Deutschland? Deutschland!

Germany. Deutschland. When I was accepted into this study abroad program, my first thought was “I’m going to Germany”. I can’t really explain why; I’ve never been particularly interested in Germany before. Even when I started learning about WWII I was always more interested in places like Britain, Poland, Russia, even Austria. Italy I always wanted to go to but I got that done with forever ago. But... Germany?

Well, I finally got to go. I didn’t think I was going to get there, but I really wanted to, and I mentioned it to Katie and the next thing I knew we were booking a flight. The flight was a bit pricey and I really wasn’t sure if I could afford to be there for three days, but we did it. I turned in my dissertation and then woke at the crack of dawn and left for Germany.

And it was so, so worth it.

We landed early in the morning and after a bus and a train checked into our hostel, where we kind of fell asleep on the couch in the lounge. But then we checked into our room and napped forever... and then explored.

One things I always wondered about Germany is how they approach their own history of the last 100 years. I always kinda assumed it was all hush hush, look at all our pretty buildings and let’s pretend we weren’t two cities for forty years. Oh, I was so wrong.

The only thing these guys could say was "photo" we're pretty sure

So, so wrong.

Berlin kind of has a love affair with its own history. There were tons of people wandering around in WWII-era and Soviet-era uniforms posing for pictures with flags, handing out passport stamps and postcards.

I now have a visa to live in East Berlin for 14 days!

 But really. It’s all over the place. Everything in Berlin was either WWII, Soviet Union or Christmas.

Christmas at Brandenburg!

 I mean, it was okay with us because that’s all that we did. We did the Berlin Mauer Museum, the DDR Museum, the Holocaust memorial, and every Christmas market we could find.

It was all wonderful, of course. We spent a lot of time wandering where the wall used to be, and playing around with its old boundaries. So ridiculous.

This probably happened.

I have to say, there’s still a bit of a physical difference between the East and the West. When we went to the East End Gallery, there was just... something different about the area we were in. It was clearly cleaned up but it was noticeably different. I know a lot of the city has been fixed but still. The East End Gallery was gorgeous, btw.

Germany was beautiful and incredibly friendly. The Christmas markets were really fun and had SO MUCH JOY. And the Christmas decorations were just... to DIE for.

Germany knows how to do Christmas. It’s absolutely amazing. And even if we couldn’t understand something (which was most of the time) they ALWAYS spoke English. Hooray for us! Except for one time Katie was trying to order wurst, and the man just spoke in German to her, counted at her and laughed. She was intimidated. ‘Twas hilarious.

But everything was just amazing. Our hostel was gorgeous, everything was cheap and my inner history freak was satiated.

Germany, Germany, Germany is a really really nice place~♫