I heart Berlin! This has to be my favorite among all the cities that I have visited. I know I say that for like every single city I visit. But with the conclusion of my very own Eurotrip, I have to say that Berlin tops the list in being my perennial favorite. Reason one, I travelled to Berlin on my own. How many twenty-one years old have actually travelled to any part of the world on their own? Not to mention, being a girl and actually being able to read a map at the same time. Haha. Reason two, I came to Berlin and I saw what I had always wanted to see.
Berlin is really THE place to be in if you love history. And that happened to describe me.
After much hair-pulling in researching and mapping out my itinery in Berlin, I decided on the Judische Museum as my first stop.
This is how my name looks like in Hebrew. That actually looks a hell lot easier than how my name is written in Chinese.
The Holocaust Turm really sent chills down my spine. It was part of the Judische Museum built to remember those Jews who were exterminated in the Holocaust. The darkness and coldness of the room was a way of telling people how the Jews lived during this period. You could hear the rush of the traffic from inside and feel the blasting cold from the chilly winter air filling up the tower from the outside.
Nächster halt: Checkpoint Charlie. This was the major crossing between East and West Germany during the Cold War.
The Berlin Olympic Museum was built by Hitler for the 1936 Olympic Games. The Nazi-era architecture was really impressive.
The Podbielski Oak Tree. The leaves of the oak tree was used in the victor's wreath.
Jesse-Owens is supposed to be famous because she won four Olympic Gold medals in the 1936 Games. Coming from a girl whose country's greatest sports achievement is a silver Olympic medal in body-building that was won like forty years ago, yes, I consider that amazing.
Along the way to the Olympic Stadium, I saw all these yellow ribbons tied to plants. My heart just melted and went, "Awww... so sweet" when I thought that the Germans were advocates of the Yellow Ribbon Project that was supposed to give a second chance to ex-convicts.
But that was before I saw red ribbons tied to plants and a group of gardeners standing nearby. That was when I realised that, the ribbons were only just ribbons that served as codes for the gardeners. Very sweet.
I walked a total of four kilometres just to get to and from the Schloss Charlottenburg. Pretty but it was a pity that I was running out of time and did not have the chance to visit the interior.
This is the Brandenburger Tor, which is the symbol of Berlin and once the boundary between East and West Germany. The winged Goddess of Victory and the four-horse chariot is supposed to be famous.. because I see it on postcards everywhere. Haha. One useful tip I have picked up from my travellings is that when in doubt about what to visit, pick up the postcards!
The famous Reichstag. This is the German parliament house. The horrendous queue snaking outside of the Reichstag convinced me not to go inside despite it being the number one attraction in Berlin.
This stretch of wall is the remainings of the Berlin Wall parallel to the Topography of Terror, which was the former SS-Gestapo headquarters. Speaking of Berlin Wall, I can't believe I forgot about the long surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall that is at Warshauer Strasse. I can practically kill myself for that. Also, the Topography of Terror which recounted crimes of the Nazi was at the top of my to-go list but when I arrived at five in the evening, it was totally dark and being an open-air exhibition, I could see nothing. Sigh.
May the world never have to go through such horrors again.
Shopping in Berlin looked really fun. The reason why I said "looked" is because a mere two-days hardly suffice in doing Berlin any justice. There were sooooo much to do in Berlin that I really wished that I stayed there for a couple more days.
And they had Dunking Donuts! Not nearly as good as Krispy Kremes. But when those delicious glazed donuts are out of your reach, you pretty much have to settle for the humble counter parts. Elise thinks that I am exaggerating when I said, "When I first ate Krispy Kremes, I thought I died and went to Heaven." But hey, it is really THAT good. Krispy Kremes, oh Krispy Kremes, when will I ever lay my mouth on you again?
End of my Berlin entry. End of all my trips in Germany.
Hattenheim. Oestrich-Winkel. Rüdesheim. Frankfurt. Heidelberg. Hamburg. Munich. Berlin.
I wonder when I will ever see you again.
