Spring Break in Berlin (part 4)

On my last full day in Berlin I did a few exciting things.

First, a large group of us took the S-bahn all the way out to it's last stop outside of Berlin. What were we doing there you may ask? We were headed to Sachsenhausen; a concentration camp of WWII's Nazi Germany.

Walking through those gates, knowing what had gone on inside their boundaries, was certainly an experience. While an incredibly interesting site this was also a rather upsetting one. Once we were all there we were allowed to walk about on our own and take everything in at our own pace. 

The first place I had walked into at the camp was the Infirmary Barracks. There wasn't much left inside the rooms beyond the pictures and information that was provided. It was all so eerie because, even though most of the equipment was gone, you still kind of knew what had gone on there. Everyone has been taught about the Holocaust to at least some extent in school, so it's probably not hard to imagine on your own what type of stuff had gone on in these barracks. 

My next stop was even more upsetting than that had been...the Pathology Building and Cellar Mortuary. It was here that all of the autopsies were performed on the prisoners who had died in the camp. At first it wasn't so bad. Just like the other buildings the rooms were pretty bare for the most part. It wasn't until I went to the basement that things got upsetting. 

There were rooms that looked as it they had been mostly untouched since they had been in operation. The tile and concrete tables where autopsies had been performed on the victims of the camp were still in place. The cabinets that held all of the tools were still on the walls; everything was just so real at that moment that it was too much. 

After that I saw many other things in the camp including the prisoner barracks. I'm sure many, if not all of us, have seen a movie about the Holocaust sometime in our lives right? Imagine back to that movie; the Hollywood provided images of the tightly packed, ill equipped barracks that housed the inmates. Got that picture? It's most likely not far off from what I saw.

 Many of these barracks had been torn down, leaving the camp looking much more open then it had during the Holocaust. All that was left were metal frames of where the barracks would have been. All of which were placed very close together.

After spending a few hours walking around in the camp, a few friends and I went to grab a late lunch before catching the S-bahn back to Berlin. We all then went back to museum island where we all split up to do our own thing.

I went to yet another museum. (Are you really surprised anymore?) The museum I chose to visit was the Pergamon. This museum is a bit different from most museums. Mainly because instead of having tons of rooms filled with artifacts and descriptions, the Pergamon took actual architectural structures from ancient times and displayed them as well as recreate similar structures as part of the room itself. I know that probably was not a very good explanation so hopefully these pictures will help a little.

 This was the first room you came to inside the museum.

 This was an entire wall of the second room that led to the third room. Over 60% of this recreated gateway is made up of actual fragments of the gate it is mimicking!!

 One of the two mosaics covering 90% of two of the walls in one of the rooms.

Did those help? I hope so. Along with this unique feature, the museum did have a great collection of artifacts from ancient Rome, Eygypt, and Middle East. It was over all a great museum and well worth going to.

After that I made it just in time to meet up with my friend Carol in front of the Berliner Dom so that we could catch the U-bahn to the Berlin Opera House. That's right ladies and gentlemen...I went to go see an opera in Berlin!!! And not just any opera either. I just so happened to be lucky enough to be in Berlin while my favorite opera, Georges Bizet's Carmen, was playing!!

Here is the view from our seats!

It was absolutely fantastic! The sets were amazing, and the cast was phenomenal! The whole company was amazing and did a great job. I loved every minute of it.

And then Carol and I made our way back to the U-bahn station to take the train back to our hotel and we called it a night. 

The next morning we all woke up bright and early to make our was back to the airport and say goodbye to lovely Berlin. While I miss Berlin so much, I am glad to be back in Ireland.

Spring Break in Berlin (part 3)

Now for day three of my Berlin Trip!

So my roommates and I walked around the area our hotel was in and came across a big shopping area. But instead of shopping we decide to keep walking and see what we found. We eventually made our way to the Berlin Zoo, which just happens to be the oldest and moot known zoo in Germany.

Although it was pretty cold out it was still a very fun time. We saw as many animals as we possibly could. There were so many baby animals too and they were all so cute. :)

Then we went into the aquarium next door and explored there. It was so awesome. I loved it so much. There were so many types of fish; including at least 4 different types of jelly fish. There was one point where I just kept staring at this one tank of jelly fish as they swam around in little circles. It was just mesmerizing.

After spending a few hours at both of those places we walked around and did a little window shopping while continuing to explore the area around us.

This was probably the least eventful day but it was still so much fun!!

One more day to go!

Blue Skies, Smiling At Me...

