Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

(Sad news: my blog won't let me upload Berlin pics... but I'll add them later, promise!)


Okay, once we landed back in CPH, this started to seem like a bad idea. We were soooo tired and the rest of our friends were done with their travels for the week. Becky's host dad, Martin, picked us up in his brand new Mini Cooper and we went back to their house to drop off some dirty laundry and eat dinner. That was all we really needed to get our second wind, and we went right back to the airport to catch our EasyJet flight to Berlin.


The flight kind of felt like something out of the Twighlight Zone. Everything was orange, the flight attendants looked like drag queens, there were strange men cackling behind us, and the whole plane itself was making weird noises. But, we survived! We landed around 10:30, but got kind of confused trying to get to our hostel... so we didn't really make it there until close to midnight. We were supposed to meet up with Liz & Julia, but they were already out so we just went to bed.


The hostel was called "The Generator," and as far as hostels go, it was pretty amazing. I feel like I should go write a nice review on hostelworld or something. First of all it was HUGE, pretty clean, had a really solid free breakfast, its own bar, etc. It was probably just because I was so tired, but I got a great night's sleep. We woke up pretty early, got breakfast, and went out to explore the city.


We decided to do the free walking tour, the same one Becky and I did in Dublin and that Courtney did in Prague. I didn't think it was possible, but this one was even better! We should have been tipped off by the hundreds of people that gathered for it. We all had to be herded around and divided up into groups. I don't know if it was just because of the 20th anniversary of the wall coming down, or if the Berlin one is just really popular, but for a little while I was afraid we were going to be turned away.


I'm glad we were so far back in line, because we ended up with the best tour guide everrrr. His name was James. He was kind of hipster... AND he was British. I fell in love. But even if it weren't for James, the tour still would have been super interesting. I'm not much of a history person, and I've already mentioned my attention span for tours like this.... but I was fully attentive all FIVE HOURS that it went on. Berlin, and Germany in general, really has a fascinating history. We covered everything from before the Prussian Empire, to the Great Depression, The Nazis & WWII, and of course, the Berlin Wall. We saw the place where Hitler committed suicide in his bunker (it's now just an ordinary parking lot), the remains of the wall, socialist propaganda, the Holocaust memorial (which was really awesome), lots of ARCHITECTURE, aaaand as an added bonus....... the hotel where M.J. infamously dangled a baby out of the window. So needless to say, we covered a lotttt of ground, but it was good because we were only there for one full day.


We finally met up with Julia & Liz and went to dinner (definitely our cheapest meal of the break). We all swapped our ridiculous stories from the previous 2 weeks, and then decided to go make some more memories by doing the pub crawl run by the tour company. It was a Saturday night, so unlike the one in Dublin.... LOTS of people showed up. We met all kinds of people, including some boys from Muhlenberg who had kind of accidentally been following Liz & Julia and their friends around Europe. I also met an 18 year old British guy named Michael, who was really interesting to talk to, because instead of going to "university" right after high school, he worked as a bartender in London and saved up money to travel for a while before getting back on track. Thought that was pretty cool. Unfortunately, doing something as touristy as a pub crawl kind of prevented us from meeting German people.... but trust me we did our fair share of that in Munich :)


In the morning, we left the hostel and all we knew is that we had a bus to catch at 11:30. We didn't know WHERE we were supposed to find this bus... or really any other information about it, so it turned into a pretty serious adventure. After taking the train and sprinting all over the place with our huge backpacks, we managed to find the right bus at literally 11:29, and we probably took the last 5 seats. SO lucky. That was just the beginning of the adventure though, because we took the bus to a ferry, and then took another bus to get back to Copenhagen. Tiring is an understatement, but that's how we liveee.


I guess this brings me to the end of travel break.... and to my formal announcement. After I graduate college, I will be taking a year off, moving to Berlin, working as a tour guide, and marrying James. You think I'm kidding. Watch me.


Hahah but in all seriousness... we didn't get enough time in Berlin, and I would love to go back. I just recently found out that that's where at least part of my German ancestry comes from, which I think is kinda cool. And no, I probably won't marry James.... but maybe he can at least be my role model. He was a mechanical engineering student, and I'm sure he'll return to that, but right now he is just living the life, telling the story of Berlin, and raking in the tips. I think I could handle that. Leaving Europe is going to break my heart.... so I have to start planning my return to make myself feel better. I've already put off my papers by researching jobs with the tour company. A girl can dream.