Ted in Wales

This past weekend we went on a field trip to the West of Wales. All 16 Colgate students were on this trip as well as our professor from Colgate. The field trip had a big emphasis on the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas's most famous poem is "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." He apparently wrote it for his father when his father was dying. Below is an excerpt from it.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Accompanying us on this trip was LLyr (a very Welsh name pronounced hleer) who gave us a lecture on Dylan Thomas a week before. We visited Dylan Thomas's childhood home in Swansea and got a tour of it. We also visited his grave, and the house that he lived in later in his life. Here is the view from that house.

At all of these places LLyr would read poetry of Dylan Thomas that was either composed at or fitting to the place we were at. It was a neat effect. At night we arrived at St. David's, which is the Westernmost part of Wales. It was a beautiful small town. The town was where St. David, the patron saint of Wales was born hundreds of years ago. You can still see remains of the small chapel where he was born. By this chapel there is a natural spring which supposedly has healing powers. At night (everything described thus far being on Saturday) we had a nice dinner as a group. We found out that it was LLyr's 25th birthday and bought him several drinks. Several may be an understatement.

The next morning we went "coasteering" which is sort of difficult to describe. We all got wetsuits, sneakers, and helmets and walked to the ocean. Along the ocean there were beautiful cliffs leading down to the water. I didn't have my camera because I don't think it stands up too well to rocks or water, but here are some pictures I found online of the coast near St. David's.

We climbed down to the water level and jumped in, it was very cold at first but soon it wasn't too bad. Coasteering basically consists of climbing up rocks along the cliffs and then jumping off of them into the water. It was very fun and exhilarating. All of the Colgate students went including our professor. Below are some pictures. One girl had a waterproof camera and posted these photos online.

Below is myself and Ryki, I am the one doing the he-man muscle pose.

Below is the highest jump we did, around 25 feet. The girl jumping is closer to the camera than the people in the background so it doesn't seem as high, but if you look at the people in the background you can grasp the scale of how high it was. The guy in the upper right of the picture has his hand out because he would give you a small push after you had already jumped to make sure you cleared the wall. If you look at the size of him compared to the height you can get a sense of how high the jump was.

Here I am doing that jump!

Damhnait, our professor, and two other students were the only ones not to do the really high jump. We headed to a beach where Dylan Thomas had composed some poetry. LLyr read a final poem by Dylan Thomas. He then said he had had a really nice time with us and that he had had a very nice birthday. He said we were "a very kind group, but a very evil group," referring to the number of drinks we had gotten him the night before.

It was a nice little trip. I've never been huge into poetry but I could definitely appreciate it on this trip. The poems being read at the places they were written was a pretty moving combination. Coasteering was a blast too. I'll be studying for finals until May 14th when I head to Dublin for three nights.

Prague

Thursday April 19th

Today we took the train from Vienna to Prague. After settling into our hostel we met up with a Colgate girl who was studying in Prague. She showed us the way to the John Lennon wall which is a famous graffiti wall that symbolizes democracy somehow. The wall is below, you can see the peace sign among the graffiti.

Next to the wall was another bridge where couples put locks. We saw these in a lot of European cities. Basically a couple gets a lock and write their names on the lock. They then lock it to a bridge and throw the key into the river, symbolizing their love is there to stay I guess. Our tour guide in Budapest joked that if you were not so sure, you should get a combination lock. Below are all the locks.

Prague basically surrendered to the Nazis so the Nazis didn't destroy Prague while invading. Also the Nazis left Prague before the Russians arrived so there was never much fighting in the city. Because of this the old architecture was largely intact, giving an enchanting feeling to the city. Berlin was almost the opposite, there were very few old buildings left in Berlin because it got leveled in WWII. Below are some pictures of what average streets look like in Prague.

After this we went to a pub to get Pilsner Urquell which was a really common beer in Prague. Prague is supposed to have really good beer. I thought it was good but nothing too special. After this we played a card game at the hostel and went to bed. Below is a huge museum that we walked past everyday, but it is actually closed for a few years while they renovate the inside.

