Yes, yes, the hills are alive.

Dude. that's like the only thing that anyone knows about switzerland . . . they all get the same picture in their heads of the von Trap family hiking around in the alps. Well, from my experience, I think they'd need to be wearing a little more than what they had on in the movie in order to not perish from hypothermia.

Anyway, Switzerland is gorgeous, and you must go if you are able. Most of the pictures are landscapes, because the country is just, well, so beautiful! It was awesome. Anyway, we took and overnight train and arrived in the town we were supposed to meet Karl in around 9:15. We saw lots of waterfalls and pretty mountains and things on the way. I found a funny sign
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20012.html
It says 'not smart' over the lady and 'not a cow' under the other guy. We were really hungry, and Ling and Vanessa wanted some hot food. One of them asked for chicken--we weren't sure why, but she did, so Sam and I went off to the supermarket to see if we could bag some breakfast. We found a chicken. a whole one. so we bought it. We brought it back with some bread and cheese, and had a really good breakfast (we ate the whoooole chicke, btw). We were supposed to go hiking, but it was raining and no one had any kind of rain gear or even any real hiking gear, because we just really came to Europe to be tourists. so we debated taking the ski lifts up the mountain in order to get to the hostel we were supposed to stay at that night. Here's us in front of the ski lifts.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20013.html
yeah, you can probably guess that I made fun of Karl a lot when he was wearing that rain gear. You should have seen him turn to the side. He had a huge hiking backpack on, and so he looked kinda like a camel walking on 2 legs with that poncho on. hehe. love you, Karl! We decided that was too expensive, and the train was free, so we took the train up the mountain to another little town that had a bus up to the place we were staying. Funniest bus driver I've ever had. And I spose it helped his case that he spoke Swiss-German. Such a funny language. really cool. When we got there we decided to do a mini hike and walked around in the Alps for awhile, because it had stopped raining. We saw some cool lakes and little houses and lots of cows.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20050.html
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20058.html
this is a fun picture, because Sam thinks he is spiderman in it and we all kinda look crooked even though we are not . . .
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20063.html
We went back to the hostel, had dinner, and played chinese poker and then a game called Kent for awhile. It was fun, and I was singing German songs all night long . . .

The next morning the clouds moved in. It was really foggy. Even the cows thought so
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20074.html
This is the little place we stayed in
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20072.html
We hopped back on the bus with the crazy cool bus driver, because it was indeed still raining pretty hard, so we couldn't hike down. We had a few hours to kill, so we decided to visit Bern. It was a nice city, we had some good food, I made fun on Sam's shirt
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Switzerland/slides/Switzerland%20082.html
and we saw some bears and a cathedral and a few other places in Bern. Then we hopped on a train and headed home.

I had to finish this quick, because I'm going to Italy in a few hours, and if I don't write about this now, I'll never do it, I'm sure!!

Anyway, got to get back to work. I'm leaving Germany in 2 weeks from tomorrow! wow!

Kendall

Music: Wir Sing Helden, die Ärzte, 3EB, 2Raumwohnung, Wise guys, and some random Jack's mannequin in there.

Tipecanoo and Tigger too!

Alright, so there's really no reason to use that William Henry Harrison reference, but it's so much fun! Can you blame me? If I ever run for President, I'm going to have to up my slogan from "Kendall like the square" or "Kendall like the lights in the Church" (for the Germans) to something else entirely. and Tippecanoe is already taken! ooh, maybe something about Tippi Hedren . . . it's close

Anyway, I would just like to say that I went to work today with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich . . . and everybody looked at me funny. It was awesome. I even sung them the song! Obviously, they didn't know it, but I let it go. They thought I was pretty funny . . . and then a little while later I noticed my friend Ruth was wearing a tigger shirt, so I asked her if she knew that song . . . she did a little, so we sung it, but she saw that I knew all of the words, so when someone else asked about her shirt, she said it was from Winnie the Pooh, and that there was a song and that I knew all of the words. Which of course ended with them encouraging me to sing the whole song for them. Again I was entertainment for the Germans. I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't actually know all the words, but you sing that song so fast anyway, that who can tell?

Some line I don't know that ends in tiggers?
Tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
Their bouncy, *ouncy, *ouncy, *ouncy,
fun fun fun fun fun!
* * the most wonderful thing about tiggers is
I'm the only one!

It's a pretty easy song, I dunno what I don't know all the words ;-)

hehe all done

Kendall

Music: Ruth gave me a list of German bands that I've been listening to. I've got one that's like the German version of Usher and one that's like the German version of Sting. Haha. there's also some actual bands like "Wir sind Helden" who I like a lot, and die toten Hosen. Which means the dead pants or the murdered pants or somthing . . . I dunno, man

The Muscles from Brussels

We went to Brussels this weekend! Apparently Jean Claude Van Dam is from Brussels . . . hence "The Muscles from Brussels"--don't worry, I didn't come up with that on my own. I'm not getting more clever. Apparently it's a pretty old one . . .

