Finally, here is my post about the extremely recent Berlin trip I had with my fellow Youth Ambassadors. Alright come on, it's not so recent anymore considering I'm adjusted back in Singapore already. But but but, I only came back from Berlin 7 days ago!
You have to know something. Germany is a great place to be, at least I know Berlin definitely is. I can't help calculating Berlin's time for the past 7 days I've been back. Now, it's 1pm in Berlin and we would have been eating 3-course meals. ):
I'm not gonna split my post into days, I don't have the stamina to separate my trip into 7 posts I know I will give up halfway and stop at Day 2 if I do that. Haha.
A reason why I've been delaying my post is because I'm a bit retarded getting to know what is what in Berlin. And I gotta rely on fellow YA mates' data to know what I did on which day lol.
Here's a screenshot to prove my retardedness and yea, I won't deny how silly I am! And this screenshot is on Facebook too wtfwtfwtf no face. -.-
Better not laugh, I have cleared the misunderstanding between Brandenburg and Reichstag already and I shall talk about it further later if you read on. Lotsa pictures! ;) Pictures mainly stolen from others haha.
25th November (That crazily much-awaited day!!!) we all gathered at the airport at 10pm. I was so excited for my flight I DID NOT BELIEVE I WOULD EVER BE IN GERMANY, EUROPE HELLO?! EUROPE!!
I believed the plane would crash, to be honest. Because I could not imagine myself in Germany.
I didn't want the cargo crew to throw my luggage around and spoil it or make it look tattered so at check-in I asked the lady for a "FRAGILE" tag. And wtf she said, "Lufthansa doesn't have that, are your items in your luggage arranged properly?" What if I really had lots of glass and fragile items in my luggage?! Break who's accountable!
But never mind, we said our last goodbyes to whoever were sending us off and started to go into the departure gate.
One thing I must mention, JESLYN AND EVELYN CAME TO SEND ME OFF AS A SURPRISE! I was so shocked to see them I never expected it. And they gave me heat packs as a farewell gift. Haha. Love them!
Before we went in to the departure gate, we had a group shot.
You know what, because most of the photos are 'stolen', they are really small although I've set it to the largest size, so just click on small photos for a larger view okay. Hopefully it works. :/
And then off we go for our 13hours flight to Frankfurt and then another hour's flight to Berlin. Plus transit time, everything's 15 hours I KNOW RIGHT DAMN SIAN.
DAY ONE
I tell you I was so damn happy when we reached Berlin not because the plane didn't crash like I expected because the flight was HORRIBLE. The seats were damn friggin' small and so not spacious and I had to try to sleep in it for 13 hours. The 1 hour flight wasn't so horrible cus it was only an hour. They said the plane was a Boing, doesn't matter. But I managed to sleep though, only waking up when it's time to eat hehee. I shouldn't have because I didn't even stand up and walk around during the 13 hours, my bones were aching all over.
We reached around 8.30am Berlin time, which is like 3.30pm Singapore time, HAHAHA. So we collected our luggages and headed off to meet Mildred( our guide ), Mrs Deutschman( German teacher-in-charge) and a girl called Luisa. You will see how she looks like later. (:
Then we had authentic German breakfast by ourselves! First thing we did you know!
We headed to the Produce Market whereby local food and daily products were sold. So, we purchased our own breakfast there. N-a-i-s, NAIS!
My brätwurst for €2.50. I asked for chilli but Germans don't eat chilli! ): I survived 8 days without chilli alright!
Here's my minestrone soup for another €2.50 I guess.
I bought it because I was freezing and it really helped warm me up. (: There's lots of ingredients in there compared to the ones in Singapore which I believe are SCAMS after tasting the german minestrone.
That's my breakfast and it's at least $10 in SGD! I think I will end up a gypsy if I live in Europe.
It's a pork knuckle cooked the German way. And it's humongous. Not my breakfast.
More of the Produce Market..
Lovely lady who made the bratwurst. She was like, "Zingapore? Oh Zingapore very nice right? I see on televizion!"
Roasted chickens! They were super tempting but the price wasn't.
Flowers. (: I'm not a fan of them.
Chocolates! Not much of a fan too.
Lovely Christmas candles. ((:
German Veg.
German cheese.
Raw meat/sausages.
Random, hehee.
Cute little boy I secretly took a snap of while waiting for the others to finish their food. :D
Afterwards, on our itinerary, we were supposed to have our walking tour of the city. But due to some communication problems, we waited super duper long for our local guide.
So we started walking around the christmas market across the road, and taking pictures!