Friday April 20th

Today we got up and walked to the Old Town Square to get on our free 10:30 walking tour. The Old Town Square was packed with tourists and it remained that way the whole time we were there. I was surprised at how touristy Prague was, although it didn't make me dislike the city. Anyways back to the free walking tour. I keep saying they are free but they always tell you to tip what you feel the tour was worth. I usually tip 5 euro (6 US dollars) or so. It works out nicely because students like me can pay a bit less but the guide still makes a lot of money because adults will be giving 10 or 20 euros if they liked the tour. The tour started at the Old Town Square and we learned a lot about the history of Prague. Below is a statue of Jan Hus, who was a Czech religious reformer. He basically had a lot of the same ideas as Martin Luther. This statue is right in the middle of the Old Town Square.

Prague is famous for its astronomical clock tower. The actual clock is pretty inaccurate but it is pretty cool looking. Below is a picture of the clock face and below that is a picture of the astronomical clock tower.

Our tour was really good. We had a really enthusiastic tour guide who assigned roles for his tour group. John and I were the "wow-makers." If he winked at us we were supposed to say "wooooowwww!" He would do this when interesting tid bits about Prague's history came up or what not. Molly was the mysterious noise maker. There was also the inquisitive guy who was supposed to keep asking why at certain parts of the tour. The tour was 3 hours long and very good. We learned lots of history about Prague and saw a lot of the city. We saw the Jewish district where the Christians forced the Jews to stay for over 500 years. The cemetery within the Jewish district was so crowded that they had to start stacking coffins underground. They would still put new grave stones for each person so the result was a huge cluster of gravestones throughout the entire cemetery. The designer of the Murdered Jews of Europe memorial in Berlin never really explained his work as I mentioned before. However once we saw this cemetery I remembered the tour guide in Berlin saying that when asked about the memorial he did say that he had visited this cemetery before he submitted his final plans for the memorial.

The tour ended across the river from the Prague castle. We climbed up to the castle to get a good view of the city. Below is a picture of some of the suburbs of Prague from the Prague castle, I really like all the matching stucco roofs.

In the middle of the castle is St. George's Cathedral, a picture of which is below.

We then began our descent back down to our hostel, all the while getting good views of Prague. Here is one picture I took where you can see a lot of the bridges.

On our way back to the hostel we saw the "dancing house," which are condo buildings with a pretty funky design, a picture of them is below.

At night we did a pub crawl which was a lot of fun. It started at a bar owned by the people who run the pub crawl. For the first hour you get unlimited drinks. Then you are led as a big group (there were maybe 80 people on this pub crawl) to the second pub, and then the third, and then the fourth, and finally you are dropped off at a huge club. It was good clean fun.

Saturday April 21st

We did a lot of exploring of Prague on foot today. We really liked Prague. It was nice today so we spent a lot of time outside, and decided to see museums on Sunday since it was supposed to rain on Sunday. We walked across the Charles Bridge and took some pictures there. The first one is of the castle, the second one is of me in front of the castle, and the third one is John Ryki Maggie and I, from left to right.

We then walked through Kampa park which has the creepy baby statues. The creepy baby statues are done by an artist who never explains his work. They all have barcodes for faces. Below is one of the creepy baby statues.

After a day of walking around and relaxing we went to the "beer factory" at night. It was a bar with taps on each of the tables, and a little meter to record how much beer you had poured yourself so you knew how much to pay. Prague seemed to be a popular destination for British bachelor parties. We saw several at the beer factory. They all seemed to consist of the groom's friend's dressing him up in an embarrassing outfit (e.g. a baby) and taking him around to different pubs and getting him drunk. One groom had a to-do list his friends had made for him with tasks such as "kiss an old bird over 18 stones" which translates to kiss an old woman who weighs over 250 pounds. British guys are pretty goofy.

