Big City Livin' and Adventurous Village Life!

Yay!! I have finally found some time and some cheap internet to finally write my installment on Berlin and Hagedorn! OK, so we left off in Poland where Christine and I had fulfilled our Quest to find Paska. Our next destination was the capital of Germany and the self proclaimed "Best City in World" (I don't think I'd argue that!): Berlin! We were greeted in Berlin by amazingly warm weather and a brand spanking new Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). I think this station is the best one I have encountered on my trip thus far and I have seen many by now. It's huge, the entire place was made of glass, there's a shopping mall on the lower 3 levels and is officially sponsored by a Canadian company so it scored big points for that! It's so huge we had trouble finding our way out of the place! We finally found our S-bahn and made the 45 minute trip out to our hostel which was situated in the Grünewald area of Berlin. It was pretty far from the centre which wasn't so great but it was also cool because all the rich people lived in that area (including the German president on our street!) and we were surrounded by nature while still in the city. This included the wild boars that Christine and I encountered on our way out to dinner one night. I wouldn't normally have associated Berlin with boars but the huge ugly beasts live right in the city and apparently are pretty tame, not something Christine and I were going to test out! Anyway, our time in Berlin was a lot of fun. The most memorable thing we did was take a FREE Walking tour of the major sights in town. So awesome! Because the guides are working for tips they really get into the role of being a guide and ours did an amazing job! Not only was she very knowledgable about Berlin but she was super charasmatic and made it funny and relatable. She condensed hundreds of years of German history into a 3 hour tour. So great! Did you know that the only reason the wall between east and west Berlin came down was because an inexperienced East German Public Relations officer got his facts mixed up at a press conference and just screwed up on live television!! I had no idea it was something so simple, but I guess at that point in time if the East German officials even hinted at opening the border on live National Television the public would be all over it in no time! After the tour we went to a FREE museum on the Stasi, the East German version of the KGB secret police. Dissapointingly there wasn't too much to see there so we headed over to Checkpoint Charlie (the former checkpoint between east and west Berlin) and spent a good two hours at the museum there instead. The best part about that place is that they had all kinds of displays on how various people had succeeded in escaping into west Berlin from the east. One guy put two surfboards on the roof of his car and put his girlfriend in a hollowed out space between the two boards and was able to drive across with her. Another guy constructed his very own hot air balloon! Not everyone was successful though. There were some pretty sad stories about how a lot of people died trying to escape as well. The most heartbreaking one was about an 18 year old man who was shot down just as he was jumping off the wall onto the westside. As he lay dying the american soldiers watching were not able to help him because the wall had a 10 metre buffer zone on the west side that still belonged to the east so this poor guy was still in the east and the american soldiers did not help him as foreign ploicies forbid them from entering the east. It's crazy how much history there is in Berlin. Originally Christine and I had only planned to stay for 3 nights but we had to extend our stay for another day to do Berlin justice and see a little more and even that feels like it wasn't enough. While in Berlin we also paid Knut a visit. For any of you out there who are completely out of the news loop like Christine and I have been and have not been watching or reading any important world news, Knut is an adorable little polar bear that was recently born at the Berlin Zoo. We only heard about him when one of the girls in our walking tour told us about him so of course we had to make like we were with the times and go to see him! Only we didn't realize just how popular this little guy was and waited in line for an hour to catch a glimpse of him. He was really cute and it was amazing how comfortable he was with his trainer. I guess when you're raised in a zoo the animals become a little more accustomed to people. We also spent that afternoon at the German History Museum and while we spent a few hours in there I probably could have spent an entire day there. It's exactly what I've been interested in seeing because there's so much I don't know about German history. In a way it's directly related to my own personal history so it's something I really wanted to learn about while I am in Europe. It's also not something you study in high school and I didn't study it in University at all either so I was really intrigued by how the German Nation came together through the