Trip to Germany

My trip to Germany was also very good. First I went to a small village called Brilon. This is where the family of a former roomate of mine lives. They kindly invited me to spend Christmas with them. The village is situated in a very nice area. Lots of forests and landscapes. Also, it lacked the light pollution that is so common in the Netherlands, so I was able to see the stars again. It was very interesting to celebrate Christmas with them. New traditions and new foods. The main day was actually Christmas Eve. We went to church. We came home and had a big supper. It was a fondue, something I had never done before, and was very delicious. Then, after we opened the presents. Supposedly the Christ Child comes in the evening and delivers the presents. The Christmas tree was lit up with real candles. I got some nice presents: chocolate and a very nice book. On Christmas day I again got to try new foods. This time we ate stag for supper. I've never eaten deer before, and I have to say it was very good. The next day we went for a walk around the village. All the buildings are quite similar: white with black roofs. The countryside was beautiful, still green despite winter. My next stop was Weimar. Weimar is town in Eastern Germany. I chose to visit it because I had heard good things about it, and it was on the way to Berlin. Weimar is famous for giving it's name to the short-lived Weimar Republic which ruled Germany from the end of the First World War until Hitler took over. Weimar is also where Goethe lived most of his life, and has several museums about him. The final stop on my trip was Berlin. On the way to Berlin, on the train, I was able to get a good view of East Germany. In a way, it was definitely different than West Germany. It seemed much more drab. My first introduction to Berlin was confusion. The main Station, Berlin Hbf, is very large, and I thought didn't have very good signage. But, luckily while I was looking for a ticket office to get my subway ticket, I met my first familiar face from the Netherlands. Thankfully she was able to point me to the right direction. My next experience reminded me that I should be very thankful to live in the Netherlands where so many people speak English. As I was trying to buy a ticket, I discovered that the ticket agent didn't speak English, and had no idea what I was trying to ask of her. Fortunately, she had an English speaking colleague.

I was in Berlin for a CouchSurfing event called Berlin Winter Camp. Five days of 450 cs'ers hanging out together in Berlin. We even had our own bar rented for the duration of the camp. I met lots of interesting people from all over Europe. I stayed in the flat of a guy from Hong Kong who has lived in Berlin for the past three years. Staying there also was a German guy from Stuttgart and three Romanians who had hitchhiked their way from Romania. The camp was kinda of a blur for me, I was having so much fun, not getting enough sleep, and was sick with a cold for most of it... but, I did lots of things. I saw quite a bite of Berlin. I visited the Stasi museum which is situated in the former headquarters of the Stasi. It was a very interesting tour, lots of old spy equipment, the office of the head of the stasi still in its original condition, an example of a stasi jail cell, and lots of pictures and memorabilia. I also visited the Pergamom museum. I was familiar with this museum already, as i had visited the ancient city of Pergamom when I was in Turkey a few years ago. There, I was told if I wanted to see most of the city I should in fact visit the Pergamom Museum in Berlin, as that's where German archaeologists had carted most of it off to. There is quite a bit, most importantly, the Pergamom alter which is very impressive. It also has some famous parts of other ancient cities. It has the market gate from Miletus and the Ishtar gate from Babylon. The museum is very big, and takes pretty much the whole day to see properly. Also, you can expect to wait outside in line for awhile. But, i definitely think it is worth the visit. A lot of the information is in english. The last major location I visited, was the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, which is just north of the city. It is definitely worth a visit. But, it's quite depressing to see. There are also many sites to see in Berlin. I saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat, the tower in Alexanderplatz, the holocaust memorial, Berlin wall, etc.... One really fun event we did was about 30-40 couchsurfers got Santa Claus outfits for 5 euros, and then we went for a walk through the city together. We created quite a stir!
Overall, I enjoyed my trip to Germany, especially the Christmas part. but, I was definitely glad to be back in the Netherlands, and hear and see a language that I could understand a bit again.