A Jolly Good Time in England

Ever since we both knew that we would be studying in Germany this year, my roommate Ashley and I knew we HAD to go to London together. Last weekend, our dream finally became a reality!

Getting there was definitely interesting. Being money-conscious college students who are currently suffering under the dollar-euro conversion rate, we wanted to go for as little money as possible. Therefore, we bought our tickets with Ryan Air, the budget airline that is widely used here. Ryan Air flies out of Frankfurt Hahn airport (which is not in Frankfurt, by the way). To get there, we took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof at about 2:30 in the morning. From there we took a fairly short plane ride to London Stansted (which is not in London), and then another 2 hour bus ride to London itself, where we got on the tube to go to South Kensington, the location of the Pepperdine House. By then it was about 10 in the morning London time, so we had breakfast, rested a bit, and then began our whirlwind tour of London.

We saw most of the essential sights: Big Ben, the Parliament building, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey. We went into the National Gallery for a spell (side note: the museums in London are free. I highly appreciated this), ate dinner, and pretty much collapsed into bed (or at least, I did).

Buckingham Palace

Parliament

Big Ben

The next day, we spent a lot of time exploring Camden Market and all the cheap goods they had to sell there. I had limited space, so I only purchased an Oxford University sweatshirt (and some food). After that, we went to King's Cross station to get the quintessential Harry Potter fan picture. We ran around the train station forever trying to find it. We knew it was just a cart stuck into a wall, but we thought that, logically, it would be between platforms 9 and 10. No luck there. So we asked someone, and they told us it was by platform 1. We looked for that, couldn't find it, asked someone else, and they said it was around the corner. Turns out, it's outside the train station, in this little box. Definitely not as magical as you would think. However, it was still worth it for our picture :)

Yay, we're going to Hogwarts!

What it actually looks like.

After that, we went to the British Museum, which was so gigantic we could not possibly have had enough time to see it all. But it was really cool and had so many interesting artifacts. We got to see the Rosetta Stone and an Easter Island statue, among countless other treasures of history.

Since my companions, Mason and Ashley, are both Catholic, they wanted to go to mass, so I went along with them. We rode a double-decker bus (on the top level, of course) to the Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey, which is Anglican). It was absolutely gorgeous inside and out-- possibly the most beautiful church I've seen in Europe. I really liked the inside because it was different than your typical cathedral-- they used colored marble, and in some naves there were mosaics on the ceiling made with glimmering tiles. I was pretty much in awe the whole time.

Westminster Cathedral at night.

By the time mass was over, it was time for dinner, so we headed back to South Kensington and stopped in a little restaurant, where I got fish and chips (which were just okay compared to others I've had) and sticky toffee pudding (quite possibly the best I've ever tasted. It made it all worth it). Since we had an early morning of travel ahead of us, we headed back for the night after dinner. The next morning we left around 8:30 and made it back to Heidelberg in time for dinner and the completion of homework.

I had a fantastic time in London, but I was definitely left wanting more. A two day trip, which we had to keep that short out of necessity, is simply not long enough to see all or even a large chunk of what London has to offer. So, basically, I have to go back sometime :)

Goals for my next trip to England someday:
1. Stroll through Hyde Park
2. Have tea and scones with jam and devonshire cream (and maybe a crumpet while I'm at it?)
3. Maybe see the tower of London
4. Go to Stratford Upon Avon
5. Maybe see Charles Dicken's house, and maybe Jane Austen's too
6. See the English countryside, and possibly go to locations where movies were filmed (Pemberly, aka Mr. Darcy's estate? I'd love to see the place they used for that. Or if there are any locations nearby where Harry Potter was filmed, that would be great too)

And I'm sure there's much, much more of which I simply cannot think at the moment. So, who's with me?

Berlin: Part 2

The second half of my weekend in Berlin was simultaneously relaxing and jam-packed. Evan and I came to Sina's house at the end of a long (but fun) day and were picked up at the train station by Sina and her mom. It was so wonderful to see Sina again! She was my friend Kelli's German exchange student the first half of our senior year of high school, so it'd been almost 2 years since we'd seen each other in person.