...nothing but blue skies do I see!

So a quick break from me talking about Berlin.

So for the last 5 days I have been sick. Nothing too bad just a small ear ache and a bad cough. But of course Ireland would choose those 5 days to have gorgeous weather.

I did my best to enjoy it while trying not to hack up a lung. :)

On Saturday I let myself sleep in and catch up on some rest. Later, I went out and just kinda walked around the town for a little while. The weather was too nice not too. Then I came back and met up with one of my friends and hung out with her for a while.

On Sunday  I walked out to the beach in Dungarvan and walked along it for a while and basically spent a good chunk of my day out there. It was beautiful; windy but beautiful. I will have to get out there again sometime with my camera.

Overall it was a nice weekend here in Dungarvan. :)

Spring Break in Berlin (Part 2)

The first part of our second day in Berlin was a group tour around the surrounding area and certain specific monuments and places; led by Dr. Hosey. Bright and early we all headed out into Berlin and walked around the beautiful city. Our first real stop was at one of the last largest standing sections of the Berlin Wall.

It was amazing to be standing next to the very wall that we all learn about in school. To know that this section of concrete and metal helped blocked family members and friends from each other for so long was just surreal.

Right next to this section of the wall was a museum that was set up in the old SS Headquarters building. It was a WWII and Holocaust museum. It mainly was on the SS and what part they played in the whole event. It was a very good museum. Lots of information and pictures without being too text heavy. I wish we could have stayed longer but we were on a schedule and could only stay for about half and hour.

After that we walked a bit more and we ended up near where Hitler's infamous bunker was. Right across the street from that was an outside holocaust memorial. We were all given about 20 minutes to explore it. When looking at it from the outside it looks like a lot of short square stone pillars where some are taller then other.

 And at first when you walk into it that is what it is; short stone pillars. But as you continue on they get taller and taller util suddenly you can't see anything unless you look between the rows and rows of pillars. They were all really close together and it is sort of disorienting.

And it was set up to make you feel that way I think. It was supposed to make you feel like you had no real control and that everything was getting out of hand. Basically the feeling that we can only imagine citizens of Germany were feeling during the rise of the Nazi party; and later how the holocaust victims felt when they had everything suddenly taken from them for no go reason.

After that we walked on over to where the museum Checkpoint Charlie was. Checkpoint Charlie was basically the best known crossing point at the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. It was a checkpoint crossing for Allied (US, etc.) forces to move between the separated sides.

It was there that we all split up into groups and made our own ways around the city. I stayed with some friends whom I just happened to be rooming with in Berlin. We went into the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and explored there for a little while before we started to get hungry and went in search of food.

After finding food we walked around the area we were at and did a little shopping. Then we walked our way back to the area where Museum Island is located and we all decided on a meeting point and time before splitting up to go look at whatever we were interested in seeing. I went to two places. The first place I went to was the Berliner Dom.

The Berliner Dom is the central cathedral in Berlin. It is absolutely gorgeous in there. The architecture and intricate details were breathtaking. At one point, after taking all of the obligatory tourist pictures, I just sat down in a pew and took in all of the beautiful murals, stain glass, and structures around me.

After a while I went down to the basement where there was a crypt. While morbid and a bit creepy, it was also interesting. It would have been nice to have some English translations but we can't have everything.

After than I went upstairs where they had a few small exhibits on display about the Dom. Then I had a huge inner debate.

To climb, or not to climb up to the outdoor balcony of the dome. That was the question.

In the end I decided that it would be a once in a life time opportunity to see such a view. So I told my self to suck it up and try to ignore the heights involved. I started to climb up the many, many, stair cases; all the while getting more and more shaky from my heights issue. Eventually I made it up to an indoor walkway around the dome and I thought that this was it. That somewhere there would be a door to let us outside to that walkway. Oh, how wrong I was. As I looked down into the main room of the Cathedral from this walkway, I noticed that there were people outside....two stories higher than I already was. I'm sorry to disappoint but I could not make myself go any farther then I was already. Nope, wasn't going to happen.

There was a lovely view from the indoor walkway though. While looking out at Berlin from that height I thought back to my Irish literature class; more specifically the day when we discussed the usage and meaning of the word 'sublime' in one of W. B. Yeat's poems. Basically when something is sublime, it means that it is awful. Not awful in the sense of something negative or wrong, but rather full of awe. But at the same time as being full of awe you still have a small feeling of unrest or slight fear. That was exactly what I was feeling. I was stunned by the beauty and wonder of the city from such heights while at the same time being fearful of the heights that made it possible to see such things.

