Berlin Update! (Endlich!)

Ok so I figure it's about time for me to let you all know about my adventures in Berlin. So here is what will probably be the longest post ever written... I'm pretty much copying it out of my journal so I'm sorry if some of it doesn't make sense?
aaaaaaaaaand we're off!
Sunday: I accidentally set my alarm for 6 pm instead of am (brilliant, just brilliant) so I didn't wake up until they buzzed me literally 5 minutes before we had to be at the strassenbahn stop. So we're talking, lightning fast getting ready. I honestly don't know how I did it. Fortunately, I had pretty much everythign packed already. Unfortunately, I got halfway down the street and brent reminded me that I forgot my passport (which we had to have with us to get into the Bundeskanzleramt) so i literally had to sprint all the way back and then sprint to the strassenbahn stop. In the morning, when it was very cold. Seriously, no clue how i did this. I do know that sitting on the strassenbahn I was definitely tasting blood from breathing so much cold air. But it's all good :-). Fast forward a VERY long busride. (like, 9-10 hours). Full of hearts, euchre (yay for like, all of my friends (minus Jayme and Krista) being from the midwest!) and Siedler playing. After having arrived in Berlin, we went to an italian place to eat and then back to the hotel. Speaking of hotels (really youthhostel) and german showers, dear goodness do they always make it as complicated as possible. The knob was litterally one of those timed things that you had to keep pushing every couple of minutes. Fabulous.
Monday: The day was cold and rainy, but it wasn't too bad because we took a bus tour of the important touristy things, starting with the Protestant Cathedral and surrounding buildings/museums. (Pictures can be seen on my site). We also saw the old royal buildings and the Palace of the Republic (for former east germany). Next we visted the Brandenburger Tor, which I think is just the coolest thing ever, and then drove through Checkpoint Charlie onto Potsdamer Platz. After hanging out there for a while we drove by the Reichstag and other parliament buildings, as well as the road that many diplomatic houses were on. In the afternoon we visited the Bundesamt für Statistik (center for federal statistics) and took naps. That evening we decided to go out exploring so we went to Kurfürstendammstrasse (ku-damm for short). Kudamm is very interesting because it looks very american... walking down the street I almost feel like I'm walking down michigan avenue. almost ;-). We ate dinner there, and went on to Potsdamer Platz, which looks amazing at night all lit up! (again, I refer you to pictures ;-)). From there we walked back to the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag for night pictures. It was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera battery died as I was taking pictures of the Reichstag which resulted me standing in the middle of the lawn in front of it screaming not very nice words. oops. :-). So the rest of the week I was without a camera so you have everyone else to thank for those pictures. To top it off, on our way home we got on the wrong S-bahn and ended up having to walk for like an hour through not so great a part of East Berlin (our hostel was in an old factory). I just can't explain how frightened I was. I could barely breathe the whole time. fortunately, there were a bunch of us and all that stuff, I just worry too much sometimes :-)
Tuesday: Began by visiting the Wannsee conference house (where a conference that they have documented took place that is one of the few places where they actually discussed the "final solution to the Jewish question" ... sorry, they = the nazis). Then we went back to Kudamm for lunch followed by a tour through the "Story of Berlin" audio-visual museum. Which was very cool and interested except in ended in a tour through an actual nuclear shelter - interesting, but frightening because they had very strange sound effects playing and even stranger lighting. For dinner, we went to a Thai restaurant. I am still unsuccessful in my quest to find Pad Thai here. I miss it so much and I don't know what they call it here, or even if they have it here. I'm beginning to think it's a made-for-america dish. Then we played pool downstairs, the 2nd floor of the former factory is a bar. (the hotel/hostel doesn't start until the 3rd floor) And that's it for tuesday.
Wednesday: Went to Potsdam and walked around the town before visiting Schloss Sans Souci (means: without worry) which was built by Frederick der Grosse. It was pretty, but also very extravagant. In the evening, we were tired so stayed in and played Siedler and cards and just hung out. Matt and Megan went back into the town together and took some really nice pictures of the top of the Reichstag, also to be seen on my site :-).
Thursday: Visited the bundeskanzerlamt. which is ummmmmm, like the white house sort of. Basically, it's where the offices of Schroeder and various Ministers are. It was actually pretty nice inside. Highlight of the tour, when our guide said "This trainstation has been in the works since 1910 but there were some wars and a wall that got in the way." hahaha!. right. ok. We ate lunch in Potsdamer Platz, then visted an art museum full of Picassos, Matisses and Klees. Some were nice but I'm just not a huge fan of abstract art... I prefer impressionist stuff, like Monet, etc. however, it was free so no big deal. As Brent, Jayme, me and Matt (I think that's who it was) were waiting outside, a film crew for some german news station asked us to pretend to be walking out of the museum so we were on german news! woohoo! Then we went and hung out in Kadewe (huge mega store thing, but like, very upscale one) and afterwards went back to Checkpoint charlie and took some pictures and such. That night we went to a bar that had cheap cocktails but was kind of strange. There was a bed in the bar. Even stranger: the bed had handcuffs on the headboard. Very odd. But, it was fine while we were there, at least, nothing creepy or out of the ordinary happened.
Friday: We took a tour of the Documentation center for the Berlin Wall. Which was cool because they rebuilt a replica of how the wall looked at the end of its era, w/ deathstrip and all. Very interesting. In the afternoon we took a tour of topographie des terrors, which talked about the nazis and the ss and such. Very very interesting. Friday night we saw the Blue Man Group, which was AWESOME. Then we wanted to climb up the Reichstag so we started walking in that direction, but on our way we ran into the Fest for the Day of German Reunification... and the amazing performance of THE CLOGS!!!!! Think.... queen but even stranger. The lead singer wore a robe at the end. Seriously. they were awesome. Not exactly the greatest, musically wise, but just hilarious and awesome. They can only be understood when you see the pictures of them. Also the picture of me, Jayme and Krista on the screen! Because we are awesome and Brent managed to get a clear picture of us on it. So that was super exciting. We weren't able to go up the Reichstag cause there were just too many people, but oh well.
Saturday: didn't do all that much, Walked around Alexanderplatz and surrounding area in the morning, then went to Kudamm yet again. Later, we went back to the Fest and hung out there before Jayme, Brent, Krista and I waited in line to climb up the Sunday: drove home, blah blah blah.
So that's my trip to Berlin :-) woohoo! I hope you enjoyed reading about it! (if you even got this far!) Soon, I will update on stuttgart. my fingers need a break from typing though.
*humming song from an ebay commercial here*