Sunday April 22nd

Today we walked to the Army Museum which was good. It talked about the history of Prague through WWII and the Cold War. This was about midway up a large hill. At the top of this hill was a huge statue of Jan Zizka on a horse. The memorial was to commemorate a victory during the Hussite Wars. Apparently it is the largest equestrian statue in the world. I got John in the picture below just to capture the scale of it.

We also got a good view of the Prague tv tower from here. If you look closely you can see more creepy baby statues, this time they are climbing up the tower. So creepy!

Next I set out to find the Prague House of Photography which is basically a large photography gallery that I had heard was really good. I'm pretty sure they were in the middle of changing locations because I found two addresses listed for it and it wasn't at either location. Also online I read something about them changing locations but the date was unspecified. So that was kind of a bummer. Instead I went to the top of the astronomical clock and got a great 360 degree view of Prague. Below are a bunch of pictures from the top of the tower.

Prague in a Nutshell
Impressions: I liked Prague a lot. The fact that it survived WWII so intact gave a really cool feel to the city. Prague is sometimes called the city of a thousand spires, and walking around it I could definitely see why.
Favorite food: Coconut gelato ice cream, yuuum.
Favorite sight: The view from the top of the astronomical tower was really cool, I also really enjoyed our walking tour.

Vienna

Monday April 16th

Today we got up and walked to the train station to catch our train to Vienna. This is the first time we would be taking a train between cities. It was a lot easier than going through airport security, and the trains always take you right into the city center so that was nice. The only downside is they don't go quite as fast as planes and are actually a bit more expensive. However if you factor in all the time that it takes to go through security and get from the airport to the city center, trains are actually faster. Anyways, the train was amazingly quiet and smooth for how fast we were going. You almost wouldn't know you were moving except for the trees whipping by. We got settled into our hostel in Vienna, which was a great hostel. The lobby looked like a hotel lobby. We opened the door to our room and saw a small sitting area and a spiral staircase leading upwards. The second floor contained all of our beds and the room even had skylights, it was a very cool room.

After getting settled in the hostel we headed to the Vienna State Opera house. Vienna is famous for its operas and classical music. A lot of famous composers come from Vienna or Austria in general. The Vienna State Opera House is famous for its operas as the name would suggest, but we opted to see a ballet instead as we thought we would enjoy it more. They had a great deal where you could pay 4 euro to stand and watch the ballet. This was great because it was cheap but more so because we could buy these tickets the day of the performance, I'm sure all the other seats were sold out. Below is the theater and below that is what the standing section looked like. It wasn't bad at all to stand because you could lean on the railings.

I had never seen a ballet before except for the nutcracker, but this one was fantastic. The coordination and skill of both the music and the dancing was incredible. We all really enjoyed it, it was very well done.

After the ballet we walked to the Sacher Hotel to try some of the famous Sachertorte, which apparently originated from this hotel. We were very under-dressed and the host was kind of rude to us. The Sachertorte was OK but not amazing.

Tuesday April 17th

Today we met up with a friend of a friend of Ryki's who was studying in Vienna. The idea was he was going to show us around but I opted to do the free walking tour that left from our hostel since I thought it would be more interesting. This meant that I was separated from the group for the rest of Vienna but I didn't care because I was doing what I wanted to do. On the walking tour I saw the art school where Hitler failed out of. After he failed out he was evicted by his landlord because he couldn't pay the rent. Both the landlord and his art teacher were Jewish. I learned on the tour that the hotel we went to the night before was actually a really fancy hotel which may explain the snobby host. It is the hotel where the famous picture of John and Yoko in bed was taken. It was also the hotel where the infamous Michael Jackson baby tossing incident happened. Below is a picture of the hotel.

The tour also passed through the market that was right outside of our hostel, a picture of it is below.

The tour passed the opera house that we had gone to the night before, a picture of the outside of it is below.

On the tour we saw the Hapsburg Palace. The Hapsburgs were one of the ruling families of the Austrian empire for hundreds of years. I only have half of the palace photographed because the other half was covered in ugly scaffolding. The stone they use in Vienna gets dirty really quickly so they are basically constantly cleaning it, meaning there is always scaffolding up. Below is the Palace.

