Germany

Wow, it has been a crazy week and a half. And now I have time to tell you about it.

Once we got to Mannheim, we met a girl in our dorms, named Kookie, who was very sympathetic to our situation, who had already been in Mannheim for a while, at least long enough to know a few tricks to the trade. She took us to a place where we could get a quick, cheap, tasty and filling meal for only 2,25 euros. (They use commas instead of periods in numbers) Anyway this meal was called a doener. After our meal, which was at aroud 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I took a 5 hour long nap to help me get over jet lag, since we lost a day and a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, I woke up at 9, instead of sleeping through the night, so I went ahead and set up my computer and rearranged my room [=>], so that the desk was next to the plugs. I messed with the computer a while, and realized that the sun went down at around 10 in the evening. Around midnight, after taking a benedril to help me sleep, I went back to bed, and slept until 5 when the sunlight woke me up. I then ignored it and went back to sleep, only to wake up for good around 7 or so. I guess, I really said all that to say, the sun sets late and rises early here, so that sleeping in the night hours is more difficult here.

On Wednesday, nothing special happened, since we were all very tired, and were still trying to get over jetlag. We decided to go to Berlin the next day though. Very early on Thursday morning, we set out for the Hauptbahnhof [<=] (main train station) of Mannheim, to catch a train to the capitol of Germany. once we were there, I realized that I left my eurail pass in the desk drawer in my dormroom, so I had to pay 109 euros for a train ticket. I decided to purchase a oneway ticket, since I heard about a deal called "Schoenes Wochenende" or "lovely weekend" that costs 35 euros, and will take you anywhere in Germany on Saturday and Sunday. Since we were traveling back to Mannheim on Saturday, that seemed to be a good deal. So we caught a fast train to Berlin, and 5 hours later, we arrived in Berlin. The first thing we did is check in at the youth hostel where we wanted to stay, and left our things there, so that we did not have to carry everything around with us, since our backpacks were very heavy. After that, we went to a church that was destroyed in World War II. [=>] I think it was beautiful, even in its destroyed state. After that, we took the 100 bus, which was kind of like a self-guided tour, that went by the most important sites of Berlin. The really great thing about it was that is was a part of the bus system there, so it only cost about 2 euros, so we didn't have to pay for an actual tour.

I can't remember what we did each day, but I do remember all of the important sites we saw. I already posted something on the Berliner Dom, and we also saw the Brandenburg Tor (gate) [<=], which I think is the same place that Kennedy made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech (which is actually grammatically incorrect in German, but I will spare you the reasoning behind that). Whether or not he made that speech there, the Brandenburg gate is very symbolic of Berlin, kind of like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. Germans call those "Wahrzeichen." We also went to the Pergamon museum [=>], which is an awesome museum of Ancient Greek architectural art, Egyptian art, and Islamic art. I took so many pictures, it will be impossible to load them all into my blog, so I will set up some Internet slide show for you to see. Another place we went to was the old German historical museum [<=], which was comprised of German artwork. I didn't get to see the whole thing, since we were on a schedule, and after we left I found out that the floor I didn't visit was comprised of architectural plans. I was very disappointed to have missed it. Another place we visited was the parliament building. We had intended to go inside up to the dome at the top, because that is a really excellent view of Berlin, but we decided we were too wiped out, and went back to Mannheim earlier that anticipated. Also while we were in that area, we saw a police escort of slick black limos, and came to the conclusion that the people in those cars were important leaders, either throughout the world, or for Germany. We also remembered that the G8 summit was being held in Germany at the time and thought maybe some of those leaders had something to do in Berlin. This has been a very long post, and even though I am not done telling you about my trip to Berlin, I will complete this post, mostly since I don't think I can put any more pictures in here. Hope you are enjoying my journey.