Enmodes Week! Team Michelangelo proposed solutions for the mobility, ergonomics, and failsafe methods. We had two long work days before our final presentation to the Enmodes team. A group of us went to old AiB for an Easter Egg Hunt for a nice work break. We travelled to Aachen for our presentation and enjoyed a nice burger lunch to celebrate all of our hard work! We kept celebrating by going to see the operetta Die Fledermaus which was truly a cultural experience. The sets, costumes, makeup, and dramatics made for a really good show, even if we couldn't see the captions in English. On Friday, we finished the week with classes and a group of us went to Cafe Especial and Jules' boyfriend, Richard, joined us. For the weekend, a group of us headed to the Black Forest. We stayed in on a farm outside of Freiburg im Breisgau and got to pet the cows on the land. We took a walk through the town center to get to our hike and toured the church on the way. We hiked into the Black Forest that was truly dark within the dense evergreen trees. We made it up to the lookout point and laid on a bench for an hour just soaking up the sun. We went back into town for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and enjoyed a night out in the country away from the city. Camryn, Nate, and I spent a nice Sunday walking around Bonn before finals week.
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Week 15: Easter Weekend in Munich
After a long day of working on Enmodes, Camryn, Daniel, Jules, and I went to the local carnival across the Rhine. The rides were so fun! With the beautiful weather, Camryn, Daniel, Isabelle, and I ate dinner outside at one of the restaurants we walk pass everyday on the way to school. Nate, Jules, and I played soccer in the Hofgarten of the University of Bonn. Everyone has been outside soaking up the sun, so we walked through Botanical Gardens. To end our school week, we took a bike tour to Remagen down the Rhine. The weather was not in our favor on the way there, but the rain added an extra element to make it more memorable. We toured the peace museum and had a nice group lunch together. Jules and I biked back following Dr. Wasser, but he quickly outpaced us. As soon as we got back to Bonn, Jules and I hopped on the train to Munich for Easter weekend. We got brunch in the Marienplatz and saw the famous glockenspiel. We took our time looking through the Munich Residenz hall covered in art and sculptures, then rushed through 90 palace rooms. We went to the same Hofbrauhaus that my family went to in 2017 and this time I was finally able to drink! We met a group of Germans on a handball team celebrating their end of season in traditional lederhosen. They invited us to a local brewery and enjoyed the night out with them! The next morning, we set out to hike the Bavarian Alps. We walked through the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and ended up at the Olympic Ski Stadium that hosted the Winter Olympics in 1936. I took my first ever gondola ride up the ski mountain, so we could get the best views possible. We leisurely hiked down and ate our picnic lunch with views of the rolling hills during golden hour. On Easter Sunday, Jules and I went to mass in German at the Asamkirche in Munich. We had champagne with the Priest and Deacon after mass and learned more about the history of this church. It was a beautiful, baroque church built by 2 brothers, a painter and an architect, to showcase what they could build for other churches and was untouched by the war. We spent the rest of the day at the Chinese Tower Beer Garden in the famous English Gardens. We walked through the gardens, kicked around a soccer ball, and took a nap in the sunny field and was awoken to being surrounded by a flock of geese. This was definitely a memorable Easter Weekend in Munich.
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Week 14
Once we got back into Bonn from Austria, all of the trees were green and the cherry blossoms bloomed! Jules and I went to the Altstadt to see the famous cherry blossom street in Bonn. I appreciate the spring season so much more after enduring such a cold winter. After classes, I hang out with friends, get boba, thrift and window shop, make dinner with friends at my apartment and make fun of reality TV which is pretty similar to what I would do in College Station. For our intercultural workshop with Rike, we had to put together a little presentation about our time here. I recapped all of the cities I have visited in Germany and realized how much I am going to really miss Bonn and living in Germany. Compared to my first few weeks here, I have become much more independent, confident, and decisive. I have had so many new cultural experiences and have made memories and friends that will last a lifetime. One of those memories is getting locked out of my apartment after clubbing in Bonn. Jules, Camryn, Daniel, and I went to Untergrund and danced our hearts out at caliente night. As we are walking back to my apartment, I realized that I left my key in the apartment and both of my roommates are out of town. Not only was I locked out, but Camryn and Daniel's house keys were also in my apartment. After waiting an hour in the cold on the curbside for a locksmith, we found out it would cost 600 euros with a wait time of an additional 2 hours. We called the AiB emergency number and Emily let us stay in the loft of one of AiB's buildings for the night since it was already 3am. The next morning, I called a locksmith during normal operating hours and was able to get into the apartment for much much cheaper. Having learned my lesson, I will always double check if I have my key!