Below is what a typical street looks like in the Vienna city center.

The tour ended at St. Stephan's Cathedral, a picture of the inside of the Cathedral is below.

After this I took the metro to Schonbrunn Palace and saw the gardens there. It was sort of similar to Versailles. Below is a picture of the palace.

The back of the palace had extensive gardens, just like Versailles. Below is a picture of the grounds of the palace, taken from the palace. At the top of the hill you can see the "Gloriette" which is a structure that currently houses a small cafe.

Below is a view of the palace and Vienna in the background.

Below is the Gloriette up close.

After Schonbrunn Palace I took the metro to the museum district and walked around there. There were a lot of cool old buildings around this area, including the Austrian parliament building, which is below.

Next I tried to get into the Kunsthistorisches art museum but it was about to close so I decided to go the next day. It was a beautiful building, a picture of the outside is below.

Wednesday April 18th

Today everyone did different things. I set off to Grinzing, which is a district of Vienna. They have strict building regulations so it looks like a small, quaint Austrian town. It is surrounded by vineyards. I walked around Grinzing and then walked up into the vineyards, which were completely bare since it was April. I did get what would have been a good view of Vienna from up here, although it was very hazy which you can see in the picture.

I walked back down into Grinzing to a cafe to try some of the wine that came from these vineyards. These vineyards really only produce white wine which I like. The wine was delicious! Some of the best white wine I think I've ever had. I had a relaxing time sitting in the garden of this cafe sipping on the wine.

Next I went to Kunsthistorisches, the art museum I had tried to go to the day before. It was a very beautiful art museum, the interior of the building itself was gorgeous. The most famous piece they have there is Tower of Babel by Brugel. I had actually learned about this piece in one of my classes at Colgate. A picture of it is below.

Below are pictures of the interior of the building. The first one is the ceiling of the main atrium.

After this I met up with everyone again and we went to the place my tour guide recommended for weiner schnitzle. It was good!

Vienna in a Nutshell
Impressions: I loved all the cities we visited but I have to say Vienna was the most forgettable. All of the cities we visited had a very strong and unique feel to them and I didn't get that from Vienna as much. I still liked it and if I had to live in one of the cities it would actually be Vienna. It was very clean and the people were very nice.
Favorite Food: Weiner Schnitzle!
Favorite Site: The ballet we saw

Budapest

Friday April 13th

We got a final currywurst (John and I got two each because they were only a euro) and got on the train back to the Berlin airport. We got into Budapest about noon and it was very confusing to get to the city center. We time stamped our metro tickets and showed them to the security dudes guarding the entrance into the metro to the city center. They pointed back to the ticket window and seemed to gesture that our tickets were no good. I think they thought we were using old tickets but we had just validated them. They spoke zero English. Finally a random Hungarian man who also spoke no English seemed to explain something to the security guards and they let us through. At least that's what I think happened, I'll never know for sure. Budapest was where we faced our biggest language barrier by far, it was also probably the city where we got the most guff for being American tourists, although it still wasn't that bad, just the occasional eye roll. By the way after later talking to the guy at our hostel about the metro mix up we found out that we did everything right in the metro so I'm not sure why the security guys were giving us problems. We finally got to our hostel, which was completely unmarked. We found the building strictly through the address, and when we got to the building we thought there was no way we were at the right place since there was no sign for a hostel. We finally just tried the buzzer and some guy with dred locks came down and let us in, telling us that we were in the right place. He led us up some stairs and there was a desk with a laptop on it. He told us one of our rooms wasn't ready yet (it was 7 pm) but our other room was. The guy didn't know any of the answers to our questions, he said he didn't actually work there, that the owner of the hostel was a friend he was helping out by manning the reception desk for a few hours. So we sat in the room that they did have ready for us. Molly was extremely sketched out and wanted to check prices of the hotel down the street. Ryki who booked the hostel insisted that it did get good reviews on hostelworld, which is a really reputable site. I got on the wifi of the pub below and looked the hostel up, it did indeed get good reviews. Once we met the owner we felt a lot better, he was very nice and helpful. He showed us a map of the city and sugested some things for us to go see. The hostel was very small (5 bedrooms maybe) and privately owned. The other hostels we stayed at were large, 300 bed hostels, and were more like hotels where you just happened to have 6 people in one room, so I think that's what we were used to. The hostel was clean enough and turned out to be fine. We were very tired after a long day of traveling. We went out to get a sit-down meal at a Greek type restaurant. I had gyros and they were very good. The bill for the six of us was 6,700 forints, which is about 29 dollars. The currency in Budapest is funny because 229 forints is equal to one US dollar, so it seems like everything is outrageously expensive because a soda will be 200 forints, but it's actually all pretty cheap. Below is a picture of a 10,000 forint bill, which is about 45 dollars.

