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.