When we got to her house, her parents had prepared dinner for us, which was so sweet of them (and it was delicious, i might add). Having something homemade prepared for us was a welcome surprise, and it was lovely to have vegetables! Because I have to admit, while the restaurants we go to for our meals are delicious, they seldom serve many vegetables to us.

After our dinner and pleasant conversation (seriously, her parents are SO SWEET), Sina showed us our rooms. We were so fortunate that not only was there a guest room for Evan, but also Sina's brother's room was unoccupied so I could stay in there. After a night in a hostel (which really wasn't that bad, but still), it was really nice to each have our own rooms without random people coming in. That night we went to bed so early-- probably around 10:30 or so. It felt GREAT.

It was fortunate that we were able to get to bed so early on Friday night, because on Saturday we woke up early in order to go to a tour of a WWII bunker. Evan and I went without Sina because she needed to sleep in, so we agreed to meet up with her a little later so she would be sufficiently rested.

The WWII bunker was so fascinating. It was tucked away in a subway station, and you would never even suspect it. I think one of the most interesting things was the fluorescent paint they had on the walls. Whoever came up with this was so clever-- and I was impressed, considering that this paint dated back to the 1930s or so. Basically, in case of a power outage they wanted to be sure that they could still see, so they painted the walls with this fluorescent paint that would give off a faint glow in the dark. The really cool thing is that if you "drew" in the air with a flashlight, your picture would briefly show up as a glowing image on the wall. The paint was really strong, and I can only imagine how well it all worked 70 years ago when it was fresh. The bunker also really got me thinking about how scary it must have been to be a civilian in Berlin at that time-- can you imagine expecting a bomb raid at any moment, then having to hide in dark underground rooms without windows, all the while forced to live under an immoral regime?

Sina and me inside a Trabi

After that, we met up with Sina at the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) Museum, which is basically about life in Eastern Germany. It was so fascinating to hear how life was in the DDR-- for example, a brick layer was almost paid as much as a chemist. As time went on the regime started to fail because of economic problems-- their system simply didn't work. We got to sit in a Trabi, the car of the DDR. If you wanted one, you had to wait for a VERY long time, and they were pretty junky cars. They broke down all the time, and later in the day we actually saw a real Trabi (you can rent them in Berlin and drive them around for kicks) break down on the street.

Our day had only just begun by the time we finished that-- we went to a cafe, then to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. While Checkpoint Charlie may be a standard tourist thing to see in Berlin, I have to say that it was worth it. There were so many stories in the museum about escape attempts and successes that I couldn't even read them all.

There was only one thing left on our itinerary for the day after we finished at checkpoint Charlie: the dome on top of the Reichstag building. Evan had made reservations for the three of us to tour it, and the only available time was that night. However, once we got there the woman in charge told us that our names were not on the list. She must have been feeling merciful that night or something, because she let us in anyway, which I'm pretty sure is not protocol. Then again, we weren't allowed to go inside the Reichstag building itself, but still. We had to put our bags through an X-ray machine and walk through a metal detector, just like at the airport. We, along with a few others, were escorted into the building and up a few floors in the elevator before being dropped off at the spot where we picked up our audio guides for the dome (which basically told us interesting things about the architecture and pointed out points of interest in the city).

At the top of the dome

All in all, I'd say that the trip to Berlin was fantastic. I learned so much over the course of only a few days, and left feeling like there was still so much more to do and see in Berlin. But alas, I am studying abroad and therefore have to plan my trips within the confines of my weekends and return to school when it's all over. So we returned, relaxed and enlightened at the end of a fun and informative weekend.

Berlin: Part 1

If there's one cliched phrase that applies to traveling in Europe, it's this:
"Expect the unexpected."

What I expected for the long weekend of November 2-6? My friend Evan and I would leave Wednesday morning for Berlin, stay in the Heart of Gold (a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy themed hostel) Wednesday night, a different hostel (just for kicks) Thursday night (both of which were super cheap, even more so because we planned to stay in room with 6 other random strangers), and my friend Sina's house Friday and Saturday night, having plenty of time to see all of the museums and places of historical interest in Berlin. We're not the type of people who like to be rushed.