Saturday April 14th

Today we got up for our free 10:30 walking tour. We met at a town square and our guide gave us a brief introduction and welcome. It was drizzling throughout most of the tour which you can probably see from the dreary pictures. We had a very enthusiastic tour guide who led out 2.5 hour tour. First we saw St. Sebastian's Cathedral, which is below.

Then we crossed the chain bridge into Buda, we had previously been in Pest. Together they are known as Budapest. On the way over the river (the Danube) we got a good view of the Castle District, which is a palace, a church, and some other buildings on a hill on the Buda side, a picture of the Castle district is below.

Next we climbed the hill into the Castle District. We saw a changing of the guards ceremony in front of the Hungarian equivalent of the white house. Below is a picture of Matthias Church, which is in the castle district.

The hills surrounding the castle district were very beautiful, you can see them in the next few pictures.

Below is the view of the Chain Bridge and St. Sebastian's Cathedral from the Castle Disctrict.

Below is Fisherman's Bastion which is in the Castle District. From here we got a good view of the Pest side of Budapest.

Below is a view of the Hungarian Parliament from Fisherman's Bastion. Our tour guide said that Hungary is still suffering a lot of effects from having a communist government for so long. There is still a lot of corruption and bribery within Hungarian politics.

Below is a picture of a Trabant, which was a common communist car. It put out a whopping 18 horse power and had a two cylinder engine. Our tour guide told us that her family was on a waiting list for six years just to get one of these junky little cars. We saw a lot of these in Berlin too.

Our tour ended up the hill in the castle district. We took a bus across back to the Pest side and then took a tram down the Danube to the Central Market Hall. Here we tried different Hungarian food, I had an enormous Hungarian sausage. Below is a picture of the market.

After spending about an hour here we headed back to the Castle District. Without going into detail a combination of closing and opening times meant it made sense for us to back track. On the way we climbed a hill along the Danube and saw teh Liberty Statue and the fortress that used to be in commission on the hill. From up here we got another good view of Budapest. Below is the hill we climbed with the liberty statue on top.

Below is a view of Budapest and the Danube from our vantage point by the liberty statue on top of the hill we climbed. The picture after that is another view of the Castle District from the hill the liberty statue is on.

When we got back to the Castle District we went to the Faust Wine Cellar. The hill that the Castle District is on is soft stone and there is a "labyrinth" of caves that has formed under the Castle District. The Faust Wine Cellar is basically in one of these caves. It was a very cool atmosphere. The service was very professional, it was the type of place where you don't pour your own wine, and the guy told you about each wine that you tried. We tried "Ergi Bikaver" which translates to "Bulls Blood." It was a red wine as you might guess and was really good. Budapest is famous for wine and this was one of the most well known. We also tried Palinka, which is a brandy that Budapest is famous for. As our tour guide said "Palinka is a sneaky drink!" because it can be really high in alcohol content. However we just had a teeny tiny little glass of it, it was very good though. Below is the entrance to the Faust Wine Cellar, and below that is us sitting inside of the Faust Wine Cellar.

