Berlin, Germany
Friday, February 12, 2010
i flew into berlin quite late but the first thing i did wa take advantage of the hostel's free internet, i'd missed it while i was up north! the next day i did the "free"walking tour (they work for tips, you kinda feel obliged!) the tour was really good. we started at brandenburg gate, walked through the jewish holocaust memorial to the carpark that's on top of the bunker where hitler shot himself. then we went to one of the few buildings in this part of berlin to survive the war, then on top check point charlie, one of the 3 gates that were in the wall. after a lunch break we went to some churches, the concert hall, the opera and a war memorial before crossing on to museum island where we finished the tour. i walked back to where we started and lined up to go to the top of the reichstag building where there's a big class dome with views over the city (would have been views if it wasn't snowing! then i met trent and some of his friends for one of the exchange students' going away party'. the next day we met up with/ran into and few other exchange students and went to an old building which had been taken over by squatters who set up their art studios in there and sold it to the public. there was some really random stuff but alot of it was really nice! after that we went to the east side gallery, a 1.4km stretch of the original wall which has murals all along it. then we went to a bombed out train station and europe's largest indoor skatepark. dinner was the traditional berliner delicacy of roadside kebab!