After the Berliner Dom I walked right on over to the Altes Museum.

This museum was basically a huge wonderful display of Ancient Greek and Roman pottery and statuary. It was so cool. Not gonna lie though, when I first saw one of the Greek pots with the images of a mythological scene painted on them, my first thought was of Disney's Hercules.

It was a great last stop for the day and I spent about an hour and 10 minutes just looking at everything and reading the descriptions. Afterwards I headed on out to the little courtyard in front o gboth the Altes and the Berliner Dom and met up with my friends. We all then got some dinner and took the S-bahn back to our hotel. We then relaxed for a while before going out to a near by pub/restaurant to have a few drinks and chat.

 And thus ends day 2 of my Spring Break in Berlin!

Spring Break in Berlin (Part 1)

First off, I am sorry for not blogging about my amazing spring break sooner. I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of my very close friends from Mercyhurst was planning to join me in Dublin, when we came back from break, and spend then next 5 days with me. Carolyn graduated last year and she, our friend Amanda, and I are very close (and all studying the best major ever!!). She is currently doing her masters degree program in London and will continue doing so until her dissertation is due in Sept.

Anyways that is my excuse for not blogging. I couldn't exactly turn to her and say, "yeah I know this is your first time in Ireland but I really need to blog so our plans to bike to the cliffs are gonna have to wait". Yeah no, that wasn't happening.

So anyways I have tons to tell you all about Berlin and so you can expect at least the next three posts to be about Berlin. So, without further ado.....

So I will admit that the very first bit of our journey was not much fun for anyone. We all had to wake up and be ready to pile onto a bus set for Dublin, at 2:50 in the morning. Yes you read that right, 2:50 AM! And after the long bus ride (where I got absolutely no sleep) we had to go through all of the general airport stuff and wait for our plan. Then we flew to Berlin (where I, again, got no sleep) and we landed in Berlin. Then we took the S-bahn (one of the train/subway systems) to the station nearest to our hotel (Savignyplatz; that's the station not the hotel lol).

                                                  (Picture of a typical train station in Berlin)
                                                   
We then proceeded on with a short walk to our hotel.

After making it to the hotel we all had to sit (actually more like stand) around and wait for the manager to get us all of our keys, only to find out that the roommate assignments had gone missing. So then we had a scramble to find whom we wanted to room with since it was left to us at this point. I got to room with some wonderful people that I had roomed with back during out weekend in Dublin.

                                                         (Main stairwell up to our hotel)

Then we got a bit of down time to relax, because we were slightly behind schedule and we all put it to a vote between two options. 1) if we wanted some time to relax and then go on a modified tour or (2) just power through with the original plan at a faster pace.

In a stunning turn of events, the 32 college students voted for the option of down time.

After a little over an hour's rest we all got back out on the S-bahn and went down to this sort of shopping street further into the city. We then walked a ways and came to this big opening, kind of like a long town square of sorts, where the main gate between West and East Berlin is. There we saw these four guys doing a street performance of a sequence of dances. It wasn't quite a flash mob because it was only the four of them and they all started at the same time but it was still interesting to see. And only after being in the country for a few hours no less.

We then went to the Reichstag otherwise known as the German Parliament building.  It was very beautiful but sadly we did not have reservations to get in to tour it. While near the Reichstag we saw these really cool street performers.

We all thought they were statues at first. But then this little girl put a coin or two in their little bowl there and they started moving around and doing a skit for us. It was pretty cool I must say. We then back tracked through the gate and made our way towards Museum Island. Yes, I kid you not, there is an actual small island in the middle of the large river running through Berlin where there are only museums. I was in heaven. More on that later though.

We then were shown where we were all going to be taken to have some traditional German food for our first dinner in Berlin. After that we were set free for about an hour and then we all met back up and got ready to eat.

First let me just say that there was a lot of beer brought to our tables. You can't have a traditional German dinner without beer. First course was a cucumber salad and it was very tasty! Then came the main course of some sort of roast in what I think was a beer sauce, steamed carrots, and roasted potatoes. It was all very good (once I got used to the taste of the beer sauce lol). Then came desert which was a chocolate pudding covered in a vanilla cream sauce. I have always hated pudding but I promise I at least tried it.

By the time we got back from dinner it was nearly 9 and everyone was pretty tired. I decided to call it an early night so that I could try to get as much done as I could the next day.

Well there you have it. Day one of four in Berlin. And that wasn't even my busiest day. More to come soon. :)