Beer with every meal

Hi people, I'm currently sitting in class so I figured.. what better
time to blog about Germany than when I'm not paying attention in class?

I got back to the ship last night after about two and a half days in
Berlin. We left Gdansk in the morning on Saturday and managed to get
ourselves to Berlin by about 6 in the evening on that same day. We had
booked a hostel on the ship and it was right by the main train station
which was great because after hours trying to navigate trains I really
just wanted to throw myself in front of one.

Our hostel was pretty nice, it was clean which is definitely always a
good thing. We were sharing our room with some older ladies and then
after they left, three girls from Greece who are going to study abroad
in Germany.

The first night we were not really functioning so we just went to a bar
with some SAS kids we met on the train, they were cool and their friends
told us about this cool place so we decided we might as well go out. It
was a pretty early night, we made it back to our hostel around 1:30 (yes
this is early in Europe). We had used cabs the first night out which
sucked because it was really expensive but we had no idea how to use the
public transportation and didn't have the patience to do it until we slept.

The next day we slept in a little then went to the train station to
figure out public transportation. It took a while and wasted some of the
day but we ended up being about to get a pass for 4 people for two days
for only like 8 euros a piece. Also we figured out the subway system
really quickly it's really similar to the T except that they have an
S-Bahn and a U-Bahn which are two separate systems, one is above ground
and one is below.

We went to this really cool flea market day one (Uncle Larry if you're
reading this you need to go to Berlin and find this flea market). There
were hundreds of stalls and so much good food. I didn't end up buying
much there but I probably easily could've spent a week looking at
everyone's stuff. After that we went to the Berlin Wall which was so
cool. The murals that artists painted on it were amazing. Afterwards we
went to a food stand and got sausage and currywurst and french fries it
was so good, German food is great.

We went out that night to a club that was full of so many Semester at
Sea kids, it usually ends up being that way. I obviously was only
drinking water there because although I'm technically legal to drink
alcohol in Germany, I'm not in the United States so I think I'm just
going to wait until I turn 21 to try alcohol.

The next day we went to some more of the tourist spots in Berlin. We saw
their government buildings then went to the Holocaust Memorial. We were
super upset because the museum part of the memorial is closed on
Monday's so we couldn't get in. We then went to the Topography of Terror
which was the main center of Hitler during his time ruling Germany (I'm
pretty sure this is right but not 100%). It had original pieces of the
Berlin wall and a free museum that went from the rise through the
holocaust to the downfall. It was a big open room and you walked through
and looks at pictures that told the story, it was really cool I don't
think I've ever seen a museum like it. After that we went to Checkpoint
Charlie and randomly found this beach thing in the middle of Berlin and
hung out there for a while. After that we went back to our hostel to
take a break.

That night we decided we couldn't handle going out again, instead one of
my friends found this really good burger place called Burgermeister so
we decided to venture there for a late dinner. It was in the middle of
the ghetto so I felt very at home there, it was just like being back in
Brockton. The food was by far the best I've had so far abroad, I'm going
to have to see if I can get it delivered to the US.

When we got back we book our transportation for the next port. We
definitely learned our lesson from this one about waiting until the last
second to book stuff. The next morning we had a bus ride back to the
ship in Rostock and got right back on the ship exhausted from the last 5
days.

We're getting off the ship next in Antwerp, Belgium and I'll be spending
two full days there. Then on the 16th I'll be in Amsterdam for the day,
then I'm taking a night bus on the 16th to Paris where I'll be from the
17th to the 19th when I'll be taking a train back to the ship at Le
Havre. I'll try to post again sometime during that trip.