Week 13: Vienna
Week 12
What I thought would be a normal week in Bonn, turned into Isabelle and I moving out of the apartment because our roommate got COVID. We didn't want to risk testing positive before our Study Trip to Vienna next week, so we relocated to the Bonnox Hotel. We adjusted to having a longer commute to AiB and made the best of it. Nate took Jules and I on a hike just behind his neighborhood for a view of the city at sunset. After our physiology exam, we went out to a huge green field by Drachenfels Castle to play soccer. The weather is finally warming up and Spring is here! On Saturday, Jules and I took a day trip to Braunfels, Germany. We missed our connecting train on the way there, but we were able to spend time in Koblenz which was a really pretty, friendly German city and walked along the Rhine. We visited the castle that the Schlitterbahn Castle is modeled after in New Braunfels, Texas and hiked around the gardens for the day. When I got back to the Bonnox Hotel, the fire alarms were going off and I wasn't able to get back in til midnight, but thankfully, it was a false alarm. On Sunday, Jules and I met Nate and his friends in Aachen for a soccer game. We got beers and wursts and cheered with the old German men banging on drums and waving banners, flags, and threw confetti in the stands. Even though we lost, it was such a fun experience and we walked around the market and of course, got ice cream to end a great weekend.
Week 10-11: COVID and Spring Break
The morning of an Enmodes presentation, Nate tested positive for COVID, so my classmates and I got officially tested. Isabelle, my roommate, also tested positive. I also felt under the weather and stayed home from school after being in such close contact with them. After zoom classes for the week, we were on Spring Break! Jules, Avery, and I travelled together and enjoyed the week off from school. We visited art museums and castles, hiked, and celebrated Avery's 22nd birthday and Saint Patty's Day. After being out of Bonn for a week, I got homesick and realized how much I will miss Germany.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Week 9: Dresden, Germany
March was the start of lent, so I deleted tik tok and spent more time outside. Camryn and I treated ourselves to a steak dinner and binged watched the new season of Love is Blind! After class and thrifting for new sweaters, Jules, Nate, and I walked along the Rhine and enjoyed the sunset. For the weekend, we visited Dresden in Germany. The city center on the Elbe River was beautiful. We went to the history museum to fully appreciate the reconstruction done after the whole city was bombed in WW2. We went to the porcelain museum that had an extensive collection of the most beautiful porcelain I have ever seen. We made a charcuterie board with cheeses from Dresden's famous cheese shop and enjoyed a night in with wine and more Love is Blind. The next day, we got brunch then walked through an art museum that had my favorite landscapes that I've seen so far. We went to the math and physics museum and the man working gave us a little tour of the old clocks to practice his English. We took the bus out of the city to see 3 palaces and walked around the vineyards and gardens. On Sunday, we spent the whole day hiking the Malerweg in the Saxon-Switzerland National Park. After an incline straight up, there was a cafe with a campfire, so we stopped for a hot drink with the rest of the Germans. We hiked to our first look out point and that's when I realized I lost my phone. We tracked it and went back to the cafe, but it was not there and now my phone was moving on Find my iPhone. Nate ran ahead to catch up to it and left Jules and I to converse with this older German couple who did not speak any English and would not give me my phone back until I proved to them that it was mine. Luckily, I had my apple watch, so I could ping it and finally got it back after 5 minutes of trying to explain over a huge language barrier. We made it back to the first look out point of the hike with a beautiful view of huge rock structures and to top it off, it started snowing! We crossed the bridge and found a spot to eat our picnic lunch. We continued our hike farther into the forest and with the snow and little German cabins, the scenery was like out of a fairytale. The hiking path led us along the highway and by then, the sun had set. We hiked down a narrow passageway in between rocks in the pitch black and made it out to a castle to finish the hike! We made it on the last bus running for the night back into the city and met Raphael from Brazil who was also hiking in the national park and we all got dinner together. After a full weekend of seeing all of the sights and taking in the nature, Dresden has been my favorite city I have visited in Germany!