The total for about two hours of wine and Palinka tasting in a cool atmosphere with professional service was about 10 US dollars per person including tip, we were finding that Budapest was a very cheap city! We got back to our hostel and got a beer at the pub below our hostel, which turned out to be a pretty well known pub.

Sunday April 15th

Today we walked to the Szechenyi baths. Budapest is known for its thermal baths that are fed by natural hot springs. I had heard that going to the baths in Budapest was a must do, equivalent to going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. So, we spent most of the day at the baths. The Szechenyi baths were a complex of various pools, hot tubs, saunas, steam rooms, and ice baths, all at varying temperatures and the pools varying in mineral content. The waters that feed the pools are rich in minerals and they are supposed to be good for your skin. One of the saunas that we went in was 90 degrees C or 190 degrees F! They had a big bowl of ice outside that you could take in with you and put on your skin. Right outside of this they had a really cold pool you could jump into. They also had a pretty cool whirlpool in one of the sections. One of the memorable features of the baths are the chess boards that are barely above the surface of the water. Old Hungarian men sit in the baths and play each other in chess for hours. I also got a 20 minute massage there for about 4.50 US dollars. I had never had a massage but I figured it was part of the experience. Budapest was our most luxurious city because it was so cheap. We spent less than 100 US dollars each on 2 sit down dinners, a wine tasting, a day at the baths, a massage, and a variety of snacks and other things, a good deal! A picture of the baths is below, there were also a lot of indoor sections.

On the way back to our hostel we stopped at Heroes Square, which has statues of a lot of Hungarian Heroes. Pictures of it are below.

At night we went to a street that has a lot of restaurants and sat down to eat at one. As I said before Budapest was our biggest language barrier. Elise tried to order some sort of salad with pickled cabbage or something, and the waiter seemed kind of confused. When the food came out we all had delicious looking entrees except for Elise who had 6 pickles on a plate. No dressing or anything, literally just six pickles on a plate. We all got a kick out of it. After that we went to the Jewish district, which was where all the pubs and what not were. We met up with seven Colgate students who were studying with us in Wales. We had found out a week or so prior that they were going to be in Budapest while we would be there so we planned to meet up. Thirteen out of sixteen members of the Wales program were at that pub in Budapest that night so we had a nice little reunion.

Budapest in a Nutshell
Impressions: We liked Budapest a lot even though the people weren't overly friendly. It was a beautiful city but also sort of exotic compared to Berlin and Paris because it was so far east. Thus far in the trip all of the cities were very unique.
Favorite Food: The giant Hungarian sausage I got in the market.
Favorite sight: The Castle District was great, we really enjoyed the views from there and the cool wine cellar.

Berlin

Tuesday April 10th

We landed in Berlin and took a train to a stop near our apartment. Instead of booking a hostel for this city we booked an apartment using a website called airbnb. People put apartments on there that they own as vacation homes or what not for people to rent when the owners are not using them. It was actually about the same price as a hostel. We met Frouk who was the assistant to the landlord. We all assumed Frouk was a guy but it turned out to be a woman. She gave us the key to our apartment and showed us around. The apartment was great. Our favorite features were the vinyl record player and the disco ball.

Below is Elise (who joined us that morning at the airport) standing on the balcony of our apartment.

The kitchen of our apartment.

The living room of our apartment (no one knew I was going to take this picture that's why they all look like deer in headlights). Note the disco ball.

After getting settled we went to Gendarmenmarkt, which is a town square with some cool buildings. We sat down at a cafe and had some German beer. Below is the town square, and below that is me enjoying a delicious German beer.

Wednesday April 11th

Today we took the U-Bahn (the metro) to Winterfeldt-platz which was a food market. After spending a bit of time there we walked to Tiergarten which is a large park in the middle of Berlin. There we saw the Victory Column. We went inside and climbed to the top. There we got a good view of the Brandenburg Gate. On the column you could see pock marks in the granite from bullet holes from WWII.

Below is the Victory Column.

Below is the view from the Victory Column of the Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten.

