Spring (No) Break Part 2

Spring break had been going swimmingly and wonderfully, until this point. We woke up at 3:30am in our hostel to be out of the house by 4am because we had to catch our flight for Berlin. We always traveled early because first of all, it was cheaper and second of all, it gave us more time in the city.

However, when we arrived at the airport in Florence we found out that our flight had been rerouted because they couldn’t get the plane to Florence because of the winds. This meant that they were going to bus us from Florence to Pisa so we could wait in the airport to get a flight to Rome. We always originally had a lay over in Rome so it was no big deal; just a little bit more annoying that we had to get on an hour bus ride and then an hour flight.

The airline failed to update us and tell us that we wouldn’t be making our flight to Berlin, so as a group of exhausted teenagers, the lady told us that we’d have to go to the help/ticket desk before we’d be able to check-in. So, we went to the other line and rescheduled our flight which was leaving 5 hours later than we had originally planned.

In the end of all this, we lost our first full day in Berlin, arriving at 5pm instead of the originally planned 11am. As if it wasn’t bad enough, we were all exhausted from the early morning and the over 12 hours of traveling and waiting had us all on edge, but also wanting to be able to see things because we knew we now had limited time.

The first thing that we did while in Berlin was check into our hostel which was nice, but definitely a downgrade from the experience that we had just had in Florence (but like I said, we'd probably never have another experience like that ever again). We dropped off our bags and asked the people at the front desk for recommendations for a place to get authentic German food.

We ended up going to this cute little German restaurant that was just three blocks from the hostel (I'm kicking myself for not remembering the name of it). It definitely seemed authentically German. We heard no English in the restaurant besides our own and it seemed as if people we're doing business in the restaurant.

After dinner, we walked an extra few blocks to get to Alexanderplatz which was once the center of East Berlin, but is now a shopping center and transit hub. We stopped inside the Primark that was in the center, before walking into the Alexa shopping mall that caught out attention because of the bright and colorful design on the outside.

From there, we walked past the train station and along a street that was lined with various restaurants and souvenir shops. We also passed a movie theatre and noticed that the translations of movie titles were different. For example, the movie known as Patriot's Day in America was just called Boston, which makes sense.

The ground on this road was marked as a "Historical" path or something along those lines so we followed the red footsteps on the ground towards the town hall which looked beautiful lit up at night. We took a few pictures and continued towards Fernsehturm de Berlín which is a television tower and serves as a symbol of Berlin. Today, the tower is the second tallest structure in the European Union.

As we got closer to returning to our hostel, Billy, Rose and I found a few little temporary galleries with some art work and looked at them before returning home and going to bed.

The next day, we started at the East Side Gallery which is a memorial on a remaining piece of the Berlin wall which features 105 pieces and serves as a memorial and document a time of change and expression of hope for a better future. The artwork was all wonderful in its on way, regardless of if I could understood what it said of not. Here area a few of my favorite pieces from the wall:

The worst part about the wall, besides what it stood for was the fact that there were gates in front of every piece of art. In the past, the artwork has been destroyed, but it almost felt weird looking through a gate at a wall.

We went to a restaurant that was recommended by Billy’s friend who studied abroad in Berlin and got a cute little breakfast before we walked to the Parliament building where we met up with our roommates Colleen and Emilia who had just arrived in Berlin.

Together, we walled towards Brandenburg gate, stopping on the way to grab a quick snack for Colleen and Emilia. The Brandenburg Gate is one of the best known monuments in Germany and had been the home to many major historical events.

A few blocks down from the Brandenburg Gate was a new holocaust memorial known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. At first, it just looks like a large grid of concrete blocks with varying sizes. However, when we googled the memorial ourselves to see what the artist's intentions were, it changed the way that we experienced the memorial (if I'm being real with you). The two most important things that we took away from the interpretations of the memorial were:

"According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason."

"Mr. Thierse talked about the memorial as creating a type of mortal fear in the visitor. Visitors have described the monument as isolating, triggered by the massive blocks of concrete, barricading the visitor from street noise and sights of Berlin."

We went under the memorial to an exhibit which featured stories of victims and survivors, letters, family dynamics and how they were separated/if they survived and so on.

After, we went to Pottsdamer which is another shopping center, but was on the way to Checkpoint Charlie. In the center, there were more pieces of the Berlin wall.

