After an amazing summer at camp, an adventure was the
perfect distraction from any sadness I could feel. On the way to Newark, my
parents had me read the trip itinerary aloud, which was a great way for them to
know exactly where I’d be in the next 12 days - and for me to find out about
the gameplan of which I knew very little. I’d been superbusy fully immersing
myself in the end of camp and trying not to think about anything except for
smores and playgrounds.
At the airport, I people-watched to escape the boredom of
the security line. Exciting folks included a poorly spray-tanned European
ballroom duo toting a giant trophy and an arguing French family. I flew to
Tegel with old camp buds Daneel and Mikey, and we traded a seat to end up
wedged together in the tiniest intercontinental row in the history of planes. I
felt smushed and itchy the whole time and based on this experience will
probably become an American Airlines person for my work-life. United, you were
the worst! I watched three movies and didn’t sleep a wink. Propelled forward
only by the thrill of travel, and the amusement of watching the Alpha Christian
Travel Group marvel at German customs, I went out into the great world of
Deutschland. We ran into another girl from our trip and did a little getting
to know you on our hour and a half public transportation extravaganza. We
really just took a bus to a subway, but seeing a city for the first time is
cool, as is seeing the subway car and station design.
We jumped right into the day with just a few hours to relax
in the room (read: pass out) and then a Q&A session at the Centrum
Judaicum, an office building and community space. There, the program
coordinators introduced themselves and proceeded to READ the 10-day itinerary
to us, line by line. This might have been good but I just did this exercise
what felt like a minute ago in the car with my parents but had in fact been
earlier the previous day.
After this fairly not exciting session, I went to the
restroom and got disconnected from the entire group, who had boarded a bus for
a bus tour. And Germans are very serious about time compliance. So, the three
people I was lost with were a little panicky – thankfully, one of my lost
companions was the trip director from the American side, so they weren’t
realistically going to leave without us. After wandering Monbijouplatz, German
guide Gregor found and saved us! We then went on a three-hour city tour with
only two stops where we actually got off the bus. This schedule was fine
because we could sleep in between, except guide Gerrit had some nice historical
information to share. Since we’d been awake for two days, most of us were
unable to concentrate on neither Gerrit nor his city sights.
There were two most impressionable sights: East Berlin Wall
gallery, which is not the pretty graffiti one you associate those facebook
pictures with but in fact a largely grey and foreboding stretch of park with
rusted iron bars and then a little bit of graffiti.
Memorial to Bookburning at Staatsplatz is an open glass
window into the ground of a plaza outside Humboldt University, Berlin’s finest.
Here, 200,000 books were burned, with content considered undesirable (Jewish,
communist, etc.) – all made unsacred and destroyed in these weird act
considering it took place outside a house of learning… The window looks into a
huge and empty white room with shelves that could hypothetically hold the lost
books – but instead they are empty. Stuff like this just wouldn’t be understood
without a tour guide to explain it. Conceptually, I think it’s one of my
favorite monuments.
Since the tour didn’t end until a rainy 6 p.m., we were late
to dinner, which had requisite mediocre European service and ‘classic’ German
food that will take some time acclimating too. Spaetzle wasn’t really my thing –
it tasted like a cross between matzah brei and fried dough with cheese.
However, the tablespoon of carrot and apple slaw with it was delectable. We’d
been awake for two days now, so we really all just wanted to sleep.
So, we came back to the hotel (via 30 min of public
transportation and a ridiculously windy and wet walk), and I passed out again.
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