Photos:
Checkpoint Charlie
Holocaust Monument
Berlin Wall Memorial
Berlin by night from the Reichstag/Bundestag
Brandenburg Gate
Tapas Bar, El Tigre
Plaza Mayor
El Parque del Buen Retiro
Madrid Bank
Wow. It feels like time is just FLYING by! I can't believe its almost Halloween, and 2 months are already gone :( At least I can say I'm loving my time here, and have nothing to complain about except the lack of time left to explore and learn and live.
I guess I'll start with last week and my trip to Spain. I flew out on Thursday, the 16th, to Madrid to meet LEAH! It was a nice break from the rain, even though it wasn't exactly warm in Spain either. As of then, she was living in the Tetuan area, pretty far from the center where most of her other friends live. We met up with the girls later in the evening, and then went to a tapas bar called "El Tigre," super popular and very crowded! It was amazing though, you practically yell to the bartenders, and somehow they hear you, and you end up with a giant beer in your hand, and with every order, you get "tapas," or small plates. Croquettes, patatas bravas (fried potatoes with a mild spicy sauce) tortilla espana (egg/potato omelette on french bread) that has NOTHING to do with the tortilla we know and love, and other yummy things. It was a good night, and I got to meet all of her friends, who were all from California. It was nice to be able to reminisce about things I miss from home, and I even met people from SFSU!
Leah had class Friday morning (sucker!!) and when she got home we got ready and went shopping around the city center. Leah bought some euro clothes and tights, but I refrained and waited until later to buy only food and drinks :) We went to a surprise party for her friend Jackie, and it was nice to get to know everyone with yummy food and good music. I kind of forgot how it is to party with Americans... especially being from California where we do everything the same. I missed my foreign friends teaching me how they live and drink and talk... it was different. (But then again, aren't I the foreigner? hmm...) Anywho, I did meet a girl who has a boyfriend in Aarhus, and was telling me all about it, so now I'm looking forward to it more.
Saturday we slept in, and then met up with one of the girl's boyfriends so he could give us a tour of Madrid. The rest of Leahs class was in Segovia, where I really wanted to go, but they wouldn't allow people that weren't going to the school to come along :( We walked and walked and walked, then sat and drank Sangria for a long while in Plaza Mayor, then were so tired we wanted to go home and sleep. By the time we got all the way back to Leahs, we napped for about 45 minutes and then thought we could still make it out, but eventually we came to the conclusion we were just too tired. We just watched movies and ate chocolate and drank wine, which was nice for a Saturday.
Sunday we woke up really early to go to the Rastro, a GIANT flea market winding through the streets of Madrid. Things were super super cheap, but after awhile it started to all be the same pashminas and tights and jewelry and weird nik naks that we decided it was time to rest for a little. Leah and I went to El Parque del Buen Retiro to just people watch and enjoy ourselves. We made it an early night because Leah had class in the morning and I wanted to get homework done before my flight, so we just watched movies and chatted, and ate chocolate of course :)
Monday after class Leah rushed back to get me to the airport on time. I made it there, but NO NO NO, nothing can go right in the land of Sarah. I completely missed my flight, and after crying in the airport by myself, I was able to reach Leah and tell her I was coming back, and then re-book another flight, even though it was more than I probably spent on the entire trip, including my first flight. Not happy about it, but I needed to get home and Spain is actually much farther than I thought.
It's funny how comfortable I am here though. Although I don't understand the language, the culture makes sense somehow. Even though riding the bus or in the market or cafes I am completely unaware of conversations around me, its nice to be blissfully oblivious. In Spain it was different. For some reason I can't describe, I just wasn't comfortable. I know enough Spanish to get me through and around, but there was always a feeling of being an outsider, being vulnerable. Maybe it was because I don't look like most Spaniards, but can easily pass for being Dutch? And it was the first time I referred to Utrecht as "home." As I was crying to the travel agent, I said "I just want to go home!" and I realized that it finally feels that way. As much as I love traveling, the idea of having somewhat of a home base keeps me going.
Anyway, after a long an exhausting trip, I made it here in one piece and was never more excited to be on solid ground, and thankful I didn't have to ride my bike home! I was only here Tuesday and Wednesday, because early Thursday morning we left for BERLIN!!! And I fell in LOVE with it.
Thursday morning we piled into 2 vans, with a teacher driving each one, and began our long journey to Germany. It should take about 7 hours for the average driver, but our professor felt liable for all of us, and drove SO SLOW, even on the autobahn, which technically HAS no speed limit...and from years of road trips with my bro and dad who refuse to stop unless you really can't hold it in, stopping for 30-45 minutes 3 times was a little annoying. Nothing is quick! We all just wanted to get there, and it seemed never-ending.
Anywho, we got there around 630 I think, checked into the super cool graffiti-filled hostel, and then took the metro to the Brandenburg gate and Reichstag. There was this really cool "Festival of Lights" going on in the city, so the gate was all lit up, and the view from the top of the Reichstag was really impressive. Breathtaking actually. Or maybe that was the cold...