Friday, April 8, 2022
Vienna after 5 years
After waiting 5 years, which when you say it, doesn't sound long, I have finally visited Vienna. It far exceeded expectations. It may have been the exceptional weather we had for the first two days, but the city was so beautiful. One could say it looks a lot like other European cities but this one had it's own little quirks and half the city wasn't bombed out so there were a lot of historical building that looked well kept. Berlin still has bullet holes and disfigurement in buildings, but that adds character to that city. I digress, we hit the ground running by seeing a crypt where there were 4 mummies inside. One of the cooler experiences I've had. The Viennese have a funny relationship with death and the humor they use in their advertisements, drawings, and construction work are rather dark, but that's how I like my humor so it works out. Every where I turned there seemed to be huge, ornate buildings all around. My favorite by far was the Natural History Museum, and the fact that the building in all its ornateness was intended to be just that. The time in Vienna flew by and I went to Salzburg the weekend of the trip to Austria. The ride to Salzburg was overcrowded and stressful. I have never experienced a train ride like that before. Once we made it to Salzburg it made it better. It snowed while we were there which was both magical and frustrating. I wanted to see the mountains so badly, but the snow was beautiful as well. The castle at the top of the hill was a bit disappointing. I think they dod what a lot of museums and historical sights have done during the pandemic and reconstructed and remodeled the interior to have white plaster walls and information plaques with minimal decor or art as it was back in the day. We went to another crypt but it wasn't as good as the one Dr. Wasser showed us, which he said would happen. Now I'm on a lookout for an even better crypt to be able to one up him.
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Stuttgart
1/29/22-1/31/22
In my sole blog entry, I mentioned that
my next post would cover my late-January visit to Stuttgart. I am proud to announce
that that promise has now been fulfilled! Two months later. I know, hold your
applause. I want to thank my dedicated readers, who have stuck by me through
thin. You guys are the real heroes. And so without further ado, a weekend
in Stuttgart.
Classes ended early on Friday, so Jarrett, Isabelle, Emily,
and I took advantage of the extra time and hopped on a train to Stuttgart after
lunch. We spent the journey talking and occasionally throwing a glance in the
direction of our BMEN homework. Oops. Once we arrived, we headed to our rental unit
where we were greeted by our Airbnb host. He was a Greek man who spoke extremely
accented German and not a lick of English, which made for an interesting challenge. But
as much fun as I had trying to decipher his hurried instructions, I had an even
better time realizing that he had tried to tell us just how easy it
was to flood the shower. I guess experience really is the best teacher. Shortly
after that lively cross-cultural dialogue, I found myself in a similar
situation at the Altes Schloss Museum in downtown Stuttgart – only this time
with more success!
We took a bus into Stuttgart to try and purchase tickets for
an exhibit in the old palace of Stuttgart. During a futile attempt to speak
German with the front-gate attendant, I panicked and accidentally let out a vale
– “okay” in Spanish. He looked very surprised for a moment and then immediately
asked me ¿Hablas español? He proceeded to tell me that he was actually from
the Dominican Republic!He was very excited and relieved to find someone
speaking any semblance of Spanish. I was still very flustered by what exactly
had just happened, but I kept up well enough to find out that he liked A-Rod
and that we could buy the tickets inside thank you very much have a nice day
and enjoy your time in Stuttgart. So that was fun! Turns out the museum was closing
soon anyway, so we didn’t stay very long. Instead, we tried a nearby Brauhaus
for dinner. Das Essen hat geschmeckt! Then we headed
to the nearby Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, where we explored the first floor
for a while and saw some lovely modern art. Tired, and facing a long day Saturday, we called it quits for the night.
Saturday was a
day of trees, cars, and more than nineteen miles of walking. We got up earlyish
and caught the first train to Pforzheim, famous for its proximity to the Black
Forest, jewelry industry, and near-total destruction by Allied area bombing
during WWII. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend any time in the city itself,
but that was okay – we walked more than ten miles of trails in the Black Forest
instead! It was gorgeous, and my favorite moments were when we left our path
and just explored the trails around us. There isn’t much more commentary I can
make on a forest, but I can assure you it was very pretty.
We arrived back
in Stuttgart and rushed to the Porsche Museum before it closed. Both Mercedes-Benz
and Porsche are headquartered in Stuttgart, making it a sort of destination for
car lovers. This museum didn’t disappoint! Gorgeous cars abounded, but my
favorite was the full-scale reproduction of Sally Carrera, the love interest in
the movie Cars – and also a Porsche Carrera. We left impressed, satisfied, and
very hungry and tired (it was a very long day). We tried four different
restaurants for dinner and were turned away at each one – they required reservations
– before landing at a sushi place. There we were instructed to eat as quickly
as possible before the party who reserved the table arrived. Never a poor
sport, I obliged. We ended the
night back at our Airbnb with a lively discussion of work ethic, class, and the
role of laziness in American society. Quite the nightcap.