Twist!
Smile. (:
Ultraman.
Christmas market! Over 40 of them in the city.
I think this stall is really cool.
Ang moh fortune-teller. He uses a crystal ball, no kidding. More high-class than Chinese palm-reading right? Haha.
Christmas decorations all over the place.
As soon as our local guide for the day arrived, we embarked on the super long and wearing walking tour of the city.
Behind us, you see the Berliner Dom.
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It was built by Kaiser Wilhelm II in Italian Renaissance style with the intent to overawe. The most evocative part of the building is the crypt, which contains the preserved coffins of 89 mambers of the Hohenzollern royal family.
See the black parts on the Berliner Dom? It was once burnt and those are burn marks.
Do you see the tall tower with a sphere? It is the TV Tower, the iconic symbol of the GDR(German Democratic Republic) and completed in 1969. Notice the cross on the sphere due to the sun's rays? The TV Tower is therefore also nicknamed "Pope's Revenge".
We then walked to Neue Wache.
This is a memorial place, a statue of a woman is placed in the center of the memorial. The statue depicts a woman who had lost her husband and her son in the war.
You have to read this!!!
Graffiti can be seen all over Berlin and it's the Berliners' way of protesting against their high unemployment rate. I mean, honestly ALL over the place it's like almost everywhere!
Now, in front of your eyes is a building with authentic bullet holes. The little black dots on the building are the bullet holes. Yes, the building was shot at like crazy in the past, I wonder if it hurts. ):
I love the Ampleman, Berlin's green-man. Isn't it so cute with his little hat?!?!! It's like short and cute, unlike Singapore's.
This little boy is MAD CUTE! As we were on our walking tour, he passed by with his Mom, and he's on this little bike with no pedals. Haha so he was like using his legs to move the bike, like waddling. I love him he is sooooo cute!!
What did I say about graffiti? Haha it's even on their recycle bins! Anyway, their recycle bins are awesome! Big and round. Cute!!
We walked for really really long, and people were starting to complain, and we were all tired, and we saw many sights, but honestly? I was too tired to care.
I perked up at our last stop, where the Berlin Wall once stood.
1961-1989. (:
Believe or not, the fall of the Berlin Wall was due to a miscommunication. It wasn't supposed to fall! LOL.
These cobblestones mark the Berlin Wall and where it used to be. They are all over the streets to remind everybody of the Berlin Wall.
I had my first FISH meal in Berlin. And after this first meal, I never touched fish again for the rest of the 7 days. It was so fishy, so disgusting. You know, that really bad smell that fishes have? D: It's totally disgusting. I didn't finish my meal.
For every meal I paid €2.50 for a small glass of drink, because drinks are not included in our tour package. I KNOW RIGHT WTFWTFWTF. It's really SMALL okay and I usually order coke or sprite and add lots of salt into them. Only once I ordered apple juice. Drinks and plain water are really expensive over there! But drinks are optional though you can don't buy it if you don't want it.
Meals in Germany are always 3-course for us. Lol. First the appetiser, usually a salad; followed by the main course, usually meat(pork); lastly there's dessert! I love dessert most! Yum yum. :P
At night back at the hotel, I opened the packet of heat packs by Jes and Eve and I was so surprised to see that each pack had been written or drawn on by them! Haha I remember one wrote, "I WANT HOT GUYS!" HAHAHAHA must be Eve LOL.
Super surprised! But couldn't contact them to say thanks!! Love themmmm.
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DAY TWO
We woke up around 6am Berlin time to prepare for school! Yay for once I was interested and excited in going to school. I love meeting new people. :D We went to Romain-Rolland-Oberschule. Also know as RoRo! What a cute name. It's SAJC's twinning school how cool.
In the hotel lift.
But the driver for the day ( a replacement cus our original one was on leave) didn't quite know his way and we had to walk really long to the school. Thus, we were extremely late for our welcome ceremony with the school and everything was delayed. Because of that, we had really little interaction time, only like 20 minutes? ):
On the way there (friggin' one hour bus-ride), we were preparing for our dance item for the Germans. I was in the Chinese dance group and they wanted to tie their hair in scorpion-plaid. But not everybody knew how to tie so the teacher had to help!
Haha Miss Seow tied for like at least 7 or 8 people?
I tied mine on my own though. :D
When we reached, we had an awesome performance by these little children. They were singing a song about welcoming us, can't really remember.
