The First Week

View from Newark Airport

So let’s start from the beginning.  The beginning being 6:15 am on Sunday, May 25^th. That was when my plane took off from Sky harbor. Four hours later, I landed in bright and airy O’Hare Airport in Chicago. From there I flew to Newark. The last three minutes of that two hour flight were flown parallel to Manhattan Island. I saw all the way from above Central Park all the way down to The Statue of Liberty, may she forever be green. And then I landed in New Jersey. Ugh. Thankfully I was only there for a short time before I boarded a plane that would take me to my final destination: Berlin. This was the longest leg of my day of flying, clocking in at 8 hours. It was a long eight hours, full of reading, and some free movie watching. I learned that airplane meals leave something to be desired, and that the aisle seats are probably the best for fidgeters like myself. I also learned that there is almost no room for all the carry-ons allowed on a single flight. It pays to be first on the plane, people. Finally, near 8 in the morning, I landed in Berlin.

Near the hostel in Berlin

This is where the stress set in. My roommate Camille and her friend Megan were supposed to get in an hour after me, but I had no way of contacting them, so I had to wing it. I am not good at winging it when I’m in a foreign country for the first time, alone. Eventually I found them and almost cried. It took many questions to figure out how to get to our hostel from there, but eventually we made it. As soon as we checked in, we went up to our four person room and I was out.

I slept for two hours. When I woke up, we decided to find somewhere to eat. We walked for a long time, all three of us being very indecisive. Finally, we just sat at the nearest table and picked up a menu. This meal lasted almost an hour, and by the time we were done, we were almost falling asleep in our chairs. After stumbling back to the hostel, we tried to take a one hour nap, but that quickly turned into four. When we woke up, it was 9 pm, and time to drink. We went to the beer garden in the back yard of the hostel. We stayed up until 2, and finally went to sleep like the rest of the city.

Organs inside the Cathedral

View from the top of the Cathedral

The next day, we slowly got up and out of the hostel. We attempted to get to the center of the city, but being from a town with zero public transportation, we ended up taking the right train in the wrong direction. After riding the entirety of the line, we finally made it to Alexanderplatz. We decided to walk until we saw something pretty. From a distance, we spied a sliver of an old building with a turquoise top. We wound our way through buildings until we could see what we were chasing: a magnificent, stunning cathedral. The Berlin Cathedral to be exact. We eagerly paid for a tour and were blown away by its beauty at every turn. The main hall is massive, with a beautiful set of organ pipes. We climbed many stairs to the dome, where we looked through windows at the view. We climbed even more stairs and ended up on the outside of the dome. And there, that is where the best views of the city can be seen. We took enough pictures for a whole photo album, but we couldn’t resist. Nothing else seemed quite as elegant for the rest of the day.

The Berlin Cathedral

From the Cathedral, we walked around Museum Isle. Which is exactly what it sounds like: an outlet in the middle of Berlin that is comprised of nothing but museums. We left ancient history behind and walked to a place of more modern significance, the Reichstag. It is a very imposing building, gated off, but awe inspiring nonetheless. While we couldn’t go inside, we could take lots of pictures in front of it. Which we definitely did. So did the Asian tour group who seemed to be following us. They were very entertaining to watch as they bent down real low to take pictures with their big cameras. As funny as the company was, it was sobering to think how many speeches and what kinds of people had stood exactly where I stood. From there, we walked under the Brandenburg gate, stopping to take pictures like good little tourists. At this point, we had been walking all day and had worked up an appetite. We stopped at a pizza place. Not only did we make fast friends with the owner, Nico, I had the best pizza I have ever had ever. And unless I go to Italy, where Nico was from, this pizza will probably stand as numero uno in my book. We went back to the hostel then to change into warmer, drier clothes. Then we made the trek back to the airport to pick up our newest travelling companion, Emily. Still pretty jet laggy, we went to bed early.

Brandenburg Gate

The Reichstag

Best pizza ever. Ever.

The next rainy morning, we went to see Checkpoint Charlie, the only point on the Berlin Wall with a passage from East to West. More tourist pictures ensued. We walked through the extensive museum. Learning about the desperate attempts people made to get from the East to the West made me appreciate the ease of my own life. To stay in the East was death and to leave it was to risk death. Those who made the journey successfully were courageous and lucky. Very lucky. We tried our first real German food, currywurst. Which sounds pretty awful, but is really wonderful and delicious. No longer hungry, we visited the Topography of Terror, where the whole of the Nazi rule is mapped out. Aside from the horrific events we were reading about, it was also horrifically cold. When the past pains and the cold pains were too much, we went back to the hostel to warm up, and then left for Burgermeister.

Burgermeister is a very interesting place. It used to be a restroom, but is now a popular burger shack. The burgers are big and messy and yummy, yummy, yummy. We made another new friend, Erik. He works at Burgermeister and talked with us while we ate. Also note that it was totally acceptable that he take a break from working, have a beer with us, then go back to work. We agreed to meet up with him and his dog the next day for him to give us a tour of the Tiergarten. We did in fact meet Erik and his dog, Theo, the next morning. He showed us through the whole park. We also decided that when I move to Germany, I will be living in the Tiergarten. My future address is: Under That Big Tree Near The Creek With the Flowers By It, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany. Hit me up!

