Berlin and Tallinn

The Bundestag in Berlin

Freiburg feels like home now. Returning from our trip to Berlin and Tallinn really made me appreciate how comfortable everything is here now, as opposed to being completely lost and turned around for my entire week of travels.

We left last Wednesday morning and spent six hours on a train to Berlin. By the time we got there, it was dark, rainy and late. We all went on a tour of the city and it was miserable, but I'm glad that I went. It turned out that we arrived in Berlin 75 years, to the day, after Hitler rose to power. Bizarre. We walked to a parking lot and apartment complex that had a little plaque on it. The guide then told us that that was where the main Nazi bunker was, and that Hitler had killed himself on the spot that we were standing, a couple meters below. I just remembered the movie Downfall (Der Untergang) and how destroyed Berlin and the area around the bunker were, and now you can't even tell that the entire city didn't even exist sixty years ago. We also crossed a street, and our guide said 'Welcome to West Berlin.' All that remains of the wall now is an inch or so long line of cobblestone. Berlin really is the perfect example of a ghost city. It has so much history but you really can't see it.

The Brandenburger Tor

The next day we had two lectures to attend. A guy who works for the German Foreign Ministry was first, and he just gave us a basic history of expansion of the EU and the current Reform Treaty that's being debated. The next speaker was the head of the Free Democratic Party. It's a pretty minor party in Germany, so it was really interesting to hear a minority viewpoint. He was much more of a biased politician than the first guy, but I could appreciate a lot of what he was saying.

I really wish that we had had more time in Berlin. Aside from the two hour guided tour, we didn't have much time to explore on our own. By the time our lectures were over, most of the museums were about to close. At the end of the day, I went to a vegan fast food restaurant with Jamie, another vegan. It was absolutely delicious. Then we came back to the hotel room and watched Jurassic Park 3..... dubbed in German. Absolutely terrible. I wish I had explored more of the city, but I was sick and exhausted and our only free time was late at night. Not okay :( Though I guess that means that I'll just have to go back to Berlin! Shucks.

My food at the vegan fastfood restaurant. MMM!!

On Friday we went to Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn is the capital, in case you didn't know. None of us had any idea what to expect because, honestly, who goes to Estonia? I'm really glad that we did, go, though. It was a gorgeous city and it was a place where you could actually see both history and modernization at the same time. We went there to see how the EU helped transform a post-Soviet country into a democratic one, and the EU has certainly been successful. The major issue now seems to be inflation. The money (called kroons, but EEK, similar to USD, is much more fun to say) was really bizarre. 100 EEK is about 10 USD, but things were definitely cheaper in Berlin. Inflation is such a strange thing.

We had a 'Tallinn as Text' assignment similar to what we did in Freiburg a few weeks ago, which meant that we had a list of things to go find and take pictures of and then report back to the group. My group went to the old town and saw the Russian Orthodox Church and an amazing view of the city. Note the pictures. If you looked one direction, you could see an old, almost medieval looking city. If you look the other way, you could see more modern city. This was pretty much how the It was also a place where snow is necessary to make it beautiful, otherwise it just looked depressing.

Me getting warm after Tallinn as Text.

The Russian Orthodox Church

The City Center

On Sunday night, a bunch of us went to the only place in town that played the Superbowl... an Irish pub. I only went because I wanted to tell people that I watched the Superbowl in Estonia. How many people can say that? Kickoff wasn't until 1:15am, though, so I only stayed until halftime, which was like 4am. Oh well, I had a lot of time on the trip back to sleep.

Yesterday, we made our journey back to Freiburg. We had a two and a half hour plane ride to Frankfurt and then a three hour bus ride to Freiburg. I was basically just lonely all day, though. It was the first anniversary of Jordan's death, and I'm really not close enough to anybody here yet. It's still awkward to talk about her, though I guess it will always be with people who didn't know her. Instead of talking about her, I just listened to my Jordan playlist on repeat and thought about her and missed her all day. After I got back to my room, Beth called and I talked to a couple of sisters for about an hour and a half, so that made me feel a little happier. I just really can't believe that it's been a year already. I still miss her so much.

I have an exam on Thursday. I suppose I should get studying for that...