Day 23 & 24

This past Tuesday and Wednesday seem to have just flown by!  Tuesday started off by going to the Dutch Embassy.  I enjoyed the tour and I found the building's design by Koolhaas very interesting and modern.  I liked his concept of everything in the Embassy being transparent portrayed through his architecture. 

Later in the afternoon, we had a walking tour of the socialist housing along Karl-Marx-Allee.  I found all the architecture for those apartment buildings very simple and slightly boring.

We then headed over to Treptower Park where we walked around the park and had a history lecture from Dr. Stuckey concerning German history leading up to the Cold War.  While there we all were able to see the giant Soviet memorial, which is of a Soviet soldier with a young child on his back all while crushing a giant swastika.

After this park we were all dismissed for the day, so Aaliyah, Sarah and I headed over to the train station to find out all of our information about our weekend trip to Salzburg, Austria.  Later that evening, a group of us enjoyed just being able to hang out with one another.

Wednesday was a very wet and cool day.  I am really getting tired of Europe’s crazy weather; I believe it is making my cold far worse than I ever wanted.  Wednesday we went first to go look at a Zaha Hadid building.  She is the world’s most famous female architect, so it was nice being able to see a woman’s style of architecture. 

Afterwards, we headed over to the Check-Point Charlie Area. There we all went to see the Mauer Museum, which is in a way the official museum of the area.  I found the museum very informative, but far too packed and cramped, just like the whole Check-Point area.

After finishing around Check-Point Charlie we headed to the Berlin Wall Memorial & Documentation Center.  While there we were able to see the Visitor’s Center and the Chapel of Reconciliation.  I thought it was a very well preserved area and I enjoyed being able to see the park there. 

Then, we finished for the day and my group headed back to the apartments to research what exactly we would be doing in Salzburg for the weekend.  We knew we needed to do this Wednesday night instead of Thursday, since we will be getting back from Dresden late tomorrow night.  I’m looking forward to going to Dresden tomorrow with all the architecture students and I really hope our weather cooperates with us while we are there. 

Day 22

Today, Monday, proved to be a very long and tiring day for me.  The song Manic Monday comes to my mind when thinking of the past day.  Waking up for me this morning was not fun, seeing that we returned back our apartment very, very late last night from Amsterdam.  Despite starting off the day tired, it proved to be a very nice day (all of which except this awful weather that followed me from Amsterdam).  We first started by going out to the Olympic Park area of West Berlin.  While there we had a tour of the Unite de Habitation Building. 

The famous architect Corbusier did this uniformed designed apartment building in 1958 after he won a competition to design this standardized apartment building.  Included in his design was a roof top garden and a balcony for every unit within.  Also, our tour guide let us all visit is 3-room apartment, which was beautifully done and provided great views of the city.  

After leaving the Unite de Habitation Building we proceeded to view several other socialist apartment complexes and St. Laurentius Church in the area. 

After lunch we viewed the Q Hotel, the Kant Triangle.  The triangle was a very interesting design in my opinion.

After seeing some other buildings we made our way to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which was very ugly from the outside but so beautiful from the inside.  I only have a picture of the insides of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Church and of the old one; none of the exterior. 

After seeing the pretty church we made our way over to KaDeWe.  This giant department store is like the Harrods’s of Germany.  Aaliyah and I only stayed for a short amount of time because we decided we definitely needed to come back when we had more time. 

Afterwards, we were given a short break before our tour of the interior of the Reichstag.  In the beginning of the month we were able to go up to the Reichstag; however, this time we were able to tour the interior of the building.  The Reichstag is where the Parliament meets for all of Germany.  The tour was very well done and the interior was beautiful.  I loved how the architect, Norman Foster, renovated the building in 1999 with keeping so many of the original styles from when it was built in the early 1930s. 

After our tour was completely I proceeded to call it an early night in anticipation of catching up on some much needed sleep that I had not gotten from my long train ride yesterday.

Days 19, 20, & 21

“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” Benjamin Disraeli

My long weekend started very, very early on Friday morning when Aaliyah, Sarah, and I left our apartments at 3:30 to begin our adventurous weekend to Amsterdam.   Our 8 hours of traveling with barely any sleep along the way made us extremely tired and anxious to see the sights in Amsterdam.  When we first got to the city we immediately found lunch and purchased a Holland Pass, which allowed us to see the main sights for one fixed price.  After doing this we used our card first for a tour of the city by bus.  While on the bus it dropped us off at a crazy expensive diamond factory.

Then, we got back on the bus to venture our way to the Anne Frank House.  The line was very long; however, it was well worth the wait to see it.  Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed inside.  It was an experience that you just have to be there to understand what her and her family went through during all those months in hiding. 

After touring the house we made our way over to our hotel, which was directly next to the Central Station.  There we regrouped and decided what our plans were going to be for the remainder of the day.  We went to a famous Pancake House and the 3 of us each had a delicious pancake.  I had no idea that Amsterdam was famous for their pancakes too.  Mine was massive, as like everyone else’s, and it had bacon, cheese, and mushrooms, which was simply delicious.

Then, we ventured into the infamous Red Light District.  While there we mainly just looked in tourist shops and saw some of what the district is known for.  Afterwards, we called it a night and returned to our hotel.

On Saturday we planned a day full of Amsterdam experiences.  We started off the morning by going to see the I AMsterdam sign.  We were good tourists by taking our pictures all with the sign.

