Dresden

Dresden

On the 28th we left Berlin for Dresden. Dresden is an absolutely gorgeous city (seems like I keep saying that, I must like this style of architecture), but after Berlin fell in WWII the center of the city was bombed. No one is sure of the reason it was bombed because the war was basically determined and the city had no industry. Unlike Berlin, the citizens of Dresden decided to rebuild in the city exactly as it was. Looking at the old churches and buildings it was obvious what part of the building had been destroyed and which part had survived. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

I don’t know if you all have noticed, but my blog is not nearly as detailed as my entries from Chile. This is because my ability to use the Internet here is not so good. Every hotel charges by the hour to use the internet (this hotel in Munich charges by the 15 minutes). So, I am unable to look up and check my facts about the buildings and history. Sorry. I’m not even sure if you care, but it’s fun for me to learn more about the city I’ve visited. This is just as much an online blog as an online diary for me about my trip.

Dresden has castles and palaces and museums and small shops and beautiful churches. I really really loved this city. We stayed with the sister of my dad’s cousin’s wife (if that isn’t confusing). It was fun to meet another side of the family and they have invited me back to visit. Hopefully, I will learn some German this semester and then I can go back and actually understand the conversations and even watch TV.

When I was in Chile, the majority of the shows were American shows with Spanish subtitles. That was nice for me, and if the shows were in Spanish I could at least speak the language. Here, not a chance. Unless I want to watch CNN all day….

Word of advice…. Learn at least a little bit of the language before you go to that country or bring a lot of DVDs. I have plenty of books and magazines, but after a long day of reading information at museums the last thing I want to read is BusinessWeek or BeeWoman.

Berlin

Very early (too early for me) on the 26th Clemens, dad, and I left Borken for Berlin. On the way Clemens insisted on stopping for the best pizza ever about 30 minutes outside of Potsdam. It was good…. But the cool part of the town was this huge pink house an artist built. Just look at the picture, it’s really neat.

We stopped in Potsdam to look a palace built by a Frenchman. The grounds were gorgeous, from the outside the palace was gorgeous, but we weren’t able to go inside unfortunately.

Then, around 4:00 in the afternoon we arrived in Berlin. Our hotel is located in West Berlin surrounded by some very beautiful and modern buildings. Berlin was bombed almost to the ground during WWII so there is a mixture here of old buildings and new. This picture is of the only part left standing of the church near our hotel. The citizens of Germany left the church as it is as a monument to the stupidity of war.

On our exploration of Berlin, we hopped from subways to trains across town. We saw the Reichstag, Check Point Charlie, A Story of Berlin (the history of the city), an Atomic Bomb Shelter, the Jewish Museum, and wandered the streets looking at the differences in the buildings and between East and West Berlin. If anyone goes to Berlin, you have to go to the "A Story of Berlin" museum. At least in this museum you can get a taste of what this city is all about. Then, I would recommend the Check Point Charlie Museum and the Jewish Museum. All of these museums are very interesting and we could have spent days in each of them reading all of the information. Everywhere you look there was something else to read, but my favorite part of all of these museums was the layout. The museums were interactive and you could touch stuff. The rooms were set up almost like a maze, so literally you could get lost wandering through history. The Jewish Museum's design and layout was symbolic of all kinds of stuff. Next time I go through I want to take the tour to learn all the symbolic meaning of the slanted floors, weird windows, and odd structures. And... the Jewish Museum was not as despressing as we expected. Since the 15th century when Constantine declared Christianity to be the state religion, the Jews have been pursecuted. Everytime they built themselves up in society, they were torn back down by jealous Chrisitians. But, somehow this religion has survived all of these centuries.

"The museum itself is a work of art, blurring the lines between architecture and sculpture."

If you guys are as interested in the Jewish Museum as I am (it's so neat) here's a good link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum_Berlin

A quote to end on by Barouch de Spinoza:

Borken & Muenster

Okay everyone…. I hope you all had a very very Merry Christmas. The 23rd, 24th and the 25th we were in Borken with Clemens’s family. After lunch on the 23rd we all went into a town (about 40 minutes away) called Muenster. Muenster is a very beautiful town with old buildings and expensive boutiques (just my style J). Also, they have a huge Christmas Market. The Christmas Market is set up throughout the entire city, with little booths set up everywhere selling everything from Gluewein (a very good hot red wine with herbs and sugar) to Christmas ornaments to expensive presents to handmade crafts. It was really interesting and fun to wander through the streets of this city.

After lunch on Christmas Eve, dad, I, Lynn, Anton, Clemens, Benedict, Felix, Max, Johanna, and I piled in two cars and drive to two castles nearby. We unfortunately could not go inside the castles because they were closed (probably because it was Christmas Eve), but it was still fun to look the castles and the property from the outside. Then, when we had returned home Mechthild & Otto had placed all the presents in the living room. So, once everyone else had their presents wrapped and downstairs we started to open presents. It was so fun because everyone opened one gift at a time. Like, I opened my present, picked up a random one, and gave it to the next person. It was fun to open gifts like that. Then, after the gifts and a quick snack for supper we all got ready for Christmas Eve mass.

