Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Berrrrrlin (:

I know it's late again, but better that than never: Berlin trip 21-26 May '10

Alrighty, So here's what went down in my 6 days in Berlin. I arrived on friday and me and Olivia just chilled out mostly, and that night she took me to get a Doner Kebab which is actually turkish but aparantly is what all the Germans like to eat. It was delicious and cheap and I couldn't finish it. I was staying with Ollie who is my friend from Rangi who is in Berlin doing her exchange (:

The the next day we went to Kudam. Which is a realy cool shopping street. We went to a place called the Ku De We or something like that.. I can't really remeber but it was like a million stories tall and all like designer labels.. But the food section was amazing.. I was THIS close to buying Betty Crocker brownie mix and potted frosting, but I resisted.

Then we visited a bit the typical shops and stuff, Then we saw this thing, which is a chuch that got bombed in the war. It blew my mind a little bit cause you never see stuff like that, like half destroyed buildings, in NZ. In this pic I'm with Grace, an Aussie born Germany-raised friend of Ollies. Her mum is Australian so she speaks perfect english.
The next day we went to The Carnival of Culture. It was really random, the floats were for like random cultures that definately don't exist in NZ. There was a heap of people though and a nice ambiance. I went with Ollie's group of friends and Sophia, a german girl who I know quite well because she did her exchange at Rangi and was in my french class (: So this was one float of some unidentifyable 'culture' haha: They were painting stripes of paint all over people in the crowd.
Later on we did an on foot walk about of Berlin. This is sad, but it was actually a highlight of my trip (being the MJ fan that I am), one of the first things we went to was this place, which is the hotel that Michael Jackson was in when he infamously held baby Blanket over the railings to show him to the world. I was so giddy when they told me, its just like in the magazines!

So yeah. The reason we were in that square though is to see this, the Brandenburg Gate. It's the gate that used to separate the borders of east and west germany. Now it's just a cool thing to see and kinda symbolises reunified Germany. It's design is based on some Greek thing. That's me, Ollie, Sophia and Lena (Lena is a penpal of Sophia who came up to Berlin for th long weekend) infront of the Gate.



This photo is mostly just funny, we went on a crazy five man bicycle ride. And also to prove that I was there infront of where MJ was.. R.I.P




Here's the Berlin Tower, we didn't go to visit it because Ollie told me it was boring. Not quite a skytower huh?



This is the Parliment Building.. This visit was really funny for me cause I could never imagine that many people lining up to go to the parliment building.. But apparantly it's because there's a really nice restaurant inside (: Thats Sophia in the corner with her starbucks.. I miss starbucks so much!




The next thing we saw was this, it's a monument to commemorate the Holocaust. Its a whole bunch of grey rectangles of different sizes, apparantly they symbolise "how confusing and random the Holocaust was"



Then we went to where the Berlin wall used to be, and there it is. I put my foot in so you can tell relitively how big it was.




The next day we went to the zoo, but we also found this place called Aoteroa and it's a New Zealand cafe. In the middle of Berlin...


... so we bought fish and chups. YUM!



This is the entrace to the zoo of Berlin. Apparantly it's like two hundred years old. You can't really see me cause my camera wasn't co-operating.. but there you go..




Then this is Ollie and I infront of the giraffes at the Zoo.



And then we got those hotdoggy things that Germans like. Not frankfurters (which did you know are called that because of Frankfurt? ) but nearly. They were pretty yum



So yeah, that is what I did in Berlin. It was a pretty nice little visit. It was so nice to hear Ollie's Kiwi accent and talk about stuff that's going on back home with someone who actually knows what I'm talking about. Next up: Barcelona with friends! Stay tuned!