I arrived here on the evening of November 8th and after settling into my room and meeting my new roommates Jocelyn, (from Seattle), Tracy (from Canada) and Guiliano (from Brazil) - I immidiately went out with the two girls in search of a bar or club to start the Berlin experience off correctly. We stumbled upon a club that had some sort of zombie/living-dead theme going on that night, and with Jocelyn disappointed about missing out on Halloween since she is living in Poland, where they don't celebrate Halloween, we decided to have at it. Got our faces made-up like vampires and zombies and enjoyed a great and interesting evening (until 5am!) in a Berlin club.To backtrack a bit, I will also note now, how Berlin (I cannot say all of Germany as I've only been in Berlin, but I assume the rest of Germany is similar) is so much more like the US than anywhere I've been thus far. English is very widely spoken and in 4 days I've only come across two people who spoke absolutely no English, one of whom could understand it though. The city is massive. The traffic is nothing compared to that of cities like Boston or New York though. Far more bikes, pedestrians, and subways and metros than traffic jams.
The history and architecture in the city is incredible, and being someone who loves history and WWII history especially, this city makes me feel like a little child the night before Christmas, all day long! In my 3 full days within the city so far, I have left the hostel every morning no later than 10am, and arrived back no earlier than 6:30pm - walking almost exclusively so as not to miss much by taking one of the various methods of public transit (u-bahn, s-bahn, bus, etc..). Yesterday for example, I left the hostel at 8:45am, and arrived back at 6:30pm and walked the whole day - even during the afternoon when it was raining.Having seen so much in the last 3.5 days, and with only one full day remaining, I feel like there is so much I haven't even seen yet, and I've been out for 8+ hours each day! Even spending time to update my blog I feel as though I'm missing out, so with that in mind, I end this post for now, and will try and get back to photo updates and sharing my journey later.
Also had a couple of firsts in Berlin, as I got my first Thai food experience, and also ate duck for the first time as well - in addition to sampling plenty of the local cuisine too. The first photo on this page also marks the first time I willingly got make-up put on for "a night out on the town." The second photo is me in front of the Brandenberg Gate, one of the older entrances to the city of Berlin, it stands on the border of East and West Berlin, and was situated in East Berlin during the era of The Wall, from 1961-1989. It was originally constructed in the 18th century though and has been remodeled since it was damaged during World War II.
