Days 23-24 May 25-26
Friday was our last day of class. We met as usual at 9am and
discussed our final papers about art, media or architecture. Class lasted about
an hour and a half and he didn’t give us any free time before we headed out on
our excursions for the day. We headed over to the West to visit the
Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedӓchnis Kirche. The Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedӓchnis
Kirche is a memorial of a church that was bombed in WWII and was basically left
in ruins to show the destruction. It was covered in scaffolding which sucked
because we couldn’t see anything because they are working on it to preserve it.
We were able to do inside and into the new church that was build next to it but
it wasn’t the same because from train station it looks like a modern office
building. After the church we walked down Kurfürstendamm,
a high end street in Berlin. This is where all the rich people shop. Now it’s a
big tourist attraction too but shops are expensive and while walking Ku’damm we
stopped at a LEGO store and reminisced about our childhoods and played with
LEGOs. I got my picture taken with Woody from Toy Story and kind of considered
buying a Harry Potter Hogwarts castle…but I didn’t. After the LEGO store we
walked down a bit further and went into Kaufhaus des Westens or KaDeWe. The
KaDeWe is a super high end department store. It’s famous for being a huge
attraction in the West and things are crazy expensive. I was looking around
with Ryne and he wanted to buy underwear but they were upwards of 30€
or about $40 a pair. It was insane we found men’s jackets for 5000€
and watches and accessories for more. There was a pet section were we found dog
collars and bowls for around 125€ and stuffed animals for kids on sale
for 49.95€.
It was crazy. I walked out with nothing which is perfectly ok with me because I
don’t have that kind of money and even if I did I wouldn’t want to pay $60 for
a toy kids drool all over. Anyway after KaDeWe we went back to the apartments
because we had time before McInnis picked us up for dinner and before we went
to the top of the Fernsehturm. McInnis took us to a fancy restaurant for
dinner, it was called WeinGrün.
It was super delicious and really expensive but he (well technically UNI) paid
for everything except for our drinks. I had vegetable gnocchi and fried
mushrooms and for dessert chocolate lava cake served with vanilla ice cream and
a cappuccino. It was so good. Our bill was over 360€ which is almost $500 but it
was so good. We sat at our table next to the river for a while just talking and
joking around, enjoying our last night together with everyone as a group
because Travis was leaving first thing in the morning. Then the sun went down
and it got cold, the restaurant gave us blankets and we talked some more.
Finally at a little after 10 or so we decided to pay out bill and head over to
the Fernsehturm. The city is so beautiful at night, we decided not to get on
the train and just walk to the tower, it took less than ten minutes from the
restaurant. When we got to the tower McInnis bought our tickets and we headed
to the top. We took an elevator to 203meters which is about 666 feet or were
the giant disco ball sits. We walked around and got to take some cool pictures
of the city at night. It was beautiful, and so different from an American city
at night. There were almost no cars on the roads and you could see forever but
it wasn’t overly lit up. It would also be cool so see Berlin from the tower
during the day but I don’t want to spend 12€ to go to the top again. After
the Fernsehturm Ryne and I used the internet for a while before heading to bed
because we had to meet with McInnis in the morning for one more day of
sightseeing.
We were up at 9 on Saturday to say “Goodbye” to Travis
because he was heading back to central Germany to spend more time with Denise
in her home village. Kristin and I went back to bed after he left and slept
until almost 11. We ate breakfast and got dressed and waited for McInnis to
pick us up at 11:30. We were going a ways away to visit the Babelsberg
Filmpark. Babelsberg is the German equivalent to Universal Studios, kind of. At
least that’s what I have been told, I’ve never been to Universal Studios. The
train ride was pretty long because we headed to the far south west corner of
the Berlin area. It took about 40 minutes then we took a bus for about 10
minutes give or take. The film park was one of the most expensive places we
have visited at a whopping 17€. The first thing we did when we got
there was go to the stunt show at 2:30. It was really cool. Then we walked
around the park for a while and rode a little kid’s boat ride. We got our
picture taken with King Kong and ventured to a medieval city and to the Old
West. The Old West was poorly done and names of places on buildings were
accurate but that might just be because its German and they forgot that English
doesn’t squish words and things together, it was still cool though. We didn’t
stay too long because it wasn’t that big of a place and we wanted to get back.
When we got back we went to the grocery store and returned
bottles and got groceries to get us through the rest of the week. Then when we
got back me and Kristin made dinner and hung out. Ryne came over later and we
had a heart to heart because he was really missing home and just needed to get
some things off his mind. Then I helped him do his laundry in the tub before we
headed to Alexanderplaz to get internet. I was showered and in bed before 2:00.
It’s nice to know I am done with everything excited hanging out and doing what
I want to do and seeing what I want to see. I have a feeling the next few days
will go really fast.
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