BERLIN

BERLIN!!!!! 

2/1/2016

Today we all woke up very early, 5 o'clock,  to catch our plane from Stuttgart airport to Berlin airport. It was about a 1 hour flight. Airport security was easy and all went well. Once we had arrived in Berlin we caught a bus to our hotel to drop off our bags so that we didn't have to carry them all over Berlin. Once the bags had been checked in with the hotel, we caught the subway to the Brandenburg Gate. There we saw the Brandenburg Gate, one of the gates to the city of Berlin in the 19th Century. It is also known for Hitler marching troops underneath the Gate. Right next to the Gate is also Hotel Adlon and the French, British and Russian embassies. Later we went to the Berliner Unterwelten (Berlin Underworld) which is one of the only remaining bunkers after WW2. No photos were allowed. After that we saw a bit of the Berlin Wall and went to a small museum about the wall and the split of Berlin and stories of people escaping the DDR.

3/1/2016

Boy was it cold! Today was -11*C but was windy as well, with a reported wind chill factor of -20*C! With the chill factor it was colder than both the freezer and Antarctica! My body was ok because I wore a singlet, shirt, 2 pullovers, a fleece and a snow jacket, but my face was freezing! I couldn't feel my nose. Surprisingly though, my legs and feet were ok with just jeans and shoes with some lining. Australia was 40 degrees warmer! Today we went back to the Brandenburg gate because it was earlier than yesterday so there were less people. We also walked over to the Reichstag (German parliament building) where we went up to the glass dome which looked out over the city of Berlin. We also had the handheld tour guide things and mine was in English so that I could understand everything. After the Reichstag we caught a bus around Berlin seeing parts of Berlin such as the Tiergarten (literally animal garden, largest parkland in Berlin), the President's house, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, another big church and the giant TV tower. We were going to go up the tower but there was a two hour wait to buy the tickets and another two hour wait after you bought the tickets. We decided against it. Later when we walked passed again it had gone to 3 hours for both meaning a total of 6 hours. We did some souvenir shopping instead. Later we then went to Alexanderplatz where there is a world clock which has all the times of the world (except that eastern Australia was wrong because it doesn't account for day light savings!) We also went to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main station) where people from the 2013 German trip will remember. Especially Will, Murray, Ben and I when we dropped the bottle into the bin from the next level up. Then we went back to he hotel.

4/1/2016

Today was the last day in Berlin! It was still cold but no way as cold as yesterday, about -3*C. We left our bags at the hotel so that we can walk freely around Berlin without suitcases. We went to a bridge over the River Spree (main river in Berlin). We also went to Checkpoint Charlie, the main checkpoint between East Berlin and the old American sector of West Berlin. There was also information there about the checkpoint and other East Berlin information. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to get our bags, and then headed for the airport. It got a bit stressful because one of the subways never came. So we had to run around to get a different train and bus. We made it to the airport on time anyway, and then caught our plane back to Stuttgart. We arrived 20 minutes before scheduled meaning the flight was only 50 minutes! We got back to Bodelshausen at 7pm.

Here are some of the best photos I took from the trip.