Sunday was just a
travel day, but I was able to finish my book, The Sot-Weed Factor, on
the ride back, as I noted in my previous post. The next book on my list is Down
and Out in Paris and London by everybody’s favorite, George Orwell. And now
a spoiler alert since I’m writing this post very much after the fact...this book
was awful, 4/10. The writing itself was good, and Orwell had some interesting
commentary about the cycle of poverty in the early 1900s. But did we really
need a fourteen-page chapter devoted to chronicling the slang of the British
poor? Really? And honestly, just one description of the squalor of French
kitchens would have been enough – I promise, I get the picture. Nevertheless,
here's a quote from the worst of all the books I’ve read this year:
“It is a feeling
of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and
out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs – and well, here are the
dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of
anxiety.”
-George Orwell, Down
and Out in Paris and London
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Feburary Recap
So a lot has happened this month. The school has definitely picked up at this point and this trip no longer feels like a vacation. Evidently, it shouldn't have in the first place because I came here to study not just explore, but now it's time to get into grind mode. I have gotten to get to know everyone a lot better. I have spent a lot of time at Katie's apartment after class where I and Camryn go a lot to hang out, study, and watch tv sometimes. I do wish I had my own apartment as well but that was not in the cards for me this trip. At this point, we have gotten pretty far with our end modes project and I am currently in a group with Avery, Emily, and Isabelle our main focus for our part of the project is catheterization sites. We are leaning more towards the femoral artery versus the subclavian artery which was initially proposed by enmodes themselves. As we do more research the femoral artery is looking less and less ideal due to there not being much research that supports a long-term catheterization that can also help the patient be mobile. We are still researching at this point but we see what we come up with finally to present for our project. Physiology has proven to be a little bit of a difficult class for me that requires a lot more attention and time from me rather than what i anticipated, I enjoy it very much but I definitely will need to put more time into it. Medical history is such a fascinating class, I have learned so much about how medicine originated in all parts of the world and how each place has influenced the other one way or another. I love pharmacology and the discussions we have in it with Dr.Fate, it is by far my favorite class this semester. Genetics is alright, I enjoy the subject I just hate the timing of the class since it's taught at A&M, and I and Avery have to zoom into it pretty late each week. And my least favorite class is my medical writing one, the teacher is great but the class is just so tedious, I understand that being able to write is important but we have new writing assignments due every week and I don't necessarily enjoy doing that all the time. In the long run, this class will help me out with my future career but for right now it's just another class I have to get through to graduate. Well, that's it for February. It's crazy to think that I have already been here for 2 months and only have 2 months left.
Making new Friends
I forgot to talk about this in my Berlin post, but my favorite time there was when we became friends with these two Irish dudes at a bar one night. That night Camryn, Katie, Jarett, Jules, Isabelle Nate, and I all went out to the bars in hopes of having a good time. As soon as we get to the bar these two dudes our age let's call them Nick and Chase (because I truly don't remember their names but that's not the important part of the story) invite us over to sit with them at their table. At first, we were hectic but then we were like what the heck we came here to meet new people so let's meet new people. We get to talking and they are our age, go to school and are from Ireland. Chase lived in berlin and nick was coming to visit him that weekend. They were extremely cool and we ended up talking to them all night. They met in grade school and have been friends ever since. They told us what it was like living in Europe and how they grew up there, their school system was very different but similar in some of the social aspects. They told us about their perceptions of America and we told them about our perceptions of Europe. As the drinks kept coming our life stories kept flowing and we all had such a good time. At one point this very very very intoxicated man comes to sit at the table next to us, he was a singer at a church and started singing for us. He was trying to get us to buy him a drink but we weren't gonna contribute to that so we kindly went inside and kept the conversation going. At one point we began to teach Nick and Chase the slang and lingo we young adults use back in America and they thought it was the greatest thing in the world. It was really cool talking to them and getting to know what it was like being a young adult in Europe and how so many of them know so much about America yet most Americans don't know a lot about Europe, they definitely grew up more cultured than us and I have decided that that is something that I need to work on.
