Berlin Zoo!

Today we visited the Berlin zoo and aquarium! It is apparently one of the biggest zoos in the world, and has the most animals out of any other zoo! It was absolutely massive! 

We got there at 11:30am and only left at 5:30, just before closing time! Today was just as hot as yesterday, but there was a cool breeze which made it slightly more bearable. It was a really nice day to go to the zoo. My favourite part of the day was getting the opportunity to watch the wolves be fed. It was a really cool experience! The wolves they had there were pure white and absolutely beautiful. 

I loved them, and so did Harrison! We got to see lions, tigers, bears (oh my!) (sorry), elephants, hippos, seals, leopards and so many more!

 And that was just in the zoo section! There were even more creatures in the aquarium! 

We also got to see the lions being fed! Which was cool (and pretty gruesome). The zoo is also set out so beautifully. It's huge, so all of the animals have very large and open enclosures. There were none that looked too cramped or unhappy, which I was really happy to see. There were also lots of ponds and gardens with benches that you could sit around on and see some of Berlin's native birds and small animals! That was something else that we really loved about the zoo. Whilst it held all of the zoo animals, they also had places like the gardens and open enclosures for native wildlife to use! It was such a beautiful place. 

There was also a petting zoo, where you could pet cute goats and sheep and things! I loved it! 

The aquarium was 3 storeys, but wasn't nearly as big as the zoo. They had all sorts of awesome looking fish and sea creatures, as well as amphibians and insects! 

It was really great! And provided a nice relief from the sun! 

Once we had finished wandering around the zoo (or more so that they were closing so we had to leave), 6 hours in total, we headed out to explore the area the zoo is in and find some dinner. Near the zoo train station is an old church that was bombed and severely damaged during WW2. They have left the church in ruins as a reminder, and hopefully a deterrent, to future generations about the war. It was a morbidly beautiful thing to see. Unfortunately it was closed for the day so we couldn't actually go inside.

Whilst walking around we stumbled across a small Sunday market. There was a little stage set up in the middle that had people playing traditional German music! There weren't too many stalls as most had probably closed up for the day, but it was really nice to see family's sitting around, listening to music together, eating, laughing, just enjoying each other's company. 

We wandered back towards the train station in search of dinner. We came across a kebab stall. We had been told that kebabs in Berlin are absolutely brilliant, so we decided to give it a go. We were sadly disappointed. There was more potato than meat, and I found what looked like a facial hair in mine! Yuck! However we will not base our opinions on the kebabs of Berlin on this one experience, I'm sure they are great. 

Tonight we have been blessed with a brilliant storm! It has cooled everything down quite a lot, and has just been beautiful.

Tomorrow we are leaving Berlin! We are going to a place in Germany called Dresden, where my friend Marie lives! We were both on exchange in Duluth when I did my USA exchange, and became very close friends! I haven't seen her in almost 3 years, so I am really excited! 

Berlin

The day that we moved to our new hostel, was a huge waste of a day. We got to the hostel at about 11am, and were told we weren't able to check in until 3. That was fair enough, most hostels only let you check in in the afternoon. However we were then told that the baggage room was too full, so they couldn't store our luggage. So since the places we had planned to visit don't allow you to take big bags (and it would have just sucked hefting those things around all day) we had to basically sit around in the hostel and wait to be able to check in. So this was really annoying, and put us a day behind schedule. Everything has been pretty rushed since then as we had to squeeze that days activities amongst the other things we had planned. 

The next day went much better. We went on a tour of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This was one of the first concentration camps to be built, and was used as a labour camp. 

The tour was incredible. It was such a moving experience. To think that we were standing on the same ground as all of those tortured people, walking around a place where thousands and thousands of people lost their lives. I truly don't have words to explain this experience. It was something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Visiting a concentration camp is definitely something you need to try and do whilst in Europe. It's truly something that will stay with you forever. The tour took up the whole day, so once we were done we went back to the hostel for the night and reflected on what we had seen that day. It was something that moved both Harrison and I very much. 

The heat in Berlin is only getting worse and worse. Yesterday we decided to visit a few museums, to try and escape the blistering sun. I really did not expect it to get this hot! It got up to 36 degrees yesterday, and is only getting hotter! And we are both so unused to the intense humidity, that it just makes it worse. It's incredibly draining. The first museum we went to was the DDR Museum. This is a museum on what life was like for the people of East Berlin under communist rule once the wall went up. It was really interesting! It's set out so that you kind of get to live and experience the lives of the people of East Berlin. We learnt about the kind of cars they drove, what they learnt in school, what music they were allowed to listen to, what their houses looked like, and the incredibly invasive nature of communism. The people were so restricted in every aspect of life. The museum was very well set out, and we enjoyed our time there!

