Berlin

Hanging at the pub!

If you remember, about a year ago my old friend Christoph came to visit us here in Rome. At that time we made a promise to come to Berlin and visit him on his home turf. We had been putting this off, not necessarily for any reason except that other cities held bigger draws for us. Then we found out a few months ago that my other high school friend Bryan (remember the shroom guy from Amsterdam?) sold all of his belongings and made the big move to Berlin. Why would he do this, you ask? Well, in my opinion it was a combination of a really good drug trip and love. He met a young Swedish girl on the train during his travels in Europe, and had such a good time that he decided to put school on hold and hop on another plane back to his girl.

Christoph, Allie, Bryan and Maria

With the news that Bryan was also in Berlin, we knew it would be a good time to finally get our butts out there and see Christoph. Turns out that one of our favorite bands (Jimmy Eat World) would also be in Berlin in January, so we decided to book our trip around their concert. Jules came along with us since she hadn’t been there yet either, and she also loves Jimmy.

For January the weather was surprisingly sunny, but still cold with an awful biting wind. We were staying with Bryan and his girlfriend Maria. They were so kind to put us up for the whole time for free, which saved us a ton of money! Unfortunately, the second day we were there the boiler broke and the whole apartment was without hot water for the rest of our stay!! We were basically washing down with cold washcloths and washing our (well, Allie‘s) hair only when it was absolutely necessary! Luckily with the cold weather all of our stink was hidden under layers of clothing! It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but hey, we stayed at their place for free, how can we complain??

Berlin Skyscrapers

Our first day in Berlin we did a walking tour of the city which was really cool because we had a good overview of what there is to see (Berlin is huge!) and we got a lot of cool history thrown in there. It was weird to be in such a modern city, and in a lot of ways it just reminded us of America, but with a different language. We enjoyed such treats as Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway while we were there. Oh yeah, we also tasted our first ever Starbucks espressos. Sorry guys, the café down the street is way better and a third of the price!!

Blown-out church left damaged as a memorial to WWII

Christoph was so kind to show us around his neighborhood, Kreuzberg, which is located in what used to be East Berlin (although he was born and grew up in West Berlin). He took us to have some traditional German food and we even saw an original Trabant (the old East-Berlin Communist car)!