BERLIN

        Sorry for my lack of posts recently, I've been so busy! Berlin was absolutely amazing! So 4 of us girls from the program went together: me, my roommate (kelsy--from UCSB), another girl Elsa (UC irvine), and another girl named Angie (UCLA too, though didn't know her before the program). Angie left before the other 3 of us on a different flight, and then Elsa, Kelsy, and I were all on the same flight departing from Copenhagen on Thursday night of July 25th. The flight was only 40 minutes. crazy. Europe is just beyond me...like that's how long it would take to get from LA to san fran....but instead your transported to like an entirely different country, with a different language and culture. UGH I JUST WANNA LIVE HERE FOREVER! So cool....anyways, the flight went smoothly, and we arrived pretty late (around 11pm) that same Thursday. We figured out how to take the trains and subway to our hostel, which was located in the very young, artsy neighborhood of Berlin (here's their website: http://www.globetrotterhostel.de). The hostel was super cool and really cheap (a total of 63 euros total for 3 nights for each of us...and we got our own 4 person bedroom. awesome). It was recommended to me by another guy I met in my swedish program who had recently traveled on his own to Berlin and said it was located right in the middle of all the great nightlife, and where all the young people were. He was so right! We met so many interesting people, from all over the world....and unlike some hostels, NO ONE staying there was over the age of like 25. We met tons of Australians (they just love germany for some reason), people from Sweden as well, Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, just so fun. So Thursday because we checked in pretty late we didn't go out because we decided that we really wanted to go see Sachsenhausen concentration camp on Friday (about an hour outside of berlin), and needed to get up early in the morning for the all-day affair. Although I have visited Dachau--a concentration camp near Munich---that i saw with my family a few years ago, Kelsy, who's never been to Europe prior to this program, hadn't seen one. And I agreed that if you come to Germany, it's really something one needs to see.

         So here begins the story of Emma the Navigator. Note: I will now whole-heartedly admit that I am by NO means spatially aware. Like me reading a map = a HUGE struggle fest. Yet, I am the one who herded my doe-eyed American friends onto a total of 3 different trains and a bus to get to Sachsenhausen, all in about a 2 hour period. AND on top of that, little did I know (or just didn't remember from the last time I was in Germany), that similarly to the Italians, many germans just can't speak English. Say what??? Like I was honestly pretty shocked. I don't mean to sound superior by any means by saying this, but English kinda is the world's dominant language of communication. So someone working at a coffee shop outside Berlin who doesn't speak English is one thing: totally understandable. But the middle-aged woman wearing a bright red outfit sitting at the DB "Deustche Bahn" information desk at the Hauptbahnhof (aka Grand Central Station of Berlin), not being able to speak English, is a whole different story. Like whaaaaa???? So yea, on top of my spatial challenges, I had to blend my knowledge of Swedish and German together to get us to Sachsenhausen and back that Friday. And I did it all. Take that.

         Ok so Saturday: Saturday was unfortunately a bit of a setback of our whole European adventure. My friends experienced a pretty bad theft, resulting in the loss of Elsa's iPhone, Kelsy's iPhone & $1200 camera [Nothing of mine or Angie's was stolen]. So how did this happen to us when I consider myself to be super paranoid and always cautious traveler that I am? Well here's what happened: So upon our return around 6pm on Friday from the concentration camp, my friends and I took a nap and then went out to several bars and clubs with some guys we met at the hostel. So we didn't get back until pretty late that night (or rather super early that saturday morning)....so after I slept for a few hours, I got up to walk down the hall to use the bathroom (we had our own 4 person bedroom, but shared the bathroom and shower facilities with our floor; typical for a hostel and no big deal). Meanwhile let me say now because I haven't already that it was FREAKING HOT in Berlin that weekend. Like record-breaking heat they have ever had, and super humid as well. On top of that there is NO air conditioning anywhere, and rarely are there fans (like what is that about?!?!?) Hahahah my friend Elsa is such the diva of the group, and everywhere we went she would make a comment about the heat, scream "what is this a third world country?!?!" and then proceed to whip out her little gold fan and fan herself while we were walking. Hahaha. But I don't blame her for whining, because it was pretty miserable. SO, back to the story: I woke up around 7am to go use the bathroom, and noticed on my way back to my room that all the other rooms had left their room doors open because the hallway was pretty cool and had some cool air to let in. So I thought to myself, 'genius idea'!! So when I got back into the room, Angie was fast asleep, but both Kelsy and Elsa were somewhat awake, and I briefly asked them if we should leave the room door open for a bit just to cool off (thinking I would leave it open, then shut it before falling back asleep). Wellll, I fell back asleep, and unfortunately so did the other girls. We learned later that morning, that during that brief hour and a half in which we all fell back asleep with the door open, someone had come inside our room and taken the 2 phones and camera. But what made the whole thing scarier was not just the fact that these things were taken, but that the hostel was able to catch it on tape with a video camera they had in the hallway. We watched it later that morning after filing a report at the police station, only to watch a man who happened to stumble upon this opportunity and take it. It was scary to see him enter our room, not once, but FOUR FREAKING TIMES that morning while we were asleep with the door open, and watch him leave with our stuff. Ugh looking back at it now I know it was all our fault, and stupid of us to feel to comfortable when we should've been more careful. The odds of something like that happening were so slim, but yet it did happen. So Saturday was kinda a sad and disappointing day for my friends. But in the end, we realized that it could have been so much worse. No money was taken, we still had our passports and plane tickets, and none of us were hurt, which is the most important thing. So we definitely learned our lesson and to ALWAYS be careful. The hostel submitted the tape to the police, but there was no luck in identifying the man or retrieving the items. Anyways, because of that we didn't do much saturday, but to be honest it was so hot we didn't really want to do much. We went out to eat and shopped around in the hipster area of where our hostel was. That night I convinced us all to go out with some of the guys again, and we had such a great time. Oh ya, that's another thing: prices are AMAZING in Berlin (I mean, compared to scandinavia). Happy hour meant 2 beers for 1 euro. No joke. Hah, it was probably the only time in my life where I could say "hey guys, drinks on me tonight!" and actually mean it. Because I could order about 10 beers for the equivalent cost of a small nonfat latte back in Sweden...

          Sunday was so much fun. Our flight back wasn't until like 8pm which was great and so we got out into the heart of Berlin where we were able to sight see and visit the Reichstag (main capital government building), brandenburg gate, and a bunch of other really cool historic stuff (lol I forget the names). We met up with one of Kelsy's guy friends from back home who was also traveling around Europe and happened to be in Berlin same time as us. We stopped by the brandenburg gate first, and there we say these hilarious looking octo-bike things (clearly some kind of tourist attraction--8 people sit in like this ring shaped bike and then the main guy bikes it forward). We payed the guy to be able to take us to the end of the street and back, but he went above and beyond. He was literally the nicest german man ever and took us all through Tiergarten (The big park in the middle of Berlin) and was our tour guide for the day, telling us about all the historic monuments. It was great, and really lifted the other girls' spirits from the day before. Hahaha he even had little speakers that he whipped out and so I got to plug my ipod in.

So picture this: 3 american girls laughing hysterically, sitting in a bright blue circular octo-bike-thing with a german man shouting out landmarks, driving down Ebertstrasse in the middle of traffic with the Brandburg gate in the background, all while blasting swedish house mafia through giant speakers. Lets just say all the other tourists were SO jealous.