The park that the sign is in is actually in the same area as the Van Gogh Museum too.  So, we went to go see all the paintings inside the Museum.  I found the paintings amazing.  I loved being able to see so many of his famous works and pieces from other artists that I like too, especially those done by George Seurat.  Sadly we were not allowed to take pictures inside this Museum as well.  After finishing and eating lunch we went to the Heineken Experience.  While there we got to learn all about how Heineken is brewed, the history of the company, an experience where we “were being brewed” and lastly the tasting experience. 

After experiencing all that Heineken had to offer we made our way to the only windmill in the city of Amsterdam.  However, the windmill is not open for tours or visits expect on very select days.

Then, we proceeded to hike back to the central area of town; however, our walk proved to be a lot longer than we had anticipated.  By the time we arrived there it was approaching dinner so we decided to eat at a traditional Dutch restaurant. After dinner we stopped we stopped to look around at Dam Square. 

Then we headed over to our reservation at the Ice Bar.  This is Amsterdam’s second most visited tourist attraction.  While there we watched what the Dutch considered to be an amazing video experience; however, the Americans and the Dutch differ on that.  Overall the Ice Bar was very cold and simply a one of a kind experience. 

Then, we headed over to the Red Light District again to wonder about the area.  We were all disappointed to see that all the stores for the most part had already closed for the evening.  Sadly we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep from our busy day.

Sunday was our last day in Amsterdam and having done almost everything that we had intended to do in the city we took it easy in the morning.  We used our time to pack all of our stuff up in preparation for our travel back to Berlin.  We were all glad that we had seen mostly everything because Sunday turned out to be a very rainy and chilly day.  When we ventured out for the day we first headed to the Torture Museum, which was simply interesting.  That place reminded me a few episodes of the 1000 Ways to Die.  Easily put it was very peculiar.

We then made our way back over to Dam Square, which is an area full of shopping.  It contains clothing stores, and souvenir stores, and many other types of shops.  We all did some souvenir shopping here and found mostly everything that we were looking for.  After shopping we proceeded to find lunch, for which we each had another delicious Dutch-pancake. 

Later, we were so pleased to find that the rain had stopped for a bit and we were now able to take our Canal Cruise.  The cruise was a little over an hour and it gave us great views of the city by boat; however, shortly after the cruise started it went on to rain again.

Upon the cruise finishing we went to walk around the city one last time before our train back to Berlin.  While walking around we were all able to find some more souvenirs.  Afterwards, we made our way back to the train station to take our series of 3 trains back to our “home” of Berlin.  Our first two trains went without any type of problem and very smoothly; however, on our last train there was a major seating issue where the three of us and several other people did not have a seat.  Luckily for all of us we were told we could now have first class since there was nowhere else for us to go.  Finally after a weekend full of traveling and exploring I made it back safely to my apartment (well after 1am) where I proceeded to have a great nights sleep from being so busy this weekend.

Day 18

Today, Thursday, morning started off a little hazy because as soon as I took my medicine for my sinuses I fell asleep.  In fact, after getting on the bus I slept for an additional 4 hours.  I even slept through our first rest stop and was apparently locked on the bus during that time, but I am so happy to have gotten the sleep.  We had lunch along the way to Magdeburg, which I did not find to taste well at all.  Then we finished our drive to Magdeburg Cathedral, which was huge.  While there we had a guided tour of the church and got to hear all about Emperor Otto I who is buried there and was crowned there as well. 

After touring the church we proceeded to head on our way back to Berlin; however, we got stuck in the “big city” traffic seeing that we approached the city right around 5pm.  Upon getting settled back to our apartments I unpacked quickly to go sign out for the weekend, since Sarah, Aaliyah and I will be going to Amsterdam.  So, for the reminder of the night we went to the train station to get all of our ducks in a row for our weekend trip.  Hopefully by the time I return in the wee-hours of the morning on Monday I will have completely gotten better!  

Day 17

Wednesday morning started off by packing up another hotel room and getting a good breakfast at the hotel.  Then we started off on our journey to Cologne.  Our first stop of the morning was to get a very quick look at the Porsche Museum; however, I was asleep during this stop.  After having been on the bus for five hours we finally made our way to Aachen where we got a nice lunch and where I was able to find another pharmacy to get even more medicine to help me get over my congestion even quicker.  After that we went on our guided tour of the Aachen Cathedral, which was beautiful.  I was surprised to learn that Charlemagne had such an influence on that church.  Below is his seat and some pictures of the church. 

Following that we drove some more on to Cologne where our first stop was the Cologne Cathedral.  Most of the class including myself climbed all the way to the top of the church where the views were stunning.  Along the climb we were also able to see the bell towers.  It was really neat (and loud) being inside the inner works of the bell towers while the church bells were actually going off at 5pm.  After our climb and seeing the insides of the Cathedral we made our way to our last hotel while on the excursion.  

Then, I along with some other class members went to walk around witht Mr. Caldwell were we saw the Peek & Cloppenburg Department Store and Kolumba Musuem from the outside. 

Next, most of the class and myself went to go meet up with Seegren (our German contact for the trip) and her friend for dinner at a nice local beer garden.  After staying there for a good while talking and having a good time we made our way back to the inner city of Cologne.  While some of us were walking back to our hotel we stumbled into a grocery store at 11:30 at night.  This is a very rarity for any grocery over here to be open at this time, so we all loaded up on stuff for breakfast and to finish out our excursion.

And, sadly I am still very sick, but finally starting to feel a slight bit better.  The medicine I got from the pharmacist today is really helping me I feel.  Hopefully I will continue to feel even better as the days go on.