October 21st-29th I went to Berlin, Germany to see a bunch of friends, a few of whom I had not seen for several years. It was a last minute decision to go - I had just decided on a date to start a new job in Peru, and I had been planning on going to Europe since my friend Nelson is there for two years. I decided that if I am going to go, now is the time while I'm in Washington DC and the plane tickets are relatively cheap (plus the flight is a little shorter from DC :/), so I went ahead and purchased the tickets.
It was hard to swallow at first that I could only be in Germany for about a week, since usually if I'm going to deal with that much jet lag and travel time I like to be at a place for closer to three weeks. But I'm so happy I did go for that time, as Berlin is a laid back city and we were able to just take it in without rushing. Plus the jet lag was okay, because most people my age there stay up pretty late anyways, especially on the weekends, which was a little closer to DC time. Plus the purpose of the trip - to see friends - allowed me to fulfill my expectations of what I would and could do in Germany relatively easily.
I was not in Berlin the entire time, but I'll start with my Berlin highlights and write later posts about the other cities I visited.
The first day there, Maria - my friend who resides there - met me at the airport, and we went to her flat and met my friend Nelson. I got in pretty late, so we didn't do anything that night. The next day we went to a grocery store to stock up for the week. We bought a chocolate-covered baum cake (a cake baked in thin layers) and cream pastry as a morning snack :) I was feeling the German pastries, definitely a good start to my day.
There are no pictures of this first day, sorry :/ I decided not to take my camera that day because I thought we wouldn't do a lot of sightseeing.
Then we did 3D, blacklight mini golf at Görlitzer Park. Those people took their minigolf seriously, there were a lot of courses that I could just not get the ball in! The walls were covered with crazy glow-in-the-dark 3D art. It was a good introduction to Berlin style - the city is brimming with art upon art upon art all over its walls, doors, stations, everything.
We then got Döner kebap at Mustafa's Gemüsekebap - basically a Turkish gyro with different sauces like chili and hummus. A very typical Berlin food. Actually, a lot of Turkish food is very typical Berlin food. Afterwards, we wandered the artsy district at Friedrichshain and saw the Berlin Wall.
The next day, I have a lot more photos (yay!)
We started our morning with good German bread and spreads. Probably my favorite thing about Germany is the bread, it's these great rye and spelt breads that are dense and moist. We didn't get started till much later that day since we were so tired, but after staying at the apartment and having lunch, Nelson and I went to the downtown area where we saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This was a series of stelae covering a city block. The stelae were short on the outside of the square, but grew taller towards the middle. Conversely, the ground started at ground level, but sloped down as you went towards the middle of the memorial. There was a museum under the memorial which was quite well done - it explained many of the first hand accounts that provided the basis for our knowledge of the timeline and extent of the Holocaust.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
