So yes, the title is true. This past weekend the whole program took a trip to Berlin and yesterday I had a fever of approximately 102. On the other hand, I absolutely loved Berlin and wouldn't take back that trip for anything. I was feeling better this morning and determined not to miss our class trip to Antoni Gaudi's church, La Sagrada Familia. I went, and again I'm glad that I did because it was incredible, but I certainly feel worse now than I did this morning, leading me to believe I may have overdone it a tad by going to class. Moral of the story: I'm apparently a fan of sacrificing my good health in the name of sight-seeing. The beginning of the week was pretty average, aside from going to to the National Museum of Catalan Art, although I liked the view and the building significantly more than the art, and on to Berlin:
We all made our way to the airport around noon on Thursday, which included Cara and I getting lost-ish in the metro and almost missing the train to the airport, which comes only every half hour and would have led to us either missing the flight or spending money on cab fare or the Aerobus. Luckily, we made it and were able to just use our metro cards. Although it was stressful, it ended up okay and it was definitely the most cost-effective way to get to the airport. These budget airlines we fly on are really different. None of them board in sections, everyone just lines up at the gate, and this one we didn't even have assigned seats! We just chose them as we got on the plane, which seemed really odd to me. And then when we landed, everyone clapped! I didn't know that was a thing, but apparently so. Just really excited to get to Berlin, I guess? I got off the plane bracing myself for the extreme cold we'd been warned about, but I walked out into typical Minnesota winter weather, no big deal. I think that's one of the reasons I fell in love with Berlin; it feels like home but with so much interesting history and historical buildings. However, even mild cold feels pretty extreme when you stand in it for hours, which we did daily thanks to our planned itinerary and which most likely led to my (and at least half the program's) illness.
When we got to the hotel, we were all a little taken aback. It was nice, but because we had been told we were staying at a hotel, that means you don't have to pack things like towels, hair dryer, shampoo, etc., right? Wrong. It was really more like a hostel. We all had to "rent" towels for 1 euro, which we were told we'd be reimbursed because apparently this was a surprise to our program director as well. So essentially, it was incredibly nice for a hostel, but pretty ghetto for a hotel; it was some weird cross-breed. We met the three students who are with the same study abroad organization, but staying in Berlin. They seemed pretty nice, but I didn't talk to them much as they were pretty outnumbered. This weekend they're switching and coming here. I didn't do anything exciting that night, but was glad I didn't when the people who did slept through next morning's bus tour.
Admittedly at 3 hours, it was a long bus tour, but I thought it was awesome. We saw so much, the only downside is I don't remember what everything was that I took pictures of (also pictures out of a bus window are not of the best quality). After the bus tour, we visited Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, which a lot of the U of M students were really excited about because we had studied it more than once in various classes back home. Apparently it didn't live up to some people's expectations, but I thought it was great. The thing is, it's a Jewish Museum, not a Holocaust Museum, which I think some people might have been expecting. Obviously the Holocaust is a big part of Jewish history, but it's not necessarily the focus of the museum, there are obviously Holocaust-related exhibits, but also an extensive general Jewish history exhibit, which I actually kind of appreciated. I think it makes a lot of sense to focus on the people instead of just the terrible things that happened to them. The Holocaust-related exhibits were certainly interesting, especially because they're the ones that are less typical, as far as museums go. One is an incredibly tall, unheated, dark tower with one light at the top and the other is a big cement room where the floor is filled with metal circles cut to look like faces, and you're supposed to walk over them, which makes a bunch of creepy, echo-y clanging sounds. Both made me incredibly uncomfortable, which I would imagine was the point, but I won't go into architectural-museum exhibit-symbolism right now.
