school vacation in BERLIN

Vacations are definitely one of the perks of this job, as I have mentioned many, many, MANY times before. This February I was perhaps overly ambitious in my travels and my budget, but I traveled for 10 days in Eastern Europe and had an amazing time. I started in Berlin with four friends from Rennes (Kelsey, Annie and Caely, who are also in their second year of the assistantship in Rennes, and Claire, who is Irish and is in her first year). We rented a lovely apartment in Prenzlauer Berg (thank you airbnb) and spent four whole days and five nights enjoying and exploring the city.

and we're off! claire and caely get ready to take flight.

Monday morning we took off from Rennes heading towards the Paris airport and arrived in Berlin in time for some grocery shopping, making dinner, and a little riesling. The first day we set out on a free walking tour for four hours, and it might have been my favorite part of the trip. Our guide, Barry, was Irish and did a great job. We learned SO much about the city, the history, the architecture, art, and German/Berlin culture. It was my first time in Germany so I was soaking up every ounce of knowledge. The tour covered almost everything: the Brandenberg gate, the Holocaust memorial, the Berlin wall, museum island, Check Point Charlie, buildings left over from Nazi architecture, and the Opera house among lots of other memorials, squares and important buildings.

pre tour - warm and psyched.

propaganda mural on former nazi air force building which is
now berlin's tax office ...

our guide barry and a part of the wall.

that's all folks.

brandenburg gate.

holocaust memorial

annie and claire 

coffee break on the tour ...

hipsta brandenburg gate.

walking along the very frozen river.

museum island.

checkpoint charlie.

checkpoint charlie was reconstructed to look exactly like it did
when the US occupied this part of berlin. it is now touristy and you
can 'pose' with a soviet or US soldier ... 

The one downside was that it was absolutely  FREEZING our first day, so hour four I think we had all reached our limit ... the freezing rain in the last half an hour didn't help either. Barry suggested a restaurant about 10 minutes away that we trekked to and discovered spätzle. Oh my goodness. It is basically a thick egg noodle/gnocchi-esque with tons of cheese. It's the Eastern European answer to mac'n cheese and it's amazing. A huge helping of spätzle and two pints later, we were ready to face the cold again and walk around before retiring for the evening.

annie and caely: thankful for spätzle.

me and kelsey: thankful for beer.

cheers to being warm in berlin.

pure love. and cheese.

Wednesday we started off heading to the Jewish History Museum and exploring the Kreuzberg neighborhood. The history museum was huge and very cool, and the architecture was very impressive. We spent a couple hours exploring the museum before we headed to Kreuzberg in search of currywurst which we found at Curry 36. I've never had currywurst, but it is essentially a fried sausage with curried ketchup and fries. Whether it sounds appealing or not, I'm here to tell you ... it is. We walked around the area everywhere before stopping for some pre-dinner drinks. When we finally made it to dinner, we discovered a Vietnamese place called Miss Saigon. It clearly made an impression considering it wasn't our last time there. A huge bowl of Vietnamese soup was exactly what we needed to stay warm for our trek back home.

outside of jewish history museum.

currywurst. yum.

beer garden.

We walked so much while we were in Berlin, but we also took advantage of the simplicity of the public transportation. I never tried the bus, but I have to say that both the U train and the S train were super easy to navigate and the map clearly indicated which stops had elevators and which stops didn't (even though we did run into some broken elevator situations ... good thing I was with some strong women!). Berlin was a really young, gritty, new, historical, artsy city - it reminded me of all the good things about New York, but more graffiti and less pretentious-ness (if that is even a word ...)

On Thursday the weather redeemed itself and we got a slow start enjoying the sun and strolling through Prenzlauer Berg, which was adorable. We stopped to get coffee and pastries and soak up the sun while we had the chance. We moseyed down towards Kreuzberg again to try Turkish food and continue our walking tour of Berlin. That night we attempted Berlin night life at a club that played way too much techno music and the ambiance wasn't what we were hoping for, but it was fun to dance together and see what happens in Berlin at night.

Friday we decided to explore a completely different area and we headed towards the western part of the city to see the Bauhaus museum. We got distracted on our way there by a food market where we tried kebabs and sausage. We finally arrived at the Bauhaus Archives, which was very cool. Our friend Kelsey suggested it and it was really really interesting especially because I knew nothing going into it. We stayed for a couple hours learning about architecture, photography and the history of the Bauhaus movement before walking back for ... you guessed it ... more German pastries. With our goal being to return to Miss Saigon for Vietnamese soup one last time, we headed back towards Kreuzberg and walked along the river to see the East Side Gallery. This is where the wall was painted on commission and is a long, diverse mural recreating the wall. In addition to the tour, this was amazing. We didn't make it until after sunset, but it hardly mattered. The art was incredible and after learning so much about the wall and Berlin's history, it was amazing to see it being reused and reconstructed.

 Saturday morning, despite rumors of a strike, we all headed off at different times in different directions, me heading southeast. Next stop Budapest ...