Next we walked through the Brandenburg gate to get to where our walking tour was meeting. Below is the Brandenburg gate from the West side.

We had a bit of time to kill so I took a picture with people who were dressed up as East and West Berlin soldiers.

There also a guy there who was pretending that he was a boarder crossing agent and you would go up and he would stamp all sorts of papers for you and ask you questions that you might be asked if you were crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin.

The three and a half hour walking tour was really good. We saw a lot of stuff we definitely would have missed if we were just walking around on our own. For example an ordinary parking lot was actually over the location of the bunker where Hitler killed himself. The Soviets collapsed the bunker. They basically demolished any trace of anything Nazi related. On the other hand when the wall fell a lot of communist symbols were left up, such as this mural we saw.

Another reminder that remained of the divide between east and west Berlin were the crosswalk symbols. Before the tour we had noted that they looked different depending on where you were in the city. We learned that the Soviets and East Berliners used different walk symbols, so you can tell if where you were was old East Berlin or old West Berlin based on the walk symbols. The West Berlin walk symbols look more or less like American walk symbols but the East ones have a little guy with a hat on, they look like this:

We also saw the largest remaining portion of the Berlin wall on the tour. Most of it had been torn down.

We saw "Checkpoint Charlie," one of the famous places where you could go through security to cross between East and West Berlin. We saw some other cool buildings too.

We also got a good view of the Berlin TV Tower which was built by the Soviets, it is below.

We were pretty tired after the walking tour so we went back to our apartment.

Thursday April 12th

Today we went to Tachales, a very interesting place. Berlin is known for having a big underground alternative art scene, and Tachales is basically a hub for this scene. It is a 6 story abandoned concrete building that is owned by some bank. Artists squat in it and set up studios to make and sell their artwork. Technically they are there illegally but it has kind of just become a cultural thing so they are never evicted. We walked around and saw a lot of cool alternative art, we liked it a lot. The picture make it look really sketchy because you're not supposed to take pictures where the artists are set up because they don't want their art photographed, so I could only take pictures in the empty abandoned parts of it. There were lots of tourists inside of Tachales milling about and buying prints of art. Below is one of the hallways inside Tachales. Out back there is a metal sculpture garden. Below is a picture of Tachales from the sculpture garden.

After this we got currywurst, which was our favorite food of Berlin. It is a blend of ethnic food, German sausage covered in curry sauce. After this we walked over to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is a very interesting memorial. It is the size of a city block and has 2,711 stone pillars, each about 7 feet long, 3 feet wide, and varying in height. The block slopes downwards towards the middle but the pillars remain at about street level. The effect is as you walk into the memorial the pillars get higher and higher around you. The artists never explained what it meant, you are just supposed to walk through it and think about it. To most people the pillars look like graves or tombs, and there are just rows and rows of them.

Below is what it looks like when you are in the middle of the memorial.

Here is a view of the memorial from street level.

After walking through this we went to the museum which was underneath it. It was good but not nearly as memorable as the one in DC. Another interesting memorial relating to WWII is at the location where the Nazis burned 20,000 books. I never would have noticed this one if our tour guide didn't lead us to it. In the city square where this book burning happened there is a glass window pane at street level. You look down through the glass and see a room with rows and rows of empty bookshelves, enough to fit the 20,000 books which were burned. Near this window there is a quote that says "when you start by burning books you end by burning people," yet this quote wasn't even about the Holocaust, it was a quote about the Inquisition, so it was kind of a foreshadowing of the Holocaust. Next we went to the Reichstag, which is the German Parliament building, a picture of it is below.

On our way back to our apartment we stopped to get Berliner Weisse, a beer unique to Berlin that is either bright red or bright green. It was good but it was a girly drink.

Berlin in a Nutshell
Impressions: I really liked Berlin. For not being one of the super touristy cities like Rome or Paris, I thought it was great. There was a lot of fascinating history from WWII and the cold war. The people there were also extremely nice.
Favorite Food: Currywurst!
Favorite Sight: The walking tour and all the stuff we saw on the walking tour.