Checkpoint Charlie

Topography of Terror

Victory Column

Berlin Wall Memorial

We were shown more of Alexanderplatz and went to a Berlin Wall Memorial. We went back to Burgermeister that night for another round of messy goodness. We brought along some other friends for the ride as well. Emily left us to go to Prague, so the next day Camille, Megan, and I went on our next adventure: roadtripping from Berlin to Munich. Our car, Gloria, guided us flawlessly from our hostel in the capital to our hotel in Munich. The countryside was beautiful, green, full of towns with red roofs, and green. It was a six hour trip, but it was a fun 6 hour trip. I can also say that I have officially been on the Autobahn. Sometimes the speed limit is just crossed out, meaning you can go as fast as you want. We were going about 140 km/hr, and people were still flying by us. It was quite the experience.

When we got hungry at 10 that night, we went across the street to an Italian restaurant and had absolutely perfect tortellini. The next day, we were very, very lazy. We ate “breakfast” at 2:30 in the afternoon. Once we finally got off our butts, we went to the Olympic Park, where there was a Body Worlds exhibit. All of us being a health-related major, this was one of the coolest things to happen. As we quietly walked through the exhibit, we would whisper the names of bones and muscles and cells. We definitely geeked out. Then we explored the rest of the Olympic Park. This was the first Olympic park I had ever been to, and I continued to geek out. The park was beautiful and popular and awesome. There was one spot we stopped to sit, and it looked like The Shire from The Lord of the Rings. It was so green! There’s my Arizona coming out.

German Roadtripping selfie

Munich Olympic Park

Pole vault pit at Olympic Park

"The Shire" in Munich Olympic Park

We walked over to the BMW Museum, where they had cars set out that you could sit in and be a super tourist. So we sat in them and took pictures. It was great fun. Next, we wanted to see the university. We never ended up seeing much of it, though. When we walked up out of the train station, we heard people. Lots of people. We had walked into the middle of a street festival. We were so confused, but then we saw food and alcohol, so we stopped questioning anything. We walked the length of the street, seeing a skateboard park, a drum core, concerts. And beer. Beer everywhere, all the time. When we reached one end, we walked the other way. In the middle of the festival, we came to a stage with three boys in white suits. We stopped to watch and soon realized they were playing old rock and roll music. Like Elvis and Lynyrd Skynyrd. What? We were confused by these three German boys playing old American classics, but we stopped caring after we designated each of them to one of us to be our new, musically talented boyfriends. As we continued on, we saw many more beer stands, many types of food, and many, many people. We stayed very late, but even still, the party wasn't really over.

The next morning we went to Dachau, one of the oldest and deadliest concentrations camps put into use by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. The town of Dachau is beautiful and peaceful, but the atrocities witnessed there have tainted its image. The camp itself is nowhere near as imposing as it was in the twelve years of its operation. It is a massive compound that is, once more, full of chilling details about the Nazi reign. It could almost be beautiful, if one forgets the thousands of people who were killed there. For someone who has always wanted to see a concentration camp, it was both a fulfilling and unnerving experience. From serious to hearty, our next stop was the famous Hofbrauhaus. The place is massive. Indoor seating, outdoor seating, tables and laughter everywhere. BEER. BEER ALL THE TIME. SO MUCH BEER. An unfortunate place for a person who doesn’t like beer, but for those who do, it is paradise. When the waiter asked what we wanted to eat, we pointed to something and went with it. Megan and Camille got 1 liter jugs of beer, as did everyone else around us. The atmosphere was jolly and hungry. And drunk, a little drunk. We tried to find the Glockenspiel after that, but we just ended up wandering aimlessly. We found some building that looked important, but have no idea what it was. There was a river that made for many pretty pictures. After a while, we needed a bathroom, so we went back to the Hofbrauhaus. This time, we basically walked into a proposal. This became a very loud affair, being surrounded by loud, drunk tourists.

At the BMW Museum

Munich

Our new boyfriends performing

All the walking of the past week had made our feet sore and calloused. We were ready for a little relaxation. We went back to the hotel early so that I could be ready to take a train to Stuttgart in the morning. Yet, because we have no idea about any kind of public transportation, in the morning I missed the train I had bought a wonderfully cheap ticket for. The next hour consisted of waiting in line and being shuttled from person to person trying to get another ticket so that I could get to Stuttgart eventually. I was so incredibly thankful to have Camille and Megan with me then. I would have been crying in a corner if I had been by myself.

 Finally, another train came and finally, I boarded it. It was another drive of green pastures and small towns full of red roofs. When I arrived, I was met by my buddy, Joaquin, and two other students from Toronto. As we took the train to the university, we talked about the weather, forgetting that no one knew how to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit.  It started to rain again, but I had finally arrived to my home for the next two and a half months.

Dachau Concentration Camp

The Hofbrauhaus

Surprise proposal!

And then, my first week of travels was over. Some parts went by slow, so I could savor every moment. Some days went by so fast, as I was eager to keep seeing and experiencing. There is so much more out there for me to be a part of, and I can’t wait for it all. I have already done so much in just a week that I can’t even imagine all the stories I will have garnered by the end of this trip. Have no fear, there will be plenty more for me to share. Until then, sorry for the wait, but please enjoy!

Forever and always,

Taryn