Berlin. What a city. So much character and history. We
saw The Wall, the Wannsee villa where the senior officials of the Nazi regime
met to determine the "Final Solution," the Cecilienhof Palace (where
Truman, Churchill, & Stalin met to decide the future of Germany/Europe
after the end of WWII), Alexanderplatz, Brandenberg Gate, the Holocaust
memorial, and more.
It was ridiculously hot, and we were in a constant state
of stickiness. I tried currywurst, which is basically a hot dog covered with
ketchup and curry powder. We had Starbucks, and some of our group went to
McDonalds. Despite that though, the food in Germany is pretty good.
The last night in Berlin was a farewell dinner for the
end of our tour. We were taken to a local place for food and all the drinks we
could drink. There was singing (again with the volunteers and volun-tolds) and
dancing. It is amazing how close you can become to people who you share these
kinds of experiences with! I do hope that I'll cross paths with many of them
again. The next day people left Germany for various destinations. S and I
had most of the day to sightsee, and then we had a late flight to Dublin!
Abridged list of things I will never do again:
- schedule a flight to a foreign country that arrives
after dark, especially when I have to find my own way to the accommodation
- rent a car wherein I am the only driver
- forget to get a list of detailed directions and maps of
the area
Well, we had the directions, but they were printed in
German. And anyways, one missed turn and those directions are useless in a city
of one-way streets. After our own (many) attempts failed, and after we had
asked countless people for directions, we actually paid a taxi driver to take
us to our B&B while we followed behind. Brilliant idea, no? Well turns out
that he got our street mixed up with another street (one was a St. and one was
a Rd.) and left us in the completely wrong part of town, stranded. This was at
about 2am.
Good thing/bad thing was we saw a lot of downtown Dublin.
Well, S did anyways. I was too busy being stressed about driving stick and
staying on the correct side of the road (S saved us from a near
significant-mistake at one point). The street signs, if they are even there,
are so far up and difficult to read. Even though it was a Sunday night, the
bars were hopping and there were drunks everywhere, stumbling across the road
and into the path of our car (they had no idea how perilous this would
be). I think we were the only non-taxi
on the road.
It was a disaster. There was much colourful language (not
at each other, just at Dublin in general). There was talk of sleeping in the
car, and doing "business" in the alleys. I almost cried and/or threw
a tantrum, but (barely) managed to keep it together. By the time we made it to
our place and woke up the owners, it was 3:30am. We were still on Berlin time
so it felt like 4:30am. Our flight had landed at 11:15pm and the B&B was 20
minutes from the airport. Not a great start.
The next day would prove to be much, much better. It is
amazing what a good sleep, a good meal, a shower, and fresh cool air can do for
an individual. :D
Xo
E!
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