Berlin and Prague were next on the list for the beginning
of the week. I arrived in Berlin late afternoon where I was meeting my two
friends Katie and Jess. I was exhausted from traveling with my family for
the week and was really excited to be back traveling with my friends where we
usually are on the same page throughout our busy days. The first night in
Berlin was spent getting prepared for the next day and catching up at a
relaxing dinner with my friends at the hostels restaurant. I was happy about this because I was starting
to feel really sick and run down and needed a night dedicated to sleep and
unwinding. We were all soundly asleep by
10pm, which helped us get an early start the following morning. We woke up on Sunday and walked down the
street to a cute little German coffee shop, ate breakfast, and hit the
road.
Our first stop was the Memorial to
the Murdered Jews of Europe. When I
first walked up to the memorial it appeared as rows upon rows of grey bleak
cement blocks. At first we were slightly
confused as to what they were supposed to represent since there was no writing
or explanation on any of the blocks. As
we continued to walk toward the center of the rows we realized that the blocks
were getting taller and taller and darker and darker as you walked more toward
the center. It gave off a bit of an
eerie feeling as it seemed more like a maze and as I walked on my own I was
worried I would lose my friends in the stretch of the tall grey blocks on the
grim rainy day. We learned afterward
that the architect who built the memorial, Peter Eisenman, the memorial was
supposed to represent the holocaust and give off a feeling of disorientation
and make people feel uneasy, confused, and lost. When you looked down one way in the cement
blocks it was different than looking another way, giving you the full effects
of losing your sense of which way was which.
It was a really powerful memorial to witness and was a really amazing
representation of even the slightest feeling of what those years must have been
like.
Afterwards we went to Checkpoint Charlie and
visited an art exhibit that had a huge panorama picture of what Berlin was like
when the Berlin wall was still up in the 1980s.
It was really amazing to see as the room turned from day to night giving
you the full effect of what it must’ve been like while the wall was still
intact. It felt like a really historical day, and we all felt really honored to
be able to see all of these things that played such a huge part in
history. All of a sudden history classes
of the past seemed much more interesting as we tried to recall facts of high
school history classes.
The next day we were off to Prague. After our 4-hour
long train ride we arrived to our hostel and were happy to settle get settled
in. However, when my friend went to pay
for stay at reception, we were told that there was a different currency in
Prague (which we unaware of) called, the Czech Crown. We though we were good a dealing with
different currencies between the Pound and the Euro, however the Czech Crown
was by far one of the most confusing things we had to figure out over spring
break. This was because 1 US dollar was
approximately 25.59 Czech Crowns, and although the conversion rate was very
good for us, we could not seem to get the hang of it during our stay. When going out to dinner and receiving a bill
of over 1000 crowns, it was a whole lot different than anything we were used
to.
The following day we spent sight seeing and
exploring the beautiful city of Prague.
Our first stop was the John Lennon was which was really cool with quotes
all along the wall and more colors than you were prepared for. There were even people there with cans of
spray paint contributing to the wall, which also resorted in spray paint on our
jackets and in our hair, but we didn’t mind too much. The rest of the day we walked around and
found ourselves at a market in a beautiful square filled with traditional Czech
food stands and Easter decorations brightening up the square. We walked around trying different foods and
making small jewelry and artwork purchases for family and friends.
It was beautiful city unlike any other we had
been to, feeling much like a fairy tale.
Although we don’t want to leave Prague we are all excited for our next
stop, Vienna, mostly to go back on the Euro, which has been sorely missed during
our short stay here.
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