Just to let everyone know, I am not catholic. I am not a big fan of catholic mass, but on Christmas Eve dad and I were taken to a catholic mass spoken entirely in German…. It was a very beautiful church and the choir sang very nicely. I did not understand a single word, and I prefer my one-hour protestant Christmas Eve service…. 9 a.m. to midnight in church is soooo long…. Then, unlike Christmas Eve at home, we all went to a pub. Clemens, my dad, and his brother Max went to a church party where they had some drinks and then met up with Felix, Benedict, Johanna, and I at the pub. Everyone goes out for a few drinks on Christmas Eve. A very good German tradition I believe….

This is a picture of Otto (Clemens' dad lighting the candles on the Christmas tree)

We celebrated the 25th a lot different from my tradition at home. The tree had real candles on it that we lit before we opened presents on Christmas Eve and then again at lunch on Christmas day. Also, Clemens parents are not divorced, so I didn’t have to go back and forth between two houses. Due to not going to bed until after 7:00 a.m., Felix and I slept until nearly 2:00. I think it was perfect timing because we were up just in time for lunch. The lunch that we had was a very nice Christmas dinner with goose and all kinds of other traditional German foods. Later in the evening, Clemens’ aunts, uncles, and grandparents came over for coffee and dessert. All in all, we had a very nice and enjoyable Christmas.

Amsterdam

Wow.... Amsterdam was an experience. After about 8 hours of traveling (flight to Philly then a 6 hour flight to Holland) and probably an hour of sleep, we arrived safely to Holland. We spent 2 days exploring Amsterdam, and now I am at Clemen's house for the Christmas (Clemens was our exchange student last year).

Amsterdam is a cool city because there are canals everywhere. There is a new canal every block or so. Way back in the 1200s and 1400s, the ship owners built their houses and storage facilities close to the canals for convience. Every house has large hooks at the top to hoist furniture up and down. The steps inside the houses are very narrow, so moving is impossible w/o using the hooks. The houses are side by side, with apartments inside the houses.... Behind most of the houses is a beautiful (but small) garden, green grass area. Towards the center of the city the houses have 4 or 5 floors, but all the houses on the same block are the same size. This is because it was rude to build a big house next to a small house. So, the poorer merchants built 3 story houses further from the city, and the richer ship owners built their 4 or 5 story houses near the center of town.

BIKES are EVERYWHERE. I almost got run over I don't even know HOW many times by people on bikes. And all the bikes look like they are from the 1940s (style wise) Hans said they all look a little old because if you have a nice, new bike it gets stolen. Clemens said this style is popular because it is nearly impossible to break.

The Red Light District.... wow. Prostitution is legal here. You can find any race, any size, and any aged woman (mostly 20 to about 55) just waiting for a customer... they stand half naked in a clear glass door all over the place. If the drapes are closed, they are with a client. It was crazy... There were sex stores all over the place, even a few sex museums. Oh, and coffee shops where they don't serve coffee. Resturants and cafes and pubs do not sell pot, but they sell alcohol. Coffee shops, on the other hand, do not sell alcohol, but they do sell pot. Listen to this Dutch law. It is illegal to grow it and sell it, but they turn their head to that so they can tax the sales. So, you can sell it in a coffee shop, smoke it anywhere, but you can't sell more than 2 grams at a time and you can't have more than 30 grams in the coffee shop. Interesting.....

My dad has a friend from Holland who grew up in Amsterdam, so our second day he came to the city and gave us (Dad, Lynn, Anton, and I) a walking tour of the city. That's when we went to Anne Frank's house... it was so moving to be there.... very interesting to see where they lived and hide from the Nazi's... if you ever get a chance to check it out you really should. The steps were so narrow, the bedrooms so small.... yet it seemed as if they managed. It's so sad that most of the family survied until the last month or so of the war (after they were discovered).... poor Otto (Anne's dad...)

Around 3:00 in the afternoon Hans daughter Stephanie came and met us for a boat tour of the city. That was neat. We got on a canal boat and were given a tour of the city from the canals.... I must say I didn't pay that much attention because Stephanie and I were speaking Spanish. Later, Hans's other daughter Alina met up with us and the three girls went shopping for a few hours. The shopping here is really nice. Really really nice. Designer clothing, normal clothing, and of course touristy stuff.

I really enjoyed Amsterdam. It's fun to just wander around and get lost in a city.

OFF TO GERMANY

Hello hello....

My dad and I are skipping the holidays this year... so I will be in Germany for the next two weeks!

I'll be posting my pictures again and you guys can leave me messages and stuff just like last time :)

LOVE YA!