Helena's Super Secret Ninja Missions

This past weekend, I went to Berlin with my cousin, S, who wanted to go because she met someone who told her how amazing it was. We were totally fine without knowledge of the German language, by the way. When I arrived, I spent about two hours on a mission to find Deutsche Bank. In my defense, I had basically just arrived, so I didn't know the area at all and I was distracted by monuments and random novelties, such as this vendor.

He was just selling some sort of sausage...S got a picture of one of them with an umbrella attached. So prepared.

When S arrived, we went on a tour with Asoka (from Boston/Columbia University!) who showed us all these sites and told us so much about them, in a way that was really quite interesting. Among other things, we saw Museum Island, the Berlin Wall (of course), the Brandenburger Tor, and Potsdamer Platz. We also saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, which was much larger than we anticipated. From the outskirts of the memorial, you wouldn't think that the walls would be so tall on the inside...

One of the best parts was the Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers am Gendarmenmarkt. It was rather remniscient of the Chocolate Museum in Barcelona, with the elaborate chocolate sculptures. Needless to say, I bought a bunch of chocolate.

This is a chocolate version of the Brandenburger Tor.

K sent me several recommendations for what to do/eat in Germany, since he was actually there for a while. Thus, I had currywurst, pretzels, Fanta...I really wanted to get spaghettieis--it seems so cool! It's an ice cream dish that looks like spaghetti. Completely up my alley. Anyway S and I shared a great pretzel outside of the Reichstay, which was pretty amazing in and of itself. It was well worth the wait. Here's one of many pictures I took of the Reichstag.

This is a picture of the top...it was awesome, especially because of the weather!

On Saturday we were pleasantly surprised by the great weather--the sun was shining and it was relatively warm. I don't think it was warm enough to go to the beach, like B (and presumably C) did in Barcelona, but I'll take what I can get!

Sometimes getting lost is really one of the best things that can happen to you. S and I were on the 200 bus, which is a bus that basically goes by all of the sites in Berlin. Unfortunately, we were both tired and neglected to pay much attention to where we were actually going. We didn't realize that it was going away from the city center for quite a while...When we finally did figure it out, we got off at a random stop in a residential area, and spotted this bowling alley! It was tons of fun, and apparently the cheapest game she's ever paid for. While we were there, we had delicious bread and peare wiener (?).

None of the people there seemed to speak much English, such as the waitress. We got along okay by pointing and such though.

Basically glorified hot dogs. Of course, it was a bowling alley. Not exactly Michelin quality.

On Monday morning, we woke up super early to (theoretically) shower and then catch our flights. However if you've ever set your alarm for 3:45 AM, you know how hard it is to actually get out of bed that early. So we didn't end up showering, but we made it the airport early enough and we were able to get breakfast from the bakery across the street. Yes, it's open 24 hours. I actually went every night I was there... Anyway I really love airberlin, but I hate easyjet. They wouldn't let me check in when I arrived, so I had to wait for about an hour.

I took this opportunity to organize my luggage and have a coffee and a croissant.

On top of that, the seats on the plane were the most uncomfortable airplane seats I've ever had the misfortune to sit in. Finally, unlike airberlin and KLM, they do not feed you. Not for free, at least. I mean I wasn't actually hungry at the time, but it would have been nice to have something for lunch, considering the fact that I didn't have time for lunch until 4 PM. At least now I know why it's cheaper than other airlines, I suppose.

Overall, the experience was great! Although I could never imagine myself living in Berlin, I had an excellent time with my cousin and I'm very excited to see her again in Paris! This time, I'll make more of an effort to learn some useful phrases.

Here's to seeing my cousin more often in Europe than I do at home! I actually find that rather hilarious.