Here's what really happened. Monday night, Evan and about 6 others in our house got food poisoning (happy Halloween, right?). I didn't know about it until I came down for breakfast Tuesday morning and found Evan huddled on the couch looking miserable, and my friend Chris debating whether or not to eat cereal, because he felt a little nauseous (spoiler alert: he ate it, and it was a bad idea). They were sick the entire day. Two of my friends, Chelsea and Jaimy, were supposed to leave for Ireland at around 2 AM on Wednesday but decided for the sake of their health not to do so. Other people's travel plans fell apart due to people in the group being sick as well, so by Wednesday morning there were quite a few of us still in Moore Haus without a plan.

Evan and I decided to help our friends salvage their long weekend, so we invited them to come along with us. Thus, our Berlin group expanded to include Chelsea, Jaimy, Ben, Chris, and Andrew in addition to Evan and me. To throw another cliche in this blog entry (why stop now, right?), the more the merrier!

We departed Thursday morning instead of Wednesday, so unfortunately we didn't get to stay in the Heart of Gold Hostel. However, this extra day gave us more time to do laundry, pack, plan, etc-- and more time for all the sickies to get better. We took the ICE to Berlin, which was amazing-- we got there in about 5 hours. And to give you some perspective on how incredible that is, we were basically going from southwest Germany to the northeast. Almost all the way across the country in such a short time! It was a super comfortable train, too, with a cafe and compartments (like the Hogwarts Express!) and lovely views out the window.

Yay Berlin! Jaimy, Chelsea, and me :D

Our first night in Berlin we basically got established in our hostel and explored the city on our own. We went to the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial and just generally had a good time. Also, we had the craziest thing happen in the hostel. Evan and I were talking to this one guy around our age in our room, and after we told him that we went to Pepperdine he said, "Oh, I know someone who goes there!" I, of course, expected to have no idea who this person was that he knew (as is usually the case), but then he asked, "Do you know Brandon Scheirman?" Not only do we know Brandon, he is a friend/Moore Hausmate!  If you've ever heard that theory about the 6 Degrees of Separation (basically, everyone in the world is connected by 6 people), I'm really starting to believe there's some validity to it. I mean, seriously, what are the odds of meeting a random guy in a hostel in Berlin who personally knows one of your friends?! It was crazy.

 The next day we got up fairly early and headed to the German History Museum. That place was incredible-- it started from about 500 AD all the way to at least the Cold War Era (to be honest, I'm not sure exactly how far it goes because I barely made it to the middle of WWII, and that was even with a lot of skimming. I'm just a very thorough museum-goer, apparently, and that takes a lot of time which I did not have). After that we got lunch at Subway (I know, so American and uncreative, but we were hungry and looking for somewhere close/cheap) and headed over to the Ritter Sport museum/store. That place was amazing-- a little museum on the second floor, and on the first, all the flavors of Ritter Sport chocolate you could possibly dream of. I bought some with roasted almonds in it, which was DELICIOUS, to say the least.

There were lots of fun things to do there :)

Chris and me surrounded by CHOCOLATE!

After that we headed over to the Topography of Terror exhibit, which is pretty sobering. It basically tells about the horrors of the Nazi regime and how some of them got away with mass murder (not serving their full sentences, not being charged at all, etc.) Before that, we stopped by a large piece of the Berlin Wall that is still standing.

See this big concrete thing I'm touching? Yeah, it's the Berlin Wall. No big deal or anything.

"To Astrid: Maybe someday we will be together."

By the time we had done all that, it was early evening and time to meet up with Sina. We didn't meet up with her earlier because she's still in high school and of course didn't have a long weekend like us (that was just a Pepperdine thing). At this point we (Evan and I) split from the group to go stay with Sina, since the original, pre-food poisoning plan was for only two of us to stay at her house. While the rest of our group went to Checkpoint Charlie, Evan and I got our tired selves on an S-Bahn (train) to go to Zehlendorf, Sina's town about 45 minutes outside of Berlin.

It appears that this blog entry has become rather long and detailed, and I still have SO MUCH to say about my weekend in Berlin (it really is an incredible city), so to save your tired eyes I'm going to break my weekend up into more bite-size pieces and continue later. There's at least one more blog entry about Berlin to come, so stay tuned!