Day 90, 4/20/2010

Day 79, 4/9/2010

New day in Berlin. It wasn't that hard to get up this day luckily. I got up around 7ish. This was a fun and yet another busy day. We went to a lot of places today and two of those places were for just a few hours. So we started the day walking down the East side gallery. Of course, after riding all the trains and what not to get over there. So we spent part of the morning walking down this wall and looking at the art work. This is the famous piece of the wall that was rebuilt later for a memorial and art gallery. Right after that we walked over to the Brandenburg Gate. So this time we could see the front of the gate and to take a few pictures. I liked getting to see the Star Wars Storm-trooper standing right there in front of the Gate. I was kinda disappointed in the Gate especially after seeing all the arches and architecture in the ancient city in Rome. Well we took pictures of the gate and I got to see the United States Embassy as well as the window that Micheal Jackson held his baby out of. Right after that we walked to the Chancellery. We were invited to see the inside of the building and to see the architecture of the building, also so maybe learn a little bit about how the country works. So when we got there we had to go through airport like security to go inside. Once inside we were taken to all the different places and shown the different parts of the building as well as what they were used for. Like the meeting rooms and the place that they give television addresses, as well as the place where they greet important people as well. We also saw the back garden. I don't think many people, who don't work there get to see it. After that we headed back through and saw a few more rooms that were important to the government that I kind found boring. Then we were done at the Chancellery. This was when we had our free time for the day mostly so we could go eat some lunch. We rode the train all the way over to a larger shopping area near a church that was bombed during WWII. I hung out with the other group today. Allie, Lisa, Jake, Kevin, and Jason. It was a rather nice change from Trisha and Catie. So we walked down to the Ka Di We. Which is suppose to be one of the most famous if your in the fashion industry, which I'm not. We decided to go eat lunch on the top floor in the restaurant area. It was a buffet style meal which ended up being really good. After that we headed right back down to walk around the street level. Allie and Lisa stopped at one of the levels to look at Bathing Suits while Me and the guys went on down. While the guys shopped for shoes I looked around and found a few souvenir shops that I looked into but didn't get anything. I got a few squished coins in the area, so that was cool. Eventually I left the guys to seek out the Hard Rock Cafe. I didn't have too much time to find it and I really wanted to get that pin for Sean. So I walked down the street that I thought it was on looking for the famous sign just hoping it was sticking off the building far enough for me to see it. Well eventually I felt like I had walked way too far so I talked to a kiosk worker. He told me to go two blocks back and it would be to the right. Well I walked back and there was a Hard Rock on the corner... but this one was being built. I looked inside, trying to figure out where the other one was because I know he wouldn't have told me to go back if it wasn't there. A police officer walked up to me and asked me if he could help me. I asked him where it was since this one was under construction. He pointed me down the street. I found it and got my pin and turned around to head to the nearest underground station. I had to be at Alexander Platz by 4:30 and I only had an hour to get there and with how fast the underground took it would take me that long to get there. So off I went through the underground after figuring out where I needed to go and changing where necessary I got to the platz. I wondered around this place for a while searching for the group but I couldn't find them. Alvaro called me to asked where I was I told him I was in the platz but I didn't know where they were. He gave me directions over to the train station and I found them right as they were leaving to go to our next destination. Lucky again. We were heading to a convention called Pictoplasm. It was suppose to be in English and we had tickets to go watch one block of lectures. Sadly, it didn't turn out to be that invigorating. I fell asleep during the first lecture but the second one was ok because of the interesting images not exactly because he was a good speaker. The poor guy was so nervous. The host tried desperately to get him to talk with some ease but like I said he was so nervous. A couple of our group went to talk to him in person and came back saying that he was normal when talking face to face he was just too nervous talking to a crowd. This farther emphasizes the fact that artists shouldn't talk to crowds. Right after that we decided to go over to the Parliament building again to see if we could go up in the dome. We took the underground to get over there. This was to see if the line wasn't too long. Turns out it was. So we just decided to screw around in the Jewish Memorial. It was worth it. We had so much fun running through there and taking weird pictures. I got some pretty cool pictures of me and the gigantic blocks. Eventually it started to rain and we were getting tired of messing around so we headed toward an out of the way bar and art place that we looked at some pretty cool art work and home made jewelery. It was pretty cool. I ended up getting a catalog for Sean cause one of the artists there had some really awesome art that I know he would like. I also found an arm cuff I really liked but they told me that it was more money than I had and so I started to leave but they called me back and showed me others that were cheaper so I looked at those for a while and I found one I liked but it didn't fit as well as that first one but I still really liked it so I bought it. Later I kinda wished I hadn't but I can't change that now. I get weird when it comes to purchases like that sometimes I just can't say no and I later regret it. I've had that happen a few times when I'm purchasing clothes. So after having a beer at the bar we all headed back do to go our separate ways for dinner. First we all headed back to the hotel area then we went to dinner. I wanted to get something other than a doner which is where everyone was eating. So I ended up walking down the street with Trisha much to my dismay but I wasn't surprised to sit there and have her bitch the entire time yet again. I finally decided on Chinese food. I sat with them the group that I hung out with earlier that day. Trisha joined us but we didn't really care. After that we all headed back to the hotel for the night again. Nobody wanted to go out so we just went to sleep. Oops I think this was the night that Allie and Lisa decided to stay behind because of a coin toss. Oh well. After talking for a while we all went to bed.