berlin there done that pt2

Day #2
Bright and early at 8AM (I know the fact that I got up so early in a foreign country surprises me too, shows how much I loved this city.), me and my fellow classmates were off for our tour of Berlin.
In a small bus/van we drove around the city and saw some of its historic sites.
And I must say, for being in a moving bus/van, taking pictures out the window without the window screen showing is quite a talent that I have inquired.

Grafitti Art along with an ad for exterminating bugs

A what could have been a car accident between a bus and a van.

A building filled with graffiti that I will let you know its true meaning in a future post.

For when I have a coffee emergency
Berlin gets me

French Fry Plaza

I forget what this building is called but all I know is that the tour guide called it
"Jimmy Carter's smile"

French Fry Street
Reichstag Building
Potsdamer Platz (hungry translation: Pots & Plates)
Brandenburger Tor- will be seen in pictures below

German Palace

Victory Tower

A street sign called "Wedding"
I don't know where it leads to

June 17th!
I know something in German!

German Ad on a truck

A building that the German prince built for a woman he loved, but SCANDAL
The woman he built it for had no interest in him and didn't invite him to any of her parties that were hosted here.

Prince Freidrich's church that he built for himself.
It was bombed around the time of WWII and what is left is that top part.

The inside of the church: The tour guide noted that it had no relation to Christianity or Jesus that the church was meant to represent Frederich and his family

Another church just across from Frederich's church

Inside of the church

Me with my Swedish friend Sophie.
Everyone say hi to Sophie!
"Hi Sophie!"

German Film and Television Museum that I went that will be mentioned in a future post.

CineStar-IMAX movie theater that will once again be mentioned in a future post.

Pots and Plates

Pictured below is the Holocaust Memorial. This memorial is different than any other memorial that I have seen/heard/read. This memorial has no writing on it, no sign or poster that states it is the Holocaust Memorial. Everyone just knows that it is the Holocaust Memorial.
According to the artist, whose name I have forgotten, the meaning of the memorial is meant for people to create their own interpretation and own meaning out of it. Whatever one feels is the meaning behind this memorial. As goes for the meaning of the square blocks. There are over 1,000 of these square blocks all in different shapes and sizes and all giving a different meaning to people.
Some may say that each block represents a certain amount of people that died in the Holocaust or it may have a different opinion.
When you walk into the memorial the floor sinks down and you are lower than ground level. The memorial is like a maze so if you get lost, it'll take a while to find your way back let alone find the people that you came with.
So keep straight and if you need to take few turns.

I wasn't sure if you were supposed to smile in the Holocaust Memorial as it is a representation of a sad part in history and that it is supposed to be a somber moment, so I just smiled anyway. Because I like to smile, smiling is my favorite.

United States Embassy in Berlin and this is the interpretation of the Statue of Liberty.
JK, the mascot of Berlin is a bear, so there are bears everywhere....So i guess you could call it
BEAR-lin?!?!? (HaHaHa...get it? I crack myself up)

Low and Behold: The Brandanburger Tor (Gate)
The notable monument that Berlin holds.
If you look closely the middle opening is the biggest, and is where royalty would walk through Berlin while passing through the Brandanburger Tor.
And as a future princess of Sweden ( it will happen), I walked under the middle opening.

The IMCS (International Media and Communication Studies) crew taking Berlin.
Left to Right: Yang, Yating, Meng, Professor Peder, Jessica, Elisa, Ronja, Gianna, Amanda, Jenn, Alicja, Kacey, Sophie, Me)
In Spirit: Cassie

And here is me in front of the Brandanburger Tor
If you look closely on my left (your right) is a weird looking creature.
Brandanburger Tor is a very tourist-y place where like in L.A people dress up in costume wanting to take pictures with you, but secretly are pick pocketers.
No worries, I didn't get pick pocketed, I dodged those costume people like they were students at Sonoma handing me flyers while walking to class.

The Berlin synagogue in which before this trip I posted this picture stating "I want to go to there"
I went to there, it was beautiful.

Checkpoint Charlie
Pictured is the last U,S solider that was in Checkpoint Charlie after the fall of the Berlin wall.
Sadly, his name was not Charlie, so unfortunately, I cannot tell you why it's called Checkpoint Charlie

At the end of our tour and in between breaks, we stopped at a restaurant where I got Pho...a long needed time for some Pho-n 

And it was Pho-cking pho-n
(ok I'll stop the Pho puns now, they're not pho-nny anymore.
Ok I'm done.)

After lunch we stopped by the Topography of Terrors which is an exhibit of a timeline of the Nazi regime during 1933-1945.

After the Topography of Terrors we then visited a small daily German Newspaper called

Der Tagesspiegel (pronounced Day-Ta-gesh-pea-gal) Where we got a tour of their gift shop, wine collection (yes this newspaper sells wine-to increase profit) and work room.

Room with a presentation of the newspaper  along with pictured below snacks and German lemonade.

And I got a free newspaper out of it!
And no I did not understand a word of it, but I did do the Sudoku on it the next morning.

Roof of the newspaper building, I could work here. 

After a long day of touring around Berlin and seeing a German newspaper, we all returned to our hostel where we took a long needed nap before dinner.

Where did we go to dinner? You ask...

Well a friend of mine had a friend who lived in Berlin and knew of a good place. It was famous for having a Beer Boot and one of the best hamburgers in Europe. And when I say famous I mean famous in that our reservation was at 10:30PM. So all 12 of us hoped on the U-Bahn with empty stomachs ready for some German beer and German hamburgers

We love the U-Bahn!
Left to Right:
Jenn (California), Gianna (California), Elisa (Sweden), Amanda (California), Jessica (Sweden)

Pictured Left-Right:
Austin (Cassie's friend- California), Cassie (California), Me (California), Ronja (Sweden), Sophie (Sweden), Ali (Poland/California) Kacey (California)

The place was called The Bird and being known for my fear of birds a part of me was hesitant about coming, since I thought there was going to be a bird, but I was wrong.

There was no bird in site nor any pictures of birds so I knew this place was safe.

If you look closely, if you buy a 0.4 L of these two beers you can take them outside.
This is genius. But no I did not do this, I'm sorry.

This is part of their menu. One hamburger they had in particular (which I had my eye on ) was the Gonzales burger. A hamburger with avocado with salsa, a perfect California burger, however, after seeing this note I changed my mind and went with the Blue Cheese burger.
I have no regrets.

And of course with my hamburger I had half a liter of  Schneider Wheat Beer which was delicious and its caramel color was a beauty to look at.
Beer is a beautiful thing.

My dinner Blue Cheese hamburger with Wheat Beer.
Being an American and having hamburger as being a national food, I must say, this was the best hamburger I have ever had.
The Blue Cheese- perfection and the best.
The Hamburger was cooked perfectly and despite being on an English Muffin it fit perfectly.
The French fries- perfect french fries that when dipped in the blue cheese that was spilling out of my burger was ERMAHGERWD perfect.
Food-gasm in my mouth.
Literally.

Unfortunately, I did not finish the burger as I was extremely full from the delicious food. (And let me say that thank god I wore my MC Hammer pants with the loose pant waist, or my stomach would have exploded)
But I did finish the beer, despite my full stomach, because if my family back home found out that I didn't finish a good German beer, I would have gotten a long lecture on how it was wrong of me to waste a perfectly good German beer.
This is my family.

And that ends Day #2.

A well informed, well fed day I must say. (That rhymyed!)

Day #3 to come with more descriptions and pictures.

Intermission #2 ya'll.