Rugen
Feb 5th-7th
So I have a lot of catching up to do. After our wonderful week in Berlin, I decided to take a trip to Rugen with Katie, Camryn, and Jules. The weekend was beautiful and so much fun. From Berlin, we took a train to Rugen and it was honestly a very fun train ride. Originally we had some problems the night before with the train system, our last night in Berlin we tried getting a train back to our hotel and the train kept getting canceled every 30 mins, we would wait and the next one got canceled, this happened 4 times until we finally gave up and just took a taxi back to the hotel, because of this we were skeptical of the Berlin trains but we got to Rugen without a hitch. The first day we got there a little late but wanted to celebrate Jule's birthday so I made all of us a little fancy dinner. I made pesto chicken alfredo pasta from scratch and it was amazing! Back home I cook like this a lot and I really missed it so being able to cook was really nice for me.
The next day we went for a hike, the weather wasn't super ideal but we weren't going to let that ruin our hiking experience. The entrance of the trails was not that far from our Airbnb so we walked there and immediately once we got to the forest it was beautiful. All the trees were orange and red and it looked like a fall storybook picture. We kept walking a bit and saw this long muddy trail downhill that led to the coast, so we all decided to take it except for Camryn who was a bit nervous because this was her first real hike and everywhere was slippery, especially downhill. We make it to the bottom and immediately we call Camryn and force her to come downhill, the sight was so breathtaking. I have never seen a more beautiful rocky coast before. I took pictures and collected rocks but they do the coastline no justice, it was truly one of the most beautiful places in Germany and I cant wait to go back.
Week ten, Erfurt and Frankfurt-ish
Arrival into Erfurt was relatively smooth. Once we arrived, we located the baggage lockers so we knew that they would be there for later usage in the week. We then bought a short term city transport ticket and took a local tram to a stop near our Airbnb. Once we walked to our Airbnb, we tried both codes that we had been provided but neither code worked. We then called the owners of the apartment and they provided us with a new code to try which ended up working. We got up to the apartment where Brian we looked around at the beautiful views we could see all around us. My bed even had a window above it which I could look up out of and look out at the beautiful views of the sky. We then tried to go out to a sausage restaurant for dinner but they were all full. We then found a fire grill that we tried. It was very good but my dad was very sad that he did not get to try the other restaurant. We then went to go see the famous bridge (the Merchant's Bridge) in the town at night. Along the way, my mom found some shops she wanted to shop at the next day. The bridge is known for it's classic German looking houses built into it. It was interesting to see at night. We then went back to the Airbnb but stopped at Rewe on the way back to grab items for breakfast. I got an apple cake for dessert. It was quite good. I was going to shower that night but as I always do, I fell asleep.
The next day we headed out of the Airbnb and dropped our luggage off at the hbf. We then started our Journey to see more at Erfurt. We chose Erfurt because we wanted Brian to be able to experience a small town. I like to visit small towns because they make for nice day trips with beautiful sites. We started off by visiting the two churches that were right next to each other. They were up a long flight of stairs. The churches were both very different from each other. We then walked over to the fortress area which which was more like a flat area atop a hill. The walk up led us to an elevator with an outlook. The outlook led to some great pictures. We then walked around the fortress area for a while. After, we decided to go try the traditional sausage of Erfurt, Thuringian sausage. This was very good and I ended up eating two although I was a little cold. We then headed off to find a bakery for a dessert. We ended up stopping at two different ones as I did not want anything from the first. Then, we went to go to the bridge that we had seen last night but this time to see it in the day light. We got to walk under the bridge this time which was cool also. We then found the shops that my mom had looked into from the night before and we went into them. A lot of them were hand made crafts and such. My mom bought something for her mother and a cat figurine for her own collection. I then went to a gummy store and bought some sour strips. We then went off to find another church to go into before it started to rain. After this we went to the Anger museum. The museum housed old artifacts and art ranging over the years. We then headed to the hbf and grabbed a snack there. Our train was delayed to Frankfurt so we sat in the waiting area. We then boarded the train and headed to Frankfurt hbf. Once there we took an S-bahn to our Airbnb where we stayed in for the night.
