January 6, 2013
Second stop…BERLIN! This was a long
awaited city that I was so excited to finally visit. We finally arrived and the
city was so alive. Berlin reminded me a lot of New York City. After we arrived
we got ready for our New Years Eve festivities. Wasser and Susanne took us to
the huge “party street” that had so many people, kiosks, and live music all
directing us towards the Brandenburg Gate. This night was definitely a night I
will never forget. I was honestly so blessed to just be in a different country
on New Years Eve much less Berlin, a place that people plan their years around
to come and see this war zone of a celebration. Next morning we slept in and
then headed out to see Berlin. A few of my favorite sites were what was left of
the Berlin Wall, Hitler’s Bunker, the Brandenburg Gates, and typical enough the
hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his baby from the balcony. The next day we
went to Dresden by train and got to see another round of beautiful buildings
and churches, and got loaded down with more history lessons. My favorite sites
here were the cathedral and the breath taking river scene. The next day we
visited the Charite Museum and skill-training center for doctors, which was
very fascinating. We learned about the differences in Berlin’s medical school
system vs. the State’s system. Afterwards we were able to do some hands on
activities that showed us how some of their students were trained. Later that
night we toured the Reichstag Building, their governmental building that houses
their parliament. Our last day in Berlin we visited the Otto Bock Science
Center. It was very hands on and interesting to see all the prosthetic devices
they have come up with most recently. After the museum we were on our own to
visit the city of our choice for the FREE weekend!
My group had a LONG train ride to
Munich. We arrived around 1am. We were hoping for snow in Munich, but instead
it was freezing and raining. We half way found our way to our hotel, and
decided that it would be a good idea to walk the rest of the way when we found
out the buses had stopped running. No. We were miserably mistaken. We ended up
walking a good mile or two in the freezing rain. Not only that, but I came to
find out that my luggage broke. Nevertheless, the Aggies were playing that
night so the boys some how streamed the game when we finally found our hotel,
but most of us fell asleep. Next morning we woke up bright and early and went
on another adventure to find a lost wallet. We ended up at the police station.
After a rough start to Munich we were determined to still make the best of it.
We headed out to go to the nearest concentration camp, Dachau. This will
probably be one of my favorite memories in Germany no matter how depressing it
may be. I was honestly extremely nervous to see it, but more than glad that I
did. The feeling I got earlier at the Elde Haus was a thousand times more
magnified here. The weather was wet and gloomy, much like I imagined it would
be back when it was active. Every step I took I imagined the thousands of
prisoners that took that same step, but could not even bare to imagine the pain
they bore. Seeing all of the proof and original/mock setups was hard to wrap my
mind around especially walking through the crematorium. We spent several hours
there and still were not able to see everything. We took a train ride back and
decided to lighten the mood by going to the all-famous Brauhaus’s aka beer
halls. Our first one was Augustiner Keller where we ate dinner. The rest of the
night was so much fun which was basically filled with walking into any and
every bar in sight. Next morning was check-out time and time to salvage what
time we had left in Munich. This is by far my favorite weekend so far. We are
now on the train ride to meet up with the rest of our group. Cannot wait to see
what Hannover and Vienna have in store for us!
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