We went to a cute, cheap Italian place and I sat next to Arie, our history professor/group director, and Eveline, his administrative assistant. It was fun, and then we headed to a bar on the corner called the "living room," that made amazing caprihinas (Brazilain drink). The decor was really cool because it looked like an old hotel room, where nothing matched, and one wall was entirely forest wallpaper, and a giant chadellier hung down in the middle. We were a little tipsy, then headed back to the guys hostel room, which was like an apartment! We were SO jealous! They had bought some "christmas beer," so we drank those and had a good conversation, until some lady started banging on the wall and we realized it was close to 4am and time to go to bed.
Friday: EARLY morning! Woke up at 730 for free breakfast from 8-9, then headed to the Dutch embassy. I don't really know why, maybe it was more for my professor, but it kind of seemed irrelevant when we could be exploring Berlin. But on the other hand, the embassy was pretty freaking cool. It was designed with a whole "transparency" theme, so there are all these windows and cut outs, and the offices have no real walls or cubicles. All the doors slide sideways or swivel around, there are these awkwardly amazing angles and corners, a rooftop balcony, apartments in the other building and a "penthouse" for the second guy in command, and tons of artwork, even some of Queen B by Andy Warhol. Jesper was really hungover from the night before (as expected) and it was a nice change when we finally got to go to lunch in the sunshine and cool breeze. After lunch we went to meet up with a guy Arie knew who showed us the Berlin wall, from the bridge point where it was first torn down in 1989. It's crazy to think how such a life changing event happened, but theres no real marking of it on the site. Its just a simple bridge, with people coming and going in everyday life, yet the part of the wall in the center that have less significance are the ones the tourists always see....
From there we walked along the wall, through what was called "no man's land" between the 2 walls, on the East Berlin side. We made it to the monument where a church was torn down, and there is a viewing tour to climb and get an aerial view of everything. The area is just now, 19 years later, starting to build up and mend the 2 sides together, but the park where the main part of the wall still stands, is always full of people and a really beautiful, relaxing place to be.
From there we headed to meet Arie and Eveline for drinks with a German correspondent working for an American newswire, who was only 26 and pretty much doing what all of us hope we can do someday! It was inspiring, but also leveling because he was so straight about not getting paid very much, how he loves it but its not the glamorous reporting job so many hope for, etc. What he did do was show us a good Mexican restaurant, and all 5 of us American girls were the first in the door! By the end of dinner we had 4 bright red sombreros, and Arie had bought us shots of tequila. The phrase of the evening, and now the entire trip, became "When in Germany, do as the Mexicans do." That led to another night out, but we were pretty sleepy and when we ended up at the living room bar again, I called it quits and went home to wash my smoke-scented hair :( One of the best parts of the NL is the no smoking inside! rule.
Saturday was another early morning, but after bfast we were turned lose to travel on our own. Merly (U.S), Guri (Norway), Ditte (Denmark), Sofia (Portugal) and Simona (Lithuania) headed to see the Holocaust Monument, which was more moving than I ever thought cement blocks could be. From there we walked through the Topography of Terrors which documents war in the area of the bunkers of the Gestapo/SS in WWII, to Checkpoint Charlie, which wasn't so impressive, but still standing. It seems like so long ago that anyone would think of dividing people with a wall, so primitive, but only 19 years ago were these people "free" to move freely. If it seems to me like ages ago, how do people younger than me feel?
After we went to the Stasi museum for the German Secret Service during the war. The cutest, kindest old woman was our tour guide, and she lived through everything from its inception to when it ended, and gave us such good insight to how life was during WWII and the Cold War, and how nobody trusted anybody. The most interesting where the tactics the SS used to spy on people, through mini cameras in button holes and the amount of people working for the SS that no one would ever assume.
We had more time after, so Meryl, Jena, Mads, Martin, Jesper, Emiel and I walked along Karl-Marx-Alle (not my video, but a little view of it), stopped for a beer, then continued walking back to the center to see some of the Festival of Lights and find some grub. Everything was super expensive and overcrowded, so we ended up at another Italian place near the hostel, with yummy yummy lasagna, and then back we went to change because we were all supposed to meet up for a big night out. All in all, we ended up at a nice bar on the corner near the hostel for a few drinks, but most of the girls went home and it was Adelija (Lithuania) and I and 3 of the boys. Its funny that it always ends up being me, Jena, Meryl, or Adelija and the guys, because the girls never want to go out, and they end up being some of the best nights of my life :)
Sunday was the last early morning, and after a quick bfast we were all desperate to get on the road! I was in the all-girls car again, and the trip back was shorter, even though it started pouring about 2 hours before we got home. Welcome to the Netherlands! And it was pitch black, so the bike ride home was very long indeed.
All in all, I loved Berlin. One of the place I think I will DEFINITELY go back to this year, especially since it is much closer to Aarhus and will be gorgeous in the spring. I'm still shocked though, because I always pictured myself somewhere more "exotic," like Spain or Italy, but am finding such comfort in the NL and Germany (after being there 3 times already!) And didn't feel that at all in Madrid, or in Napoli 2 years ago. I guess I am already finding out more about myself than I thought I would...
More than enough for now, I'm exhausted and need to do homework.
Smooches!!
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