Berlin By Night

After some amazing daylight hours, we decided it was time to see the one and only, main attraction of the city, and a reason to visit in and of itself, ladies and gentlemen I present: THE BERLIN WALL.

Sophie, Taylor, Ally, and I went to the East Berlin Gallery, so the part of the Berlin Wall that is painted and decorated every ten years to demonstrate humans rights and peace and other progressive messages. My mother would have loved it. Never before had I really thought too seriously about the Berlin Wall. Most of the history classes I have enjoyed only go up to around the World War Two. I just never really addressed the seriousness of the Berlin Wall. Actually seeing this physical barrier that had divided a city in half, I cannot help but feel a more emotional attachment to such an influential time in history. The artwork that adorned the walls was breathtaking and very moving, although I have to admit I didn't always understand it... My German is still developing... slowly. But I had a few favorite. One was the wall painted on the wall, but there were little holes in which you could see the sky. Above the painting was "You can see infinity." Another one was a comic strip type painting with super hero type characters. The caption said, "Save the world. Get human." Overall, the wall was very moving and I loved seeing the painted part.

After the wall, the four of us decided a dinner celebration of our day in Berlin was in order. After getting nice and dressed up, we went and enjoyed a very German ethnic meal.. of Japanese noodles. But seriously, again it was so delicious and we had an amazing time. Then, we met up with the other 34 Miamians haunting Berlin and decided to partake in our first pub crawl! Honestly, I'm always under the impression that we should do a pub crawl in every city. It's such a great way to see the night life and have a great time. This one, called the 666 tour, was very interesting and brought us to some places we never would have gone to. The first was a bumble bee theme, which of course, I LOVED this. Then, because there were so many of us, we had to be divided. To our amusement, we could not help but yell that one half was East Berlin, the other West. Our group went to a bar that really defined our night, The Last Cathedral. Turns out it is a gothic themed bar, but more towards the Medieval ages. The lights were made of fake skulls, fake blood (hopefully all this was fake) adorned the walls, and the costumes were a little out of our sphere. One guy had on horns and most of the women had one long dresses reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. These Miamians were their pink polos and Ugg boots were a little bit out of place, as can be imagined. We went to a few more bars and had an amazing time. Honestly, it was great to get to know other people on the program! And Berlin really is one odd city, but so fun.

The night ended late and the morning started early as we began our long trip back to Berlin... but that's another story.