We walked through the center before reaching Checkpoint Charlie where we read about the Berlin wall and that time at a pop-up exhibit across the street.

The sign that was outside is not the original sign (the original sign is in a museum just down the street), but seeing where the sign would've stood was interesting.

For dinner, we went to Hofbräu Berlin which is always a high energy place and features German music and excessive amounts of beer. After dinner, we said goodbye to Colleen and Emilia because we were leaving for Amsterdam in the morning and wouldn't be seeing them until we returned home to London.

The next morning we woke up to get on our flight to Amsterdam and thankfully this flight went a lot smoother than our previous flight and we made it to Amsterdam by 9am. We couldn't check into our hotel until about 2pm that day, so we were stuck with our backpacks.

The first thing that we did was go on a canal boat tour because the weather wasn't bad, but it also meant that we wouldn't be dragging our backpacks around Amsterdam. It was a nice and educational experience, but it was definitely one of those things I would do once in my life but would not feel eager to do again.

From there, we hopped onto the transit and went to the Van Gogh museum because it was starting to drizzle and we still had all of our stuff on us. We were able to check our backpacks at coat check and enjoy the museum without the extra weight on our backs.

Seeing Van Gogh's work was nice, but I feel like they could've done more with the museum and that there was a lot of wasted space.

Next to the Van Gogh Museum was MoCo which is a modern art museum that was housing an exhibit that featured works by Banksy and Dali and we all know how I feel about Banksy. I appreciate Dali too, but seeing the mention of Bansky was what really got me excited.

Tori and I decided to head into the museum while the others ran back to the hotel before Rose and Billy went on the Heineken experience.

Most of the Banksy work that was featured was work that is part of private collections. This exhibit marked the first time in history that Banksy's work was held in an exhibition at a museum. The featured works included: "Laugh Now", Girl with Balloon, Barcode and Bomb Hugger; just to name a few.

As for the Dali section, most of the work consisted of drawings from his early stages of surrealism. A lot of his work lined up with the mention or theories of Freud. There were frantic looking sketches on paper and programs, along with a couch set up and a version of his famous clock.

From there, we headed home to meet up with everyone and finally drop off out bags. We ate a quick dinner in Rembrandtplein Square and then went to meet up with Emily Mason and her roommates for a quick drink before we walked through the Red Light District.

I really wasn't sure what to think about the Red Light District while I was there. I understand everything and how it's the world's oldest profession or whatever, but I think that I didn't like it. It wasn't the prostitutes or anything that bothered me, it was just the atmosphere and how people seemed to treat them and act in the area. I don't know still. But, I am glad that I got to walk through it.

The next morning we had an early wake up call to go to the Anne Frank House which we were all extremely excited about. I don't know what I expected Anne Frank's house to look like, but I was definitely surprised by the exterior. On top of that, it was smaller than I had imagined. Well, some areas, not all of them. Specifically Anne's bedroom.

In the house, we also got to see pages of the actual diaries that Anne wrote in. They circulate the pages in order to preserve them, but beyond that we also got to see the actual bookcase that hid the stairwell.

Afterwards, we went to the Iamsterdam sign to grab pictures. However, before we took our pictures we found a stand with stroopwaffles, which was a food that Rose was looking for specifically because it was recommended that we eat it while in Amsterdam. Let me tell you, the stroopwafel changed my life. It was messy in every which way, but worth it. Basically, a stroopwafel is made from two thin waffles with a thick, carmel like syrup in the middle. You can buy them in bags, but we wanted to find a fresh one.

After our mini photo shoot, we walked towards the main transit station in the city and went to the Sex Museum. Yeah, it was as weird as it sounds and was 4 euros, but had a line out the door so we had to understand why. I'm still not sure why.

Then, we walked around before we found a little shop that sold french fries. As weird as that sounds french fries were also recommended to us and are apparently one of the most famous food items in Amsterdam. Typically, they are smothered in a sauce (usually mayonnaise) and enjoyed by everyone, including the locals.

Post fries, we found ourselves at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam where we watched tourists feed pigeons and plan what we were going to do next. We decided to walk along the canals before heading back to the hotel because we had to pack and make sure that we had everything ready for yet another early morning flight!

Overall, spring break was a great time, despite the lack of break and relaxing that we actually had. I would have to say that my favorite city was Florence, just based on the experiences that I had there and the FOOD. Otherwise, I'm all for another European Spring break. European Spring Break 2k18 anyone?