Trip Recap

Thursday- Got to Berlin early and took a train downtown.  All of the cheap airlines most likely are in an airport that is pretty far away and Berlin was no different.  One of the first things i saw in Berlin was a Dunkin' Donuts so I was pretty excited about that.  We then walked around the city and also learned how big the city actually is.  The walk on the map looked much shorter on the map to say the least.  We were all pretty tired so we just hung out at the bar at the hostel.  Our hostel was in West Berlin named the Amstel House.  It was really nice and only 9 euro a night.   

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin Dome

Friday-  We started the day with a 3 hour walking tour.  We walked and saw a lot of really neat stuff.  The history in Berlin is so recent that you can actually relate to it.  The holocaust memorial was right in the center of the city and was pretty remarkable.  They certainly don't try and hide their history in Germany and that is probably best.  We then went to where Hitler's old bunker was.  We continued onto the former Checkpoint Charlie location.  Later that night we went to the Berlinale which is the Berlin film festival.  We went to a random movie and it ended up being a Swedish film with english subtitles by Ingar Bergman named Hour of the Wolf.  One of the weirder films I have scene.

Saturday-  We started early once again to do a tour of a former Nazi concentration camp named Sachensenhausen.  It was in a small town north of Berlin named Oranienburg.  The whole town kind of has an erie feel to it.  The tour was free we had our own tour guide.  She shared pretty horrific stories as we were walking to the camp which really started to paint a picture of what happened at the camp.  Most of the old buildings had burned or were blown up by the soviets.  They used the camp after the Nazi's as a concentration camp and then a place to test bombs resulting in only a few buildings in tact.  The camp wasn't an execution camp but thousands upon thousands still died there (between 50,000 and 100,000).  It was one of the first camp's made and is known as the blueprint for future concentration camps. 

Holocaust memorial with US embassy in background

"Work to be free" entrance of camp

execution trench

old building in the camp

Later that night we needed to lighten the mood a little so we went out to a bar/ club in Berlin.   We went to Cafe Zapata which had 5 floors.  There were squatters who were mostly artists living in rooms throughout the building.  There was an art gallery set up selling their artwork on the 5th floor.  Different floors had different bars.  One floor had a live band playing, one had 60's music and another was American music.  It was a really cool set up.  Berliners stay up quite a bit later than the Swedes do.  We left the club at 5:30...am.  All in all it was one of the more fun nights I have had in a long time.

stairway in cafe zapata

Sunday-  Got a late start obviously.  We check out the famous flea markets in the afternoon.  We went to Mauer Park.  Flea markets aren't really my thing so I played some basketball against a german at the park who was unfortunately a Laker fan.    

Monday-  Went to the East Side gallery which has hundreds of paintings on the Berlin wall.  I'm not a big art fan but the East side was pretty cool.  The wall stretched probably a half mile of painting after painting on the former wall.  We then checked out the German history museum and recapped everything we have scene in person which was good.

Standard Amsterdam street

I left a crucial part out of every single day of our Berlin experience and that was the food.  Unbelievable might be an understatement.  There was so much food and it was all so good.  It was also insanely cheap.  No meal would cost more than 6 euros and you really couldn't finish any meal they gave you.  Just about twice as cheap as Sweden.  Berlin was awesome though, I wasn't expecting much but it was one of the coolest places I've been and I definitely plan on returning.

Midnight- caught train to Amsterdam.  Cabin had a family of 5 in it until about 3am then I had it all to myself and slept until we got there.  

Tuesday- Got to Amsterdam at about 10am and found the hostel pretty easily.  It was a pretty cool city but it wasn't really my "style".  I could see how some people love it but not me.  The city was really pretty though we did a tour and then walked past the Anne Frank house.  We watched a soccer match at night and then walked around the town after.  Our hostel was right on the border of the Red Light District so there was an interesting crowd around.  

Brussels

Wednesday- Took bus to Brussels bright and early.  Got there at noon and managed to get to the hostel without getting lost.  The city was nice in the old area.  It seemed like a pretty simple city from the one day/ night that we were there.  Everything closes in the city very early which is much different than Berlin and Amsterdam.  We got some good tasting waffles though and hit the hay after a long week.  

Jesse and I at the East Side gallery

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Amsterdam Canal (over 4,000 bridges)

I kind of rushed this so sorry for spelling mistakes.  I now have a paper to do that gets a grade so this was a nice warm up!