It’s been a while since I’ve had
time to blog. I’ve been super busy with traveling and then studying for our
examen parciales (midterms), which were this week. In total, I had 5 exams and
a presentation. Needless to say, I am a little mentally-exhausted. Though the
homework load here abroad is nothing compared to the stress of school back in
the states, homework is homework and I’ve become too adjusted to the Spanish
lifestyle. However, now it’s Spring Break, which I will spend traveling to
Paris and Seville with my family so it was the perfect motivation to study hard
this past week.
At the beginning of the month, my
friend Holly and I traveled to Berlin, Germany for the extended weekend. We
spent four nights in the city and it was amazing! We arrived Thursday afternoon
and spent the day exploring the city. Originally we were planning on taking the
train to Weismar, a city in central Germany, in order to pick a bus up to visit
the concentration camp, Buchenwald. However, when we went to the train station
it turned out we bought the ticket for March instead of February. Needless to
say we were rushing around for a bit trying to replace our ticket and rearrange
our plans. Luckily, everything worked out and we changed the date of the train
tickets to be the next day. Rearranging our plans, we decided to explore the
Brandenburg Gate, Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Raghstag, Topography of Terror,
the Berlin Wall, the Gypsy memorial, Berlin Tom and the Opera. We ended the
eventful day with dinner, where we ordered and discovered the amazing
Flammkuchen. It’s basically a German-style pizza but on special artesian-cooked
dough. It was so delicious, I highly recommend for anyone who’s traveling to
Germany!
After all the troubles we had with train
tickets, we finally made it to the concentration camp. As expected, the day was
somber as we toured the grounds. The most depressing part of the tour was when
we walked through the crematory. Though there was an eerie feeling throughout
the entire camp, it was especially prevalent there. The entire camp was covered
in about two feet of snow making it impossible to see the actual foundations of
the buildings. The majority of the camp was destroyed during air raids with
only a few of the main buildings still fully intact. The places where the camp
residents stayed are completely gone except for the few foundation bricks;
however, with those two feet of snow, those few foundation bricks were
invisible. This made it a little difficult to fully grasp the magnitude of the
camp since we could only see white on the grounds but the presence of the camp
still lingered.
For our last day in Germany, we
decided to have a chiller afternoon and visit the world’s largest zoo. It was
the perfect afternoon since we had spent the other days touring historical,
educational tours. The best part was when we were watching the lions in their
den. Holly was standing in the wrong spot at the wrong time and ended up
getting peed on by the male lion- it was definitely a highlight of the trip! The
other highlight was when I got neck-chopped by a German! It sounds scary but it
was actually pretty hilarious. It all happened when Holly and I were standing
on a street corner, trying to find a restaurant when I stuck my hand out to
point across the street. I hadn’t looked behind me before sticking my arm out
so I accidently almost hit a German man walking up next to me. Seeing he was
about to get hit, his instinct (I’m assuming) was to reflect my arm but in the
process he managed to make a striking motion with his hand, which ended up
hitting my neck somehow. I was so stunned that I was speechless. Holly said I
had a red mark on my neck for the rest of the night, of course that would
happen to me of all people. In the end, though slightly frightening at the
moment, it comes out to be a pretty hilarious, memorable story.
Overall, Germany was a blast! It
was filled with days of exploring the historical museums, sights and buildings
and nights of pub hopping. We had an interesting subway trip with a group of
Italians, met a Brazilian while waiting in line to enter the world’s best night
club and we spent our last night getting to know a German soldier. It was the
perfect trip and I can’t wait for the next!