The next morning, my dad headed to the airport and retrieved a manual car. We went to show my brother the castle that all of my siblings have been brought to. The castle is called Burg Ronneburg. Normally the castle has two peacocks roaming it but they apparently do not come out until May which I was quite sad about. After we finished exploring it, we bought a few items in the gift shop that were so cheap they blew my mind. We then headed to Gelnhausen to meet my Dad's cousin. We had lunch before meeting her and then we walked around the town. We saw the town which was where she went to grade school. We then went by her son's place so we could go by my Oma's home town, Neuses. It is a very small town. We showed it to my brother as it was my second time there and also saw my dad's other cousin. I got some really good apple strudel ice cream. After this, we went to a restaurant that overlooked the town that all of my siblings had been to and Brian was the last to go. We met up with even more family once we got there. I really do not even know how they were all related to me. We then headed home for the night.
This brings us to the morning Brian left. At 8am, my dad drove Brian to the airport to go back home and dropped off the car. My mom and I got ready and waited for my dad to get back before we headed to the hbf. Once we got to the local platform, we discovered our S-bahn was delayed because of a problem on the track and it would not be running for a while. We had to rush to the airport so we took a taxi. Once in the taxi, the DB does as it always does best and delayed our train so we did not even need to do that but it was okay. We got to the station and snacked on a pretzel before heading to Wurzburg.
Week 9, back to Berlin
Week 9 which means I am closer to going home than I was to arriving here. This week was full of stress and even some tears leading up to Thursday. We had Monday off which was an unexpected blessing but starting Tuesday, I was expecting the day to run smooth as all we had scheduled for the day was our Endmodes presentation. While I was extremely nervous for this, I did not expect what would happen when I showed up to class. Upon arrival in class, I found out that a classmate tested positive. Thankfully, I had not had any contact with him. Other people left to test. About 20 minutes later, I found out, one of the girls I had spent the weekend with ended up testing positive as a result of this second testing she did at the official German testing site (her first rapid was negative). This was not what I wanted to hear the week leading up to Spring Break and my family coming in to visit me. They would be starting to fly in the next day. I then had to go get my test and the 15 minutes I waited on my results, I was filled with panic. Thankfully, I came back negative. The presentation was a blur as my brain was still scattered from the panic that I now was in about what if I ended up testing positive this next week and it cancelled my spring break plans. I ended up going home and calling my parents and having a much needed cry. The next morning, I mentally prepared myself and went out and tested again. It again came back negative. I also had a BMEN 211 exam that which went well. Thursday was a big day for me as it was the day my parents would be landing and they were already on the plane. I went out for the test and it came back negative again. Thank goodness. I had two exams that day, the German final and the physiology retest. The retest did not go as well as I would have hoped but I was so stressed all week that I really could not have studied. After finishing this, I headed out to go meet my parents and brother.
Upon meeting up with them at their Airbnb, I led them to a doner place. I felt this was essential for them to try. I then lead them to my apartment for them to see but sadly was not able to coordinate for them to meet my host family. I then had to go back for school for math zoom. After this, we headed to a Brauhaus for dinner. They were very tired but the food was good. Their day was done for sure as they were exhausted from travel but I was not yet done with my day. I made last minute plans with an old friend, Nick who was now in the German Navy. He ended up travelling down to Bonn and we went to an Irish pub in the Altstadt. We ended up running into Jarrett and Camryn here and chatted with them for a bit before they headed out. We then went back later before he caught a late night train. On Friday, we had an early physiology class and then found out our final team for Endmodes. I will now be working on measurement, sensing, and user interface. After this, I met up with my family and took them to the market place for lunch. I then went home and finished packing my bag for lunch before our journey to Berlin started.
While checking on our train while just wrapping up a few things before I was going to leave to meet up with my family at the station, I realized that the Bonn stop for our train had been cancelled. I immediately texted my family and told them we probably needed to get to Koln asap. They got to the station before me as they were already on their way and talking to the information desk to confirm that we did not need new tickets to do this. We did not so we just had to get on the regional train and make our way to Koln. Our ICE was already expected to be a high demand train, the regional was packed. We got to Koln and I showed my family the cathedral view from the station. We then went to our platform and got on the train after a few minutes. The train was very reserved so only me and my brother got to sit together while my parents were separated. We also ended up in the quiet car but this was okay. We made it to Berlin and checked into our Airbnb. We then headed to grab some dinner which we ended up getting some Indian food. I got some spicy dip and some lemonade but the spicy dip was a little bit too spicy and I had too much before I had a drink. We then went back to the Airbnb tired from the day of travel and went to bed.
