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!