Copenhagen>Berlin. There, I said it!

Here I am, back in the big CPH from a weekend in Berlin! I'll rewind to Thursday night first, when we cooked for the host fam! We made nachos, fajitas, charro beans, Spanish rice, and then gelato for dessert (I know, it doesn't fit in). My host mom provided the Coronas. Here's a pic of the food....as you can see, the Spanish rice doesn't look very, well, Spanish, but it all tasted good. Shocker!

Then Friday we took a 6-hour bus (including a ferry ride) to Berlin. We got to our hostel around 1:30 AM, went out to an iffy nightclub and then woke up early to explore the city. This is the first thing we saw in the morning when we got off of the central train station.

Berlin offers a free 3.5 hour walking tour of the city. Our tour guide was from the great state of Georgia (random) so we had no trouble understanding him. The pickup point was here, at Pariser Platz, which is named as a kind of slap in the face to the French. The statue on top of the columns is looking directly at the French embassy, as if to say "we're always watching you". 

The next stop on our tour was the Holocaust Memorial. Pictures can't capture this place; it's many different rows and columns of various-sized blocks. You're supposed to put your own interpretation as to why (I got really philosophical on this one, ask me if you wanna know) 
I have a lot of pics from the tour but not enough room on the blog, so I'll upload them to Facebook for all you Facebookers. Now this is an absolutely awful pic of me but look at the food in front of me! We had a traditional German lunch of bratwurst, sauerkraut, fried potatoes, and Berlin Pilsner. And of course, a dessert of apple streudel. It was delicioussss.

We had a German dinner later at a place set up with long tables and consisting of nothing but Germans. We were served beer in stoneware mugs.

The next day we took a 45-minute train ride to a concentration camp. The only thing I regret is not setting off enough time to really look at everything here. It was very eerie and just reading the stories of what these people had to endure was emotional.

On the way back from the concentration camp, we had a train stop called Hohen Neuendorf. So, Grandpa, you definitely have a German last name!

The only reason I say Copenhagen>Berlin is because of the feel of the city. Berlin was pretty much torn apart during World War II and most of their buildings are modern and there is a lot of space. Copenhagen is more old buildings and narrow streets, and I like the feel of that more. Also, we got yelled at in German for not tipping our way out of a bathroom (which we didn't know we had to do for that bathroom...) and therefore I'm a little wary of the Germans! Overall it was a great experience and I'm so glad I went.

Tonight, I have tickets for the Brondby vs. FCK (Copenhagen) futbol team; these are the #1 and #2 futbol teams in Denmark, and it's supposed to be a very intense game. I'll keep ya posted!