Berlin!!!

Also. Berlin war total ausgezeichnet, und ihr alle gehen solltet, wenn ihr eine Reise nehmen wolltet (So - Berlin was incredible, and you should all go whenever you want to take a vacation).

Berlin is one of the most vibrant cities I've ever visited. Although it is smaller than many of the major centers of the world (3.43 million), it has more character and more liveliness than pretty much everywhere I've ever been. It has by FAR the best young/hip/party scene in Germany, and many of the city's top-notch bars and clubs don't even get going until 1 or 2 in the morning, especially on weekends. On the other end of the spectrum, Berlin is the home to world class museums and cultural events such as one of the best symphonies in the world and the Berlinale international film festival; unfortunately, we only spent 3 full days there, with a half day on Wednesday.

So what exactly did we do? Here is an overview of what I did in Berlin:

We arrived mid-afternoon on Wednesday, via bus from Regensburg. We stayed at a youth hostel which, while not the most glamorous of accommodations, served our needs more than well enough for a cheap price and free breakfast/dinner. Shortly thereafter, we walked a short distance to Potsdam Platz, a major city square where the Berlinale Film Festival was being held. The Berlinale is an international festival home to debuts of many different films and is a fairly prestigious venue for those films which are chosen and especially those films that win. We walked past the Berlinale-Palast, the center "palace" of the festival, and the red carpet.

After that, we walked around a lot and just explored the area, going past the Holocaust memorial (formally known as the "Denkmal fuer die ermordeten Juden Europas," or the "Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe") and the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). We also passed an intriguing memorial to the homosexual community murdered in the Second World War, which consisted of a simple concrete booth with a window that showed a continuous film of two men making out.

After dinner back at the hostel, a group of us headed out for a guided Pub Crawl (Kneipe-Tour) that involved a very large amount of beer and Irish people. Needless to say, it was rowdy and I didn't take my camera out.

The following day we woke early for a guided tour of the city via bus. Our tour guide, who naturally spoke only in German, was a classic example of the "Berliner-Schnausse," (literally Berlin Nose, basically saying that they hold themselves to be better than anyone else) and he continually talked down to us and was all in all not very fun. He did know a lot about Berlin, though. During this tour we stopped at the Holocaust memorial and actually took the time to examine it in daylight and walk through it - it is an extremely powerful monument, and should not be missed by any traveler to Berlin.

The idea behind this monument is to attempt to capture the feeling of helplessness and powerlessness of the Jews during Hitler's Reich. The monument, physically, consists of 4.7 acres of land over which are evenly spaced 2,711 concrete slabs of varying sizes. People should feel the utter inhumanity of this seemingly ordered area, and be scared by it.