice variety of food ranging from Italian to American. After that the tired people went home, while the rest of us went to chillax at a pool hall, which was a very fun end to the night.

Nate Ashton

Thursday, March 20 (Day Four)

We started out with a visit to the Pergamon-Museum at the Museumsinsel. Afterwards we shortly visited Humboldt-University. Then we hopped on the Bus #200 and took the scenic route to the western part of the city center. There we continued our exploration: Memorial church, Ku'damm and not to forget KaDeWe, where some of us had lunch on the top floor at the deli counter.









This evening we went out bowling.
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