Bedbugs and Buses and Bears – Oh My!

Welcome to Berlin! After a long seven hour bus ride we finally arrived in Berlin, only for a few unfortunate souls to find bedbugs after taking a nap. We all went to bed slightly paranoid, but in the end sleep won.

Berlin is a city under construction much like Warsaw, and wandering around you run the risk of being hit by either a bike or a crane. Thus we ended up perfecting our trials with public transportation, busing back and forth for hours across the city. I think the food in Berlin has been one of the most amazing experiences, that and the fact that this city perfectly sums up our entire class in one city. After seeing numerous famous sites such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag Building, and some of my favorite museums of the tour (looking at you DDR museum), we had a free day to ourselves.

Wandering around the city we found a coffee shop, some amazing German food, and did just a little bit of shopping. But the highlight of this city was definitely the East Side Gallery. After the Berlin Wall fell hundreds of artists turned to make this long stretch of the wall a gallery, giving color and life to the East Side of the Berlin Wall. Molly and I found ourselves getting emotional as some of the messages and artwork colorfully displayed on such a dark part of Berlin’s history. We also hopped around looking for the numerous colorful and often whimsical statues of bears around the entire city, which are apparently the mascot of Berlin!

This is city has been amazing, and I’m so glad that I don’t feel like I missed anything major here as I have felt with some of the other cities (aka Krakow). It will be bittersweet heading back to the US tomorrow, but with the return of vegetables I think I’m going to be okay.

Katie