Berlin!

Berlin was amazing! I loved everything about it and I cannot wait to go back. 

The hostel we stayed in was near Hackescher Markt in East Berlin and it was great. The area of Mitte is where it's all happening in Berlin, so we were basically right in the middle of hundreds of cool shops and funky cafes. As Bronwyn has mentioned, our hostel did not have a kitchen, but that was actually rad because the food in Germany is amazing. My favourite food that I tried in Germany has got to be Currywurst. What on Earth is Currywurst, you may be asking...it's chopped up German sausage with an incredibly tasty tomato-y/curry sauce and frites. This may not sound that great, but if you ever go to Germany you HAVE to try it... Unless ofcourse you're a vegetarian (Sorry Zo and Mel...I guess you'll have to miss out...) But by 'miss out' what I really mean is go to any one of the tasty, tasty vegetarian restaurants around the place. We also had some amazing Vietnamese food, whiskey hot chocolates, hot milk and honey (anotherfavourite!), mojitos and lots and lots of tea. Food food food. I am now done talking about food. 

On to my next favourite topic when it comes to talking about Berlin....Adam! There is a company called Sandemans that runs free walking tours all over Europe. They're great, and if at the end of the tour you feel like it was worth something, you just give your guide a tip. Our guide in Berlin, Adam, was by far the best guide we've had. He was from Atlanta and he was a babe...but that's not why he was the best. He just ran a really interesting tour...and he was babin'. We started at the Brandenburg Gate, which is really beautiful. It was especially cool to stand in Paris Square (in front of the gate) and realise that about 20 years ago where you're standing was in the 'death strip' of the Berlin Wall.

Fun fact: Napoleon stole the statue off of the Brandenburg Gate when he took over Germany back in the day, and he put it in The Louvre. During the Franco-Prussian wars the Germans took it back and put it on top of the gate. While they were at it they turned the statues head...it now stares at the French Embassy all day long. Love that German sense of humour.

On the tour we also visited the site of Hitler's bunker, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the former Luftwaffe HQ (now the home of the German tax office, and therefore a building still hated by the locals), the former SS HQ and Checkpoint Charlie.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I loved it.

One of my favourite stops on the tour was at the Book Burning Memorial across from Humboldt University. In the middle of the square there is a glass panel through which you can see hundreds of empty bookshelves. Apparently the exact number of bookshelves that it would take to hold the 25 000 books that were burnt on the 10th of May 1933. We were told that on that date it was mainly students from the university doing the burning. These days, there is a student run, second hand bookstall out the front of Humboldt University. The students acknowledge the role that their predecessors played in the book burnings, and sell books to try and undo some of the damage they caused. I thought that was mighty cool.

Humboldt University

Part of the book stall...

On Sunday we got to meet up with Linda, which was amazing. As you know meeting up with friends overseas is another one of my favourite things! We went to Troptower Park and some flea markets. We also saw a B-grade German zombie film called 'Rammbock', which was fun despite the lack of quality. On Monday we went to the East Side Gallery which was rad!

The weather was awful! After walking the length of The Gallery Linda and I were soaked...

Love these guys!

Pretty colours...

'Brother Kiss' is the name of this painting, it is one of the most famous paintings on The Wall. It shows the kiss between East German leader Erich Honecker and his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev. Cool.

That's all from Berlin, I am now in Prague (which is gorgeous!) and heading to Cesky Krumlov tomorrow.

 Love from Courtney xox