Berlin

Berlin is absolutely fantastic and at some point i would love to live there. It was more expensive but only proved how cheap Poland is. I arrived on Thursday, immeadiately you could tell you were in Germany because the stations were properly marked, in poland they basically only have one sign at each station so when you fall asleep its hard to tell where abouts you are. However Germanys public transport system was fanatastic, if a little pricey. checked into the hostel and waited around a bit until Ryan and Kate arrived, the other GAPpers coming. Stumbled across a parade/protest as i was just walking around, however as i was walking towards a dead end (i didnt realise when i entered the street) i was unable to get close enough to see exactly what the group of people were doing. We went and found Ryan's hostel, it had 900 beds and to qoute Ryan "was big and scary" and also ironically hard to meet people. So we spent more time at ours, plus ours was closer to the city centre. Saw plenty of people with shaved heads drinking beer in the streets and plenty of police around, didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Friday
Thought we ahd better do something today so we went on a tour of the city. Got to see Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, holocaust memorial, hitler's bunker, checkpoint charle, the wall and much more stuff. After the tour we went back to check out charlie a bit more and to read some of the stuff we couldnt while on the tour. However now it was starting to get cold and i had only a t-shirt so we decided to head back to the hostel, it was getting late-ish as well. The weather was fantastic apart from this couple hour period of showers and cold. The rest of the time it was fantastic and the sun was out in full and there were no clouds, plus i wore t-shirt and shorts for the first time. That night we went on a pub crawl, kinda like the one we went on at schoolies. met heaps of people and at leastfour oher Australians, one of whom was from Perth - this impressed kate as this was the first person she has met from her home city while over here. anyway we headed home about 3 so we could be up at 10 to go to Potsdam.

Saturday
No sign of Ryan, when we left he was still at the club. Turns out he headed home about 5 but fell asleep on his tram - he only got home at 9 so was probably asleep when we were messaging him. Potsdam was a favourite place for Prussian rulers to get away from the city life and also a current getaway for Germans who want to shed their worries and clothes. There were fantastic palaces everywhere - one of which held the Potsdam conference and we saw the room were it took place, we weren't allowed to go in though. We got to see Frederick the Greats palace and we were listening to what he had done to earn his title when i was phoned by my parents (quick note, that used up all my credit so thats why it cut out and why you probably couldn't call back), so i don't know why he was called frederick the great but it has something to do with winning the seven years war. That night we decided to have a quite one and went out to try a couple of local brews.

Sunday
Went to climb the dome in the Reichstag - got some fantastic views of the city and then went to Tiergarten which is a big park in the middle of the city. We were warned to be wary of more nudists but we were unable to find any. That night Ryan did another pub crawl while Kate and i went out with a Canadian from our hostel.During the night we ran into Ryan and his group which was a disgracful 15 down five fold from friday night. so we hung out with them for a bit, including 3 more peole from Perth, then went home.

Monday
Today i spent by myself. Firstly went to the Pergamon museum which contains a recreation of the Ishtar gates from Babylon and also alot of antiquities from ancient greece so i found that pretty awesome. Then went for a stroll around to check out more of Berlin. Went to see the exhibition Topography of terrors which is located on the previous site of the SS offices. After which i realised i should be heading back. The school had given me a heap of food so i had hardly eaten anything local so i got a currywurst and i thought it appropiate to eat a donut. Got back to the hostel and collected our bags and we headed off for our train.

Earlier blogs may have unfairly portayed the food as not being very good, however i have come to my sense and realised that the food at the school is fantastic, including amazing soups, and has been for most of my time here, the first two weeks took a bit of adapting.