On the one hand we had cute welcoming children, on the other hand this dude was kinda hostile. He never smiled, and he sang a song for us with lyrics, "See you later alligator, cus I gotta walk crocodile" or something like that. Haha it's like, "Huh? See US later?" But his singing was not bad honestly and we clapped along. :)
And then we performed for the Germans. First up Indian dance, then Chinese, Malay and lastly we ended with a finale of Singapore Town.
I love Indian dance, they had lots of ass-shaking. ;)
And I forgot to mention we had video-conferencing with our Singapore counterparts back in Sg! Sadly, all were girls on the other side and APPARENTLY THOSE GIRLS LOVE ANG MOHS THEY KEPT GIGGLING AND HIDING THEIR FACES IT WAS ANNOYING, FOR ME.
First time see ang moh meh?!
LOL.
Our short period of interaction with the Germans..
This was one group, not mine.
This my group. (: They were awesome they wanted to know so much about us and Singapore.
After a short while we had to go, because ( not in our itinerary ) the Mayor wanted to see us. Hahaha wah BIG SHOT see Mayor.
Okay kidding.
We met the Mayor at the Town Hall.
At first I thought this man's the Mayor!
But..
It's this man!
Why their Mayor like so young one? I was kinda expecting him to be like the Mayor from Powerpuff Girls haha.
Group shot after all the speeches. Spot me!
Outside the Town Hall looking retarded.
Lunch at this restaurant within the Town Hall.
I ordered pork! Nais and yummy. :D
With YanDeng, a german thought he was Japanese and shouted KONICHIWA at us! Haha.
After lunch we headed to Stasi Museum. My whole trip is full of museums no kidding. Stasi Museum shows how the Nazis spied on people, the spies could be your neighbor, your grocer, or even your best friend!
See, hidden cameras could be in handbags..
or even in tree logs in your backyard!
How frightening!
Now that everything's over, people can go to the Stasi Museum to obtain their files of their daily actions written by the spies.
On the bus toying with Rohaida's sunglasses hahaha.
Meatballs for dinner.
They look small, but they are so huge actually that I only ate one and a half out of the two.
And we went to the local supermarket! Called Penny Market.
I bought lots of food from there to use as souvenirs for my family because I don't know what to get for my aunties, uncles and cousins and I know they'd definitely eat, so food would be the best souvenir!
After purchasing $60SGD worth of food, I asked the cashier for a bag because she just started serving the next person in-line without packing my goods into a carrier. And she pointed in a direction where the bags are, and I took a bag and went to store my goods. She then collected 9cents in euros from me.
YA MUST PAY FOR PLASTIC BAG ONE!! SO ENVIRONMENTAL-FRIENDLY! THUMBS UP!!
At the supermarket..
Everybody buying the whole market.
Me and Evan's goods combined. Mine starts from the right all the way to Choco Crossies. Hers start from those blue bars and Hanuta to the half-dozen bottles of apple soda.
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DAY THREE
Rise and shine early for the Reichstag! It's something like their Parliament House. But we were only allowed to visit the glass dome on the roof top.
Lovely sunrise.
Reichstag! I am 200% SURE this is the Reichstag, NOT Brandenburg.
Look and remember how this patch of land looks like while we are queuing up to enter the Reichstag.
But there's a looooong queue in front of me. ): They had security checks in there!
Little boy pushing his own pram around mad cute!
Hmm, then he saw us taking photos of him and he ran to his Mom.
No I was totally joking he didn't see us haha.
On the rooftop..
WE SPOT ANOTHER CUTE BABY! Obviously he loves Rohaida cus he's smiling so sweetly over here.
Look at mine.
I THINK HE IS SCARED OF MY HIGH FOREHEAD!!
Well we had a debate they say he's a girl I say he's a boy what do you think? HE IS A BOY ISN'T THAT QUITE OBVIOUS?
View of city from rooftop..
See the TV Tower and the Berliner Dom!!
Following pictures on the rooftop in the Dome..
They were helping us take the above group photo haha COUNT THE NUMBER OF CAMERAS ON THEM!
See!! As we leave, look at the loooooooong line of queue to go into Reichstag. Good thing we went early.
We passed by the original Berlin Wall, protected by a fence.
How ironic.
TADA! This is the Brandenburg gate! VERY SURE!
At Brandenburg Gate.
Tired. Hee.
Remember the cobblestones? Where the Berlin Wall once stood.
Lunching.
The pork looks dangerously like fish.
Milk rice with chocolate syrup for dessert. Yum. (:
After lunch, we went to another museum which also serves as a memorial.
