Thursday 13 March 2008

dark clouds over berlin

hi! today is my last day in berlin and the heavens have opened up :O so im chilling in possibly the cheapest internet cafe in the universe with a coca cola
been doing lots of stuff since I last typed so ill give you a rundown

on the 12th I bought like this Berliner Mueseum Pass it was like 9.50 euros for students and got you entry to most of the mueseums in Berlin for 3 days! Alot of the main muesuems are really close together on mueseum island in the centre of the city so I tried to get round a few!

I started at the national gallery and saw some fine arts nowhere near as impressive as the collections in Paris but still some stars.




then to the Pergamon mueseum which really is like a definite place to visit if you guys ever go to berlin, it houses loads of ancient monuments and stuff that have been excavated and rebuilt in this massive mueseum one of the highlights is definitely the pergamon gate you got a free audio guide thing too to guide you around the whole mueseum so I learnt a ton about ancient history! it really is unlike any other mueseum ive been to!

just round the corner was the egyptian mueseum which has one of the best collections of egyptian sculptures in the world i got a free audio guide there too and it rocked out some really cool information about Egypt that night me, Jane & Kate (from australia) and Erin (from montreal, canada) ate at this really cool restaurant underneath one of the train stations it had big high brick ceilings and awesome columns and paintings on the wall and every time a train went over the whole place would rumble it was really cool and had a great atmosphere even though they didn't like giving us tap water, i had like the biggest burger in the world !
yesterday I saw THE TOPOGRAPHY OF TERROR an exhibition about the SS and Gestapo in the excavated remains of their secret HQs basement where they used to intensively interrogate innocent dudes it was very shocking and interesting and well presented, eavesdropping on the tour guide next to me was good too!

after a coffee and cake break we went down to the Mueseum of Jewish History and learnt all about jews and jewish stuff it was in this crazy building designed by a dude called Daniel Libeskind with like these big weird empty voids and disorientating gardens it definitely was moving and informative and not the big dusty boring mueseum i was expecting

after a pretty heavy day of history we thought we would treat ourselves and indulge in some german delicacies at the massive food floors of Ka De We (the german equivalent of selfridges)

we sampled the finest saurkraut ,currywurst (region of berlin speciality basicallz a sausage covered in spicy tomato sauce and curry powder) and rostbratwurst it was super tasty!

then we went to an irish pub drank far too much berlin style beer and rocked out some oasis covers it was fun!
now im checked out of the hostel, my bags are in the luggage store and im ready for my flight to Barcelona at 5 this morning where im meeting this australian girl, Ellen who I met in paris, shes been there for a few days now so hopefully ill get a tour
australian girls love me!
speak soon
sam x

2 comments:

Dean said...

"jews and jewish stuff" hahaha. It's been pretty bad in the Netherlands recently, but today it is gorgeous. I have the window open and the sun is blazing in. Hopefully it stays like this for when you get here! Enjoy Barcelona.

David Golden said...

hi sam, glad u enjoyed Berlin. Look forward to your first posting from Barcelona. Done any washing yet ?