The next museum we went to was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Berlin. This museum was mainly the personal accounts of Jewish people living through the holocaust. There were accounts from both people who survived the holocaust, and those who did not. It was a touching and very sad experience. I would highly recommend visiting this information centre if ever in Berlin. 

That night we had booked to go on an organised pub crawl, so we had to end our museum trips there. We got to the pub crawl at 9, and were greeted by over 120 people! It was totally crazy! We were not expecting it to be so busy! Over the course of the night we visited 4 different bars, so we were given the opportunity to experience some of Berlins famous night life. The bars we went to weren't really Harrison and my scene, so we didn't love the pub crawl.

 

However we did still have a fun night, and we got free shots and drink deals at every bar which was good too! We met a nice guy living in Berlin and chatted to him for most of the time in one bar. I also had the most amazing goats cheese, it was a deep fried ball of goats cheese with honey drizzled on top. It was absolutely amazing! The pub crawl ends in a club, but when we got there we weren't too happy with the area it was in, and we were pretty tired so we decided to call in a night. We finally made it home at 2:30am, and fell into bed, completely exhausted. 

Today we had a pretty late start, as we had gotten in really late. We walked to the shops to buy some eggs, which have turned into quite a luxury, and made ourselves a delicious breakfast. In the afternoon we went on an Alternative Berlin tour, with the same company that does the walking tours. It was a 3 hour walking tour around Berlin, showing us the more alternative, grunge scene that Berlin has to offer. I really loved this tour! We got to see some incredible street art, and places that if you didn't know were there you would completely miss them. We went down one alleyway and came out in the most incredibly graffitied court yard! The walls were covered in graffiti! But not that tagging crap, proper amazingly done works of art! 

We were taken into this stairwell that was also just covered in graffiti. It was so cool!

 We also got to see the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, which also has some incredible artwork graffitied on to it. We are going to have to go back to see more! We were taken into this Jamacian type beach bar, that had a tree house bar, a fake sandy beach for people to lounge around on, and a very rasta, relaxed feel to it. 

Again, we would have totally missed it if the guide hadn't taken us there! It was a really fun and interesting tour. We got to learn about street art, the punk scene of Berlin, the underground scene, rebellion and various protests. I really enjoyed it. 

The new hostel we are in is alright. I think the best part about it has been our roommates. We met a guy from Russia who we really hit it off with. He was so interesting, and had a lot to share about his country. It was amazing to see him light up talking about it. We have also met a guy from California who is pretty cool. Our rooms are deathly hot though, so that kind of sucks! 

Berlin!

On our last night in Amsterdam we wandered around the red light district for the last time. It was actually quite sad to leave, we had had such a good time and experienced so many new things. 

Once again, we were up bright and early to catch the busabout bus. 

We were headed to Berlin! I was especially excited to be visiting Berlin, as I absolutely love learning about the history of WW2 and the Berlin Wall. I find it so fascinating. The bus ride was really long. We left at 8am and got to Berlin at 6pm. We didn't have any very exciting stops this time. Our last stop was at the old checkpoint Alpha, which was one of the checkpoints you had to go through to get into Berlin. I think that would have been really interesting to explore, but we unfortunately only stopped there for a really short amount of time. 

We arrived at our hostel at about 7. We were given our room number, so off we went to settle in. We got into the room, only to find out that there was only 1 bed available! They must have double booked us with someone else. They were pretty good about sorting it out quickly and giving us a new room, but it was still kind of annoying. That night we made dinner and went to bed, we were exhausted. 

The next day we had a pretty late start, but we decided to go to some markets that our bus guide had recommended in Mauerpark. It took us a while to find the park because our directions weren't the best, but once we did we were so excited! The atmosphere of this market was the best that I have experienced so far! There were so many people. They were lounging around the park, or having picnics, playing music, singing, bartering, selling things.

 It was amazing! Once we got into the actual markets there were even more people! This markets sold clothes, souvenirs, jewellery, and that sort of stuff. It was all very interesting! At one point we came across a food stall that was selling something called Currywurst. Basically this is German sausage with a tomato sauce/relish and curry powder sprinkled on top. It is apparently one of the very Berlin dishes, so of course we had to try it. Harrison really liked it, but I wasn't too sure. Once we were done wandering around the markets, we both grabbed a beer from one of the stalls and went out into the park.