Total of 2711 blocks in there, number has no meaning, could be any random number. It's a memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe, and the undulating lines of dull granite blocks evoke the pre-communist World War II that is both individual and collective.
Murdered Jews.
Below are paragraphs taken from several Jews' letters,
Then it started to get dark although it was only late afternoon and we went to Charlie Checkpoint and afterwards had some time on our own.
We spy Starbucks!
So we headed to Starbucks for coffee and I WAS THE ONLY ONE TO BUY COLD FRAP! They all went, "Omg you crazy is it drink Frap during winter!" Hahaha.
Outside diner's.
On the bus back to the hotel and me at my favorite seat in the bus, on the floor. :D
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DAY FOUR
As the days pass, the weather grew colder haha. Today we went to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
At the entrance. Drizzling eh haha.
Prisoners had to come through this gate and these 3 words say : Labor will make you free.
Which is actually total bullshit because eventually you die in the camp. Many believed if they worked hard enough they would be deemed useful and they won't be killed, but they die of over-work still.
I believe: Once you go through this gate you will never be free.
Then, we visited one of the barracks where the prisoners lived.
Each wooden bed slept not one, but at least 2 prisoners. So there were at least 4 prisoners in both upper and lower bunk. The numbers gradually started to increase.
Tattered roof.
Actual place where prisoners were brought to be killed, one of the methods being gassing, and their bodies were burnt in the same place. Prisoners were totally unaware of what was going on and they were all brought to believe that they were only there for a body checkup.
This is the Neutral Zone in the camp but it ain't no neutral. Prisoners who were seen standing in the neutral zone were at once shot dead by the soldiers, and the reason for the shoots, "TRYING TO ESCAPE".
That is totally ridiculous because you see the wires at the back? They were electrified and once touched, a person would be electrocuted to death. And the wall was fenced too, it was all too impossible to escape.
Real reason for shooting: Soldiers were given more money and holidays off they killed a prisoner. In other words, soldiers had the incentive to kill.
After the sad experience, WE WENT TO THE OLYMPIC STADIUM! YAY!!
Happy me!
There, we met a man from the German Olympic Committee who then gave us souvenirs.
Amazing isn't it! The track's blue because it's in support of the German soccer team which main color's blue.
They have their own underground warm-up area for the athletes with a 100m track!!
The female figure has a figure hahaha cool right.
Isn't the male urinal so very cool?!
After the tour of Olympic Stadium, lovely Mrs Deutschman gave us the famous chocolate that all Germans eat during Christmas. It's the 1 METER DIAMOND CHOCOLATE. Nais!!
At the Jewish Museum.. told you my tour's full of museums.
Retarded face.
Haha I gave this face because the 3 of them refused to let me join the photo before that.
First Leanne sat on me cus there were no more spaces. Almost 10 minutes later came Gina, immediately followed by Esther. I totally didn't feel Gina and Esther at all until I saw them!! Then I felt the pain. LOL.
During dinner I started face-reading people and predicting how their husbands would look like, what's their personalities, what's their jobs, when would they have children, how many children, boy or girl, blahblahblah. Throughout dinner haha. And I described Jana's boyfriend perfectly including the fact that he's vain! And everybody else wanted a face-read.
I knocked out immediately once we reached back at the hotel after dinner. Not brushing my teeth for the night. EEW. (:
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DAY FIVE
Morning, we went back to RoRo cus it's a Montag! (Monday) Btw, you realize my post is getting less and less wordy? I'm very tired I've been blogging for 6 hours now please don't blame me. But pictures are good too, yea? ;)
This time, we had a welcome ceremony with Class 11D, Mrs Deutschman's class. They are about 16/17 years old, our age!
While waiting for the ceremony to start..
They welcomed us by telling us about their school through posters and videos, really nais. :D
After that, we all headed to different classes in our small groups. Bye bye 11D!
In my friend's class, not mine. I thought what was on the projector screen's very nais. (:
And in MY class.. WE MEET HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!!!
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I'm melting next to him!!
Lunching in school.
Failed jump shot after lunch. We look like gorillas haha!
THIS IS THE PUBLIC TOILET DAMN NAIS RIGHT I LOVE!!
After school, we went to the DDR museum, or rather, German Democratic Republic museum. And looked at exibits and learnt about life during that period of time.
100% PLASTIC CAR!!
And I got a ride in it. (:
They had a nude beach. Everybody was totally naked on the beach, I swear because I saw real videos of the nude beach.
The reason why the nude beach existed because the bikinis were very ugly at that point of time as most materials were used for export instead. AHAHAHA SICK BUT STILL, NAIS.