For our first day of Berlin, we started out with a tour of the city. This was on Saturday. We first wanted to go visit the wall so we headed towards the east side gallery. Upon going to the station to buy a day ticket, we could not figure out the machine and had to ask a local German woman for help. She did not speak much English but we got through enough to find what we needed. We do think we may have accidentally bought the child pass but it worked. We stopped in the East Side Mall after heading off the S-Bahn. The mall was very modern and I found the art in the mall very interesting. After our brief stop, we made our way to the East Side Gallery. We only walked down a small portion but the artwork was interesting to see. After this, we headed to Potsdamplatz for lunch. We saw the bricks on the ground outlining where the wall once ran. We also visited a memorial for the wall with information about the wall. We then headed to a hotdog restaurant for lunch that was delicious. After this, we all went to Haagen Daz ice cream for a quick snack. I then tried to replicate the same walking tour that we had gone on for our trip to Berlin for the first time. I showed my family the statue of the little walking man and told them the same story about it. I then walked them over to the Memorial for Murdered Jews of Europe and we walked through it for a few minutes. I feel it was especially important for my father as his mother was born as a Jew during WWII and her family only survived by a miracle. We then walked to the Brandenburg Gate which was one of the top places that my mom had wanted to see. After this we headed to another memorial and then the parliament building. We then headed over to Museum Island where I showed them the Berlin Dom. This was the last thing we did for this day before I took them back to the Potsdamplatz area because I wanted to shop in the Mall of Berlin area. I did not end up buying anything. We then made a reservation for Merhaba, the restaurant that we had been brought to while on our trip. They also liked the restaurant a lot. We then headed back to our Airbnb and called it a night.
For day two of our stay in Berlin, we headed over to Potsdam in the morning. The transportation over took about an hour. We got a time ticket for both of the palaces over at the older garden. We went into the back palace first. The palace was gorgeous and we got a small tour through the rooms. It was our family of four, one other lady, and the tour guide. The guide would have to say everything in German and then again in English. We all had audio guides for the bulk of the information. The experience was extremely cool since it felt very private to get to go through the rooms in these ways. We took an hour to stroll up to the front palace. There were many pretty sites along the way. A lot of the greenery was starting to come to life but was just not quite there. The front palace, was much more people and we did not have a guide going with us. We only had the audio guides but the rooms felt way more crammed. I did notice that the German audio guides were going much faster so they ended up catching up to us and leaving rooms much faster. After this, we headed onto a bus to a little Italian restaurant. After this, we took an Uber to a museum for my older brother. Sadly, we got stuck behind a car accident which the Germans, unlike Americans, block the entire intersection. What was cool for me and my brother was to see the firemen work the scene as we both work in emergency services in the states. We finally made it to the museum which was a museum of German military airplanes. My brother acted as our own personal tour guide. He knew a lot about the museums. After we did this, we walked to the bus and all of the streets around the museum (which was on an old air base) were named from famous pilots. We then boarded the bus and headed back into Berlin where we found German food for dinner. I was also craving a pretzel after dinner so we found one. We then headed back to the Airbnb for the night.
Day three, also our last day in Berlin, our original plan was to hit up the Pergamon museum but I quickly realized it was actually closed so I frantically looked for a museum that was open. I found the German Historical Museum. We then boarded the tram to go drop off our luggage at the hauptbahnhof. We did this smoothly and I was able to show my family where to do this after I remembered it from last time. We then took the U-bahn over to museum island where we headed over to the museum. This is where we found out that the museum would not be open for a few more years but they had a Karl Marx exhibit open. And really that's the story of how I have been to more Karl Marx museums in a span of a month in Germany than the rest of my life after visiting Trier (his hometown) earlier this month. We then found a burger bar for lunch. I then needed to stop at a dm for an errand and then we walked to a bank. The bank was right by the correct U-bahn that we needed also which was extremely nice. We then headed over to the station and we had plenty of time so we grabbed our stuff and headed to the track. We got to our track and waited for our flix train. This would be the first time I would ride flix train which I think would be interesting especially because it assigned us random seats but we would make it work. As we were waiting, a train full of refugees pulled in behind us. I first noticed something was happening when an increase of the volunteers came down and then a few medics showed up. It was interesting to watch this process and the volunteers each found a family to go talk to and help guide. It was also warming to see. While the time of our train was getting close, we noticed the green color of the flix train pull up behind us and then a mass of Germans switch to the platform behind us. This caused me to run over and check the train number and it was indeed ours. They had changed the platform without even saying anything (which a German speaker even confirmed to us later). We then boarded and headed off to Erfurt.