Berlin Trip #1

As noted in the previous post, I have been lagging on my blog posts and, if you read the last post, you know why I have been lagging. So now, I am going to post about something that happened way back on Oct. 15th. I went to Berlin for the first time. Berlin is only 90 minutes away from Magdeburg by train so it is quite accessible for day trips or übernachten (overnighting). So me and another participant decided to go to Berlin the weekend of the Oct. 15th-16th. This weekend marked the beginning of the Berlin light festival when all the major monuments are lit up. Sounds great right? Well, we arrived early morning Saturday to meet another CBYX participant who was assigned to live in Berlin (lucky much?). So we had a free place to stay overnight which was great! While we were walking to where this participant lived I quickly noticed that the street we were walking on had special meaning to me. The road was named "Clayalle". That basically means "Clay Road". I was on my very own road in Berlin! What more could I ask for? Well apparently I could ask for there to be a dentist on this street with a sign shaped like a tooth with "Clayallee" written on it because that is what we found.

So we took a mini tour by foot through the city and see some stuff...one of which was the Ritter Sport store in Berlin. I was in heaven! It is a two-story building devoted to nothing but Ritter Sport! They had all kinds of Ritter Sport chocolate and merchandise. You could also make your own Ritter Sport bar out of your own ingredients. Me and my group just poked our heads in and didn't get to participate in any self-designed Ritter Sport making since the store was packed full of people. So after walking around Berlin a bit, night came and it was time to view the light festival in all of its glory. I think it was the first night the light festival was going on and I think Berlin was easing into it since I don't think nearly as many monuments were lit as should have been...but it was beautiful nonetheless. We went to the Brandenburg Tor and saw it in all its glory.

Side note! The Brandenburg Tor is right next to the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out of the window to show his fans. It is the Adlon Hotel and if you need your memory jogged about the incident here is a complimentary photo for you. I really don't know what I was more excited about...seeing the Brandenburg Tor or seeing that darn hotel.

As we wondered away from the Brandenburg Tor we came across a small protest. I will let the picture below explain what it was about.

Yes, the "We Are The 99%" movement is in Europe

I almost forgot one major part of this story. I was nursing a minor eye infection this entire night. It came on very quickly. The morning we arrived in Berlin I was fine but by that same night things were coming out of my eye (just the right eye) that should not have been coming out of it. It really kind of put a damper on the night since one kind of needs eyes to see a light festival. Anyway, the whole night I kind of kept quite and kept to myself as I was feeling like a disgusting cesspool of disease. The whole night we were getting on and off of trains and I barely remember doing it since I kind of put myself into this "zombie" mode. I was so repulsed/worried about my eye that all I could do was walk with the others as not to be left in Berlin alone but what we were doing or where we were going was really not important to me. Not to fear though. I woke up the next morning and my eye was almost 100% better which was sad since I was really looking forward to going to the doctor in Germany. Haha. Anyway, there you have it. My first experience in Berlin was made of the stuff of dreams. One Michael Jackson hotel, one half-assed light festival, one Clayallee, and one oozing eyeball. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

If you look closely at my left eye, you can see how watery it is. Poor me.