And we tried on authentic clothes from the past!
Even Miss Seow joined in lol.
At the museum we saw a cute little grumpy baby. :D
CUTE NOT!!!
We also went for a DDR Museum tour OUTSIDE the museum and there's a crooked road marking!
And I was doing a dance while walking to keep warm, and it worked!
We reached the statue of Karl Marx and I tried to sit on his lap.
But I couldn't get on. ):
So I said, Please please?
And I try again..
YAY!!
After DDR tour, we had almost 2 or 3 hours to ourselves, so we went to the Christmas market across the road! Haha.
Not even 4pm and the sky's so dark!
A donkey in the market! With two sheep hidden in the wooden wall next to it. CUTE!
And I had a pony ride.
The pony looked so sad I felt so bad after I hopped on it. Honestly. ):
A skating rink right smack in the middle of the market!
Afterwards we went for Chinese dinner at 5.30pm. Where I continued face-reading. Haha.
I'm a scam, and the chinese diner is also a scam, the chinese food sucked very badly.
I then went with my pals to McDonald's next to our hotel and I was told I fell asleep there. And I couldn't walk back to the hotel and I went back to the hotel and rolled off my bed. HAHA none that I could remember. I totally knocked out and this night, I didn't even bathe/change. Knocked out flat.
I swear it's the face-reading, cus other nights I could sleep at a normal time, not as early as 9pm!!
Ending of with Mcflurry from German Mac!
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DAY SIX
We didn't go to school today, instead we went to the Atrium to meet 11D, and we did activities with them.
At the Atrium, we met with many people, who were to teach us different things.
Digital Photography(Photoshop), Digital Photography(Dark Room), Chinese Dance, Baroque Dance and Baking! I was in the photoshop group.
Baroque:
Photoshop:
We made these postcards! Hahaha.
Digital Photog:
THEY MADE "SAJC"!
Chinese Dance:
Baking:
They baked a big cookie for Ms Ong. Nais. <3
And I wanted to join in the fun! I made the blue smiley face and heart-shaped cookie! Haha while making the teachers made a face because it's blue!
At lunch with the Germans.
After lunch..
There, remember I said you'll see Luisa?
From left to right: Luisa, Alex, Adriana and Kevin( Wu Zun look-alike?)
After we left the Atrium at about 3pm, we had the whole evening to ourselves before dinner! We went back to the city to shop and have dinner on our own.
Big dog in one of the shops, so sad only caught its backside!
My dinner! only 5Euros for whole set, more worthy than a 2.50DRINK.
The guy working was really funny! I asked if a bottle on the table was salt, he said yes, and I proceeded to shake salt into my cup of Cola. He looked at me, super bewildered, and started exclaiming, "This is salt ya!? Not sugar!! Salt!! You know? Salt?!" Hahaha and his eyes were like SUPER DUPER BIG! And I said, "I know I know hahaha."
And he asked, "Why put salt?!"
I said, "Cus I'm a Singaporean and some Singaporeans love salt in their drinks!"
HAHAHA HIS REPLY SUPER EPIC!
"I 26 YEARS OLD FIRST TIME SEE! (Points index finger in a 1 sign madly around) IF I MARRY SINGAPORE WIFE SHE PUT SALT IN MY COFFEE YA?"
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAA.
Love his cuteness.
His shop.
My purple and blue mascara bought in one of the marts! Purple on your left and blue on your right. Super cheap only 2Euros!! Haha. I like! Then partied till like 1am.
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DAY SEVEN
It's a free day for us all so more of pictures less words. Last day in Germany before we go to the airport!
CHECK OUT THE TEMPERATURE TODAY!
At East Side Gallery, where the Berlin Wall is now a site for artists to express themselves.
After lunch we were free to walk around, totally free to do last minute shopping or to visit museums which we haven't been to.
I went shopping. (:
Look at their roads, it's so wide it can fit two trams, these are tram rails btw cool right! I love the whole look!
We love our dear driver (original one) and we gave him a bag of Singapore goodies. (: Nais!
Most of us outside wanting to experience the cold for the last time before boarding. All without coats!!
Bye bye Berlin! I really love you plenty and I promise I will go back to you again in time to come.
Had lots of fun with YA, miss the noisy nights miss the crazy bus rides miss the bimbotic moments.
Plenty of misses to everybody and everything that happened this one week in Berlin.
Hello my home.
04:05 AM WHEN I FINISH THIS POST, 8HOURS OF BLOGGING! You people better appreciate it.
