Berlin and Boppard

The following weekend Matt Laura and I took a day trip to Berlin. The train took about 4 hours to get us there and on our way there we ran into Elon and Spencer so we rode the train with them.

The first place we wanted to see was the Reichstag. This is where the German Parliament is housed. When it caught on fire during the WWII era the Nazis claimed that it had been burnt down by communists.The top of the building had statues of average everyday workers. You could tell what they were by what type of tools they had, so if the person had a plow you would know they were a  farmer.

As we walked down the street past the Reichstag, we found a city block completely covered in these huge concrete blocks. Some of the blocks were really tall and some were flush with the ground, but there were just thousands of them everywhere. We found out that this was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. What this really means is that it was a monument to the memories of all those murdered during the holocaust, not just jews.  At the opposite side of the memorial were a set of stairs leading down into a museum about the holocaust. It followed 15 people who were sent to concentration camps along with their families. The first room was a general history of the holocaust, which lead into a room with TVs on the ground displaying different correspondences the people had had with their loved ones. Many of them were letters or postcards that explained what they knew about the concentration camps even before they were sent there. 

   As we continued walking around Berlin, we found Checkpoint Charlie. This was the checkpoint you had to go through if you were going to either enter or leave the American sector of Berlin after WWII when the city was divided into different sections. All around the city there were pieces of the Berlin wall either displayed, or in some places, still actually standing.  But after spending probably an hour looking for the East Side Gallery, which no German person we asked had ever heard of, we decided to go see the Sony Center.  The Sony Center is supposed to be one of the most interesting buildings in the city because of the architecture, and it really is. The building is so different to look at. The courtyard area is open , yet the top is enclosed, so it's like being inside and outside at the same time. 

Since our trip to Berlin had only taken us a day, we decided to take the next day to visit the Rhine river. Matt, Laura, Michelle, and I spent the day in a tiny little town called Boppard. Being in a small town was really relaxing. We were able to find our way around without any trouble.  One of the biggest things they had for us to see in Boppard was the church. There wasn't really anything too special about the church, but i thought the outside of it was really interesting because it seems like most of the churches in Europe are made of stone and took hundreds of years to build, but this one looked almost like a cottage.

 And many of the other stores and homes around the city were built in the same style. The original reason we had chosen to go to Boppard was because we had heard there was a castle there. When we got there we found out that the castle was closed for construction, so we didn't get to see that but we found out that there was a chair lift that would take us to the top of a mountain so we could see the town from up high. The lift took 20 minutes to get all the way to the top and it was so scary being up that high, but when we got there it was completely worth it. Seeing the Rhine River stretch around the countryside was incredible.