Every Sunday (when the markets are on) this park holds public karaoke. There is a big hill in the park that has had a bunch of bleacher like seats carved into it, and there is a large round section of ground in front of the seats. So it created a stage, which is called the Bearpit (look it up, so awesome.) 

Some guy comes every Sunday with a small amp, a laptop and a microphone and sets up karaoke. Anyone can sing, you don't have to sign up or even be good. If you get a flash of confidence whilst watching someone else sing, when they are done you just stand up and say you would like to sing next! There was a huge crowd! The seats were absolutely packed, we didn't even get to sit down. And the crowd never boo anyone, they sometimes join in, and clap for every person, even if the singer sucks. It was really an amazing thing to experience. There are also a bunch of other people set up around the park that are not a part of the karaoke, but are playing music anyway, attracting small groups of people. So we spent the afternoon sitting on the hill, in the sun, drinking beer and listening to the music of the park. It was really great! 

Our second day in Berlin we decided to go on a walking tour, to get our bearings in this huge city. However, we ran into a bit of trouble on the way there. We had purchased extra train tickets the previous day, as they give you discounts if you buy in bulk. Whilst we were on the train the ticket inspectors came around to check tickets, which was fine because we had a ticket so we had nothing to worry about. The inspector looked at our tickets, then looked at us, and said something angry in German (which was just terrifying in itself). We told him we didn't speak German, and he switched to English. In Berlin you have to validate your ticket before getting on the train by getting it stamped by a machine. Our ticket had two validation stamps on it, one from the day before and one from this day. This was not okay, as it looked like we were trying to use yesterday's ticket to avoid buying a new one. We hurriedly explained that no, we had actually purchased tickets, we must have just stamped the wrong ones by accident. Basically he said too bad it was our fault, we needed to get off the train with him. So we got off at the next stop (which actually happened to be our stop) and he told us we had to pay a fine, as this was a criminal offence. Since we don't have a German address we either had to pay then and there, or we had to be taken to the police. This really freaked us our as we didn't have enough cash on us to pay the fine. Luckily the inspector was nice enough to escort us to the next stop which had an ATM. So with 4 ticket inspectors escorting us onto the train (we probably looked like criminals) (which I suppose we were) we headed to the next stop. We got the money out and paid the fine, and the inspectors took us back to our stop. The ticket inspector was actually really nice about the whole thing, we understand he was just doing his job and he had to fine us, but he was also kind about it in the fact that he explained everything and apologised and explained that once we paid the fine that was it, we had no record or anything and were free to go. It was a hard, and expensive lesson to learn. And it really sucked. 

We made it to the tour just minutes before they were supposed to leave, because of the ticket situation. We were really lucky, as the guide we got studied history at university so he really knew what he was talking about. It was an amazing tour, my favourite out of all the tours we have done so far. Berlin is so rich and alive with history. It is such an interesting place to learn about! During the tour we got to see the Brandenburg Gate, the last standing strip of the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie, Hitlers bunker and tons of other really interesting places. We both really loved it.

 It was a fascinating 3 hours, they just flew by! After the tour we went off to find somewhere to have lunch. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. 

Today we went to the Typography of Terror. This is an outdoor and indoor museum of the history of Berlin, showed through photographs, newspaper clippings and letters. It took us over an hour to get through the outdoor section, which is placed along the remains of the Berlin Wall.

 It was really interesting. As I've mentioned before, I really enjoy learning about the history of Berlin so I really enjoyed this museum. The indoor museum was similar to the outdoor one, it just went more in depth. We didn't spend as long in there as we had in the outdoor one. Once we were done with the museums, we walked along the remains of the wall. It was a moving experience. 

We have recently discovered that Berlin has a Primark! So after the museum, we trekked to Primark as we needed a few things. One thing I didn't expect from Germany (maybe it's just Berlin?) is the heat! It is so hot here! And so humid! The walk to Primark was pretty far, and in the full sun most of the way. So by the time we got there we were pretty knackered. Shopping was the last thing I wanted to do, but we didn't want to have to come back so in we went. And my God, it was busy. It looked like total mayhem, with clothes just everywhere and people digging through piles of stuff. We got what we needed as quickly as possible, and got out of there. By this time it was fairly late in the afternoon and we were tired, so we decided to walk back to the hostel. We grabbed a few drinks on the way back, and sat on the roof for a while drinking, talking and taking in the views. It was a nice late afternoon/evening. 

Tomorrow we are changing hostels, but will still be in Berlin (this hostel had a max amount of days so we figured we would just split our time between two hostels rather than spending two nights at a new one). We are still here in Berlin for another week, and I'm excited to learn more about the city and see all the awesome things there are to see.