Friday, June 13, 2008

Guest Blogger Brad's Report on Berlin

We took a bus to get to the airplane, then when we got off the airplane we took a train and then we walked to our hotel. We had two rooms at the hotel and I was in the first room with grandma and grandpa and noah was in the second room with Tim. Either grandma or grandpa snored the whole night, until I got up to go to the bathroom, then they finally stopped and I could go to sleep. The time was about 23:34 in military time.

Our first day there we did a tour of the city and the guy talked about Hitler and his palace and that they used the tiles in the subway when he died. We went to the place where Hitler killed himself, the bunker. Then we went to a market and bought cheese and bread and had cheese sandwiches and they were very good. Then we got water but it was carbonated water - it was disgusting, so Noah and I were shaking the water and spraying it around. We got soda after that because we didn't get any water. Then Noah shook his Sprite for like 37 seconds and then took off the cap and it exploded everywhere, so grandma and grandpa took it from him. I didn't shake mine at all, but I accidentally dropped it so it exploded a little bit, but I didn't get mine taken away. When we left there was water spots and stickiness everywhere.

After that we walked around and looked at shops. We got some ice cream, it was really good - we had a lot of ice cream on our trip. Then we went back to our hotel. Tim went to a rock concert and I didn't see him at all. The next day we woke up, Tim was in the other room and we left, so I never saw him that day.

We did a bike tour that day and there was so many people that we had to divide into two groups and have two tour guides. Noah and I got mountain bikes and mine had a turtle horn on it (which sounded like a choking frog). Our tour guide was really funny. We passed memorials and statues. One was the TV tower and we were on the East side of Berlin. The tour guide said that when you are on the west side and you looked at the tower you could see a Catholic Cross and when we went to the west side we saw it.

We saw another one which was a bridge that let the east go to the west and there was a statue of a lady on a horse with a staff that the french had taken from the soviets and the soviets had taken it back from the french and added the staff and built a memorial to the people who died in the war. it was a old tower with a gold statue on the top that was looking over france to make sure they were being good. the americans named it the chick on the stick.

We went to a park and there was a naked guy there. we didn't see anything bad, he was just sitting there. Then we went to a restaurant and had lunch and the tour guide made jokes like "after you drink your beer you won't remember what I said and I don't care." He also said that later today we would see some bad things and that we could give him a hug for one euro per squeeze.

We went to the Holocaust Memorial which looked like cement blocks and the ground was wavy and the cement blocks went bigger and smaller. It was supposed to be like that so that it made you feel like you were in a different dimension and it had to do with Hitler and stuff but I'm not sure. The makers who did that were worried about having the memorial graffittied because there was so much cement so they hired police to make sure no one does grafitti and no one has. The tour guide said that a lot of people don't know what the memorial is for so people sit on it looking like idiots, so later we saw people sitting on it like idiots!

After the tour, Tim was just walking around the city and we were going to meet him at the hotel. We went to the tunnel thing that goes from the east to the west that has the lady on it, and there was poor people who wanted money I think and there was one that was a guy who dressed like an army man and there was a real statue next to him and there was a chair between the two guys. There were these people that were looking at him and thought he was a real statue so they got close and then he moved and they got scared. I was videotaping him and while I was doing it the guy got up from his chair and told me to come sit on his chair. Then two guys were dressed all in gold with gold paint on their faces and one guy had a high-pitched squeaky voice. We went to grandma and asked for money to give to them and Noah gave his to the army guy even though he never went near him and I gave mine to the gold guys and the one with the squeaky voice bowed to me.

There was also a clown lady and she was staring at me and growled at me but I walked away because she was scary looking.

We walked back to our hotel and met Tim and asked him questions about the rock concert and he said it was okay. I slept in the same bed the whole time. When we woke up we went to the mall and got ice cream, we were watching the football game and there was a really cool goal and one guy got trampled. After that we got on a train, then got to a train station and got on a second train that was like six hours, then got on a third train that was like an hour and then we got to switzerland.

Before we left on our second train ride I got a shirt and Noah and I got some of the Berlin Wall and a postcard and a little keychain of the money, Noah got a keychain and we both got a German flag.

My favorite part of Germany was the bike tour because we got to go zooming down the street and we got to go in the bus lane and there was a giant double decker bus right behind us. Plus we got to wave at people on the boats and they waved back. I had a lot of fun, and I'm excited to be in Switzerland now.

1 comment:

rachel said...

That was awesome. I love the alternative point of view. Good job, Brad!