centuries. One of the best parts was special section on Propaganda and Art from 1930-1945. They had a section for Germany, Italy, U.S.A and the Soviet Union. It was really fascinating how these countries perceived themselves and eachother during the second world war. After an educational afternoon Christine and I rested our weary brains on the field in front of the Berliner Dom. So cool to lay there and see this beutiful old church when you open your eyes. It was one of the few buildings left standing after the war. Our guide told us that you can tell if a building in Berlin is an original if there are patches all over the buildings that were meant to fill in bullet holes. The church was full of them. Christine and I were also able to escape the city like the royals of Germany used to and visited the Schloss Sanssouci and the Neue Palais, summer residences of the 17th and 18th century Prussian leaders including Friedrich the Great. As usual, the palaces were beautiful, what palace isn't! The unique thing about the Neue Palais was that there was a ballroom decorated with seashells, clams and precious natural stones on the interiors. Very cool. Apparently Friedrich the Great liked nature so much he brought it inside! That's my kind of King! I'd totally vote for him, oh wait Monarchies are not Democracies, I forgot! Here's a picture of me pretending to be a Prussian Royal, I'd totally pass for royalty what with the stylish black fleece and stained capris!! Hee hee! We also checked out a museum (not FREE) on German Film history, it was a pretty big dud, I thought it would be better but luckily thay had a really cool children's feature on Fairy Tales brought to life in the movies so Christine and spent some more time pretending, this time that we were in Fairy Tales!! Here's me pretending to be Snow White. Anyway, we left Berlin with the warm weather after three memorable days and headed for some rest and relaxation in little tiny Hagedorn, Germany. We planned to stay with a family friend called Heike. She's the granddaughter of the woman my oma worked for during WWII when my oma's family was traveling through Germany on their way out of Russia and onwards to Canada. She spent about two years working there and whats really cool is that Heike still lives in the same Farmhouse that my oma worked at 60 years ago! It's really great that our families have been able to stay in touch for so long! Our stay did begin with some rest and relaxation but quickly progressed into another exciting travel destination! Heike teaches a yoga class so Christine and I took part to relax our travelworn muscles. We also explored the countryside on bikes, took part in an African drumming class (another one of Heike's projects!), took a 5am wildlife "safari" with Heike's friend Klaus, visited a reconstructed German village from the 15th - 19th century, and saw Hermann, a huge German hero, who is made of iron and continues to protect the German land like he did 2000 years ago when he thwarted the Romans' attempt to take control of German land. The best part of our stay in Hagedorn was when Heike took us paddling on our last day. We took two canoes and paddled down the Lippe river. I'm used to canoeing on quiet lakes and rivers but this one had a few mini rapids which was scary at first (just look at Christine's expression in the pic!) but was pretty fun after I got used to it! A really nice way to see the german countryside! After our paddling adventure we were ready to head home and get ready to leave the next day but there was one more adventure in store for us. Heike let me drive on the Autobahn in her car! My first autobahn experience in the driver's seat was a very memorable one not only because it's the first time I've driven 160 km's an hour (I didn't dare go any faster!) but because her car proceeded to break down just as I was givener in the fast lane! All of a sudden the accelarator shuts down on me and I'm losing speed in the passing lane on the autobahn! We got a few dirty looks and car honks as I tried to manouvre to the shoulder...a little stressful! The stress didn't end there though. Heike called the german version of CAA and they came and fixed the fuse in the car, simple problem right?! So we headed out again only to have the same thing happen again. This time the CAA guys were not so speedy and we waited over an hour for them to show up again. Our growling bellies were beginning to pose a problem at this point so Heike proceeded to find the nearest house, order pizza for us and arrange for us to have pizza in our car on the Autobahn. Boy did it taste good! It definately helped pass the time too. When the same CAA guy showed up we "fixed" the problem again and said we would be good to go, but 5 minutes after he left us the car shut down again...Heike then finally called her neighbor and asked him to come schlep us home. Needless to say it was a long night, but an adventure nonetheless! Anyway Hagedorn was a wonderful stop on tour and congratulations for making it to the end of this very long blog entry. I think I need to start posting more often! For now, Aufwiedersehen from Salzburg!

Laura