We got done with the museum at 3:30 and had free time the rest of the day. A few other girls and I decided to go shopping along our walk back to the hotel, which was really fun. I got a few souvenirs and we got German soft pretzels and also went to an amazing chocolate shop where they had giant chocolate sculptures, some of which were models of German monuments. It was expensive though, so I just bought one truffle, but it was delicious. The thing we began to realize, however, is that Berlin is so spread out that the map we had was really deceiving and we ended up walking for a very long time in the cold (okay, so that one was our fault). Later a group of 10 of us went to dinner at an authentic German restaurant and I have to say... I prefer the German food I've had to the Spanish food I've had. Again, this is probably because it's more familiar and more similar to what I have at home. The most notable German food I had was spaetzle (spelling?) with cheese, which was at that restaurant and delicious, and Currywurst, which is bratwurst with ketchup and curry powder. It sounds gross, but it was actually good. Anyways, the free time we had that day was more than made up for the next.
On Saturday, we went to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a little way out of Berlin. I had never heard of that particular camp, but that certainly didn't lessen the experience. However, this was a very cold day and with getting there and back and the 2 and a half hour (outdoor) tour of the camp, we were all frozen. Not many buildings remained, but we saw an old barrack and other depressing things like an execution trench (where people knew they were going to be murdered) and Station Z (where they were tricked and had no idea), which was a building where the most people died at Sachsenhausen. I found the whole experience really surreal; no matter how hard I try and how much concrete evidence I see, it's just hard to even imagine the hardships that those people faced. They were tricked, and ridiculed and just treated like animals. We were all exhausted (emotionally and physically) after the tour, but our itinerary for the day was not yet complete. We went to this abandoned building called Tacheles, which was apparently once a department store. After the department store closed down, artists took over. It's now 100% covered in graffiti, not well lit, unheated, and creepy. People, mostly artists, live there with various levels of legality, but we were visiting one artist who was a friend of the CIEE Berlin Program Director. His studio was heated, thankfully, but very small and we all sat on the floor. He does a lot of work pertaining to the Holocaust, which is why we met with him, and it was very interesting and his work is very good. However, I was thoroughly sketched-out by the creepy graffiti building and although it was interesting and I certainly had never seen anything like it, I was not sad to leave. It's certainly not anywhere I'd visit alone. Or again, for that matter. Ever.
The next morning we checked out and left our bags at the hotel to go on a 2 and a half hour, outdoor walking tour. If I wasn't destined to get sick already at this point, this did me in. Now it wasn't unbearable, but it was probably about 2 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind chill, which is less than pleasant, and I didn't have my Minnesota winter gear with me. Some people left the tour early because they just couldn't handle the cold and weren't able to pay attention to the guide anyways because of it, but I decided to stick it out, determined not to miss anything. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (pictures on my Facebook, it was really neat), and stood over the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. Those were the most notable stops. The bunker is underground and inaccessible, there's just a parking lot and an informational sign where it's located, but it was still interesting. They don't want to have access to it because they're worried it will turn into a neo-Nazi shrine. I didn't realize neo-Nazis were so active, but at Sachsenhausen too they had tried to burn down an exhibit in one of the bunkers in the 90s. Scary.
So we got back to the hotel and thawed out a little before heading to the airport to catch the flight home. It was the train from the airport where I started to notice my throat was scratchy and I had a headache, but I get headaches a lot and thought nothing of it. I didn't feel awesome the next morning, but went to class anyways. However, it got worse throughout the day and I ended up having to leave class early. Like I said, I had a fever that night, but it was gone this morning. I was feeling a lot better this morning but now I feel like I've deteriorated again and I'm worried my fever might be back. My head feels gigantic and my throat is sore. Needless to say, I wasn't going to accomplish anything productive, so what better time to write a blog? I really don't want to miss class because I have a lot of work, but I guess we'll see. I just wish we ate dinner before 10 pm so I could go to bed early... Oh well. I'll try to stick to my Sunday to Sunday schedule for content, even though I'm a few days late on this entry (due to returning to Berlin late and sleeping away my fever), so I'll talk about my Sagrada Familia visit and everything yet to come this week in next Sunday's blog. This one is certainly long enough. Sorry, I always do that. Apparently I don't have much of a filter when it comes to blog writing, but I just wanna share every little experience :). Hope you don't mind. I'm gonna take a nap now before dinner and hopefully I'll be feeling better soon :). Hasta luego.
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