Anyway, of course I always analyze the engineering skills of the people of the city and this was the first thing we came across in Brussels:
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20002.html
I was super disappointed. I think it's the stupidest escalator design I've seen so far--it didn't have steps. It was just a very disorienting slant. anyway, I forgave them for the escalator since we just got there and I was sure there were a lot more interesting things in Brussels than an escalator. I was right!

We walked to the main square of the city. It was called Grote Markt in Dutch. I don't know what it was called in Frech--everything there was in French and Dutch, and with a background in English and German, one can kind of almost decipher Dutch and a few of the latin routes in French. So all in all, we were doing pretty well in the city. Anyway, here's some pictures of Grote Markt
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20003.html
Next we went to a very large Cathedral
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20007.html
There were some cool things in the Cathedral including a pretty good view
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20009.html
a crazy pulpit
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20012.html
a pretty old statue in memorial of St. John Baptist De LaSalle
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20013.html
a crazy looking organ
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20018.html
and big ol' statues of the 12 apostles. Which turned out to be not quite right. I decided to test my knowledge of the 12 apostles using a little rhyme taught to me by my principal, Mrs. Smith, in like 6th grade, I think, and tried to pick them all out. I couldn't understand why I was counting 12 when Judas definitly wasn't there, and the guy who took his place wasn't either. Shortly after that I discovered that when I saw the name Paul, I converted it to Simon in my head, because I knew there was one that changed his name from Simon and Simon was in the rhyme . . . maybe I've been listening to too much Simon and Garfunkle. anyway, Paul's not and apostle! And Simon changed his name to Peter and there was also a Simon . . . so complicated. Then Sam decided he wanted to try to learn my rhyme. hehe. wow. I believe I've already talked about this far too long.

After the Catherdral, we headed over to the Manekin Pis
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20023.html
I'm serious. That's really his name, that's really what he's doing, and he really is pretty famous. There were a lot of people around him taking picture--more than you'd think for a statue of a little boy peeing. Anyway, there are a few myths as to how exactly Brussels came upon a fountain of a little boy peeing, but the more popular one is that a kid got lost and his father was frantically searching for him for a few days and when he finally found him, he was so grateful that he ordered a statue be made of his son in the exact position he was discovered in. . . . I think it's kinda lame. haha. I personally like the one about a little boy who was peeing on a witches door when she found him and turned him to stone. hehe . . . but I would like that one better. Anyway, the statue is naked, and some people thought it would be cute to make him costumes and such, and then a lot of people thought that would be cute, so there's this whole museum of little costumes that were given to Brussles, I'm told . . . I didn't go inside.

In other news, Sam is a dog
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20027.html
yup. you heard it here first. We went into this little bar just across the street from the Manekin Pis to sample some Belgian beer--that stuff is awesome. Ah, and here's the sign trying to prevent misuse of their bathrooms. so funny.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20029.html
It looks like it rhymes in Dutch, too . . . I dunno about French, though. Mmmmm . . . Belgian beer is yummy. All of it. There's like 4 differnt types of beer that are specific to Belgium, too. wow. Here's funny guys walking down the street wacing flags and palying music and stuff. no idea what that was about
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20032.html
We kind of decided that Belgium was the city of the good view
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20037.html
The cities kind of built on a few levels, so if you go up, you can see the rest of the city really well, and it's quite amazing. Look, it's me in front of the Palace. You think they'll let me in?
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20043.html
They did . . . although they weren't too keen on me sitting on their steps while I waited for Sam and Kunal to get done inside. I was a little annoyed at them, but I'm sure they were annoyed at all the tourists. Hehe. here's a little girl in the subway. I dunno what the art here is all about, but I felt like I'd seen something like it before in the US. Any ideas?
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20070.html


Anyway, the next day, we saw a cool palace, went in a museum, had more wafels (the wafels are really great, too!), and were still amazed at how much ink these guys used when they wanted to print something
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20093.html
Saw some cool paintings--which I don't really like to take pictures of (if you haven't noticed, I usually don't take pictures in museums . . . dunno why. not unless something really gets me . . . or maybe I wanna look up something later. Like the french on this note here
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20095.html
dude. I've no idea what is going on, but it seems pretty important. After then museum, we had a nice 5 beer sampler at one of the bars--all of them were awesome, like I said, because they're from Brussels. heh.

oh yeah, and here's the atomium
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20084.html
For all my course 3 friends, it's a really really big iron crystal structure, and you can walk around inside. We didn't, though, because we were told it cost a few euros that we did not have, and it was waaaaay across town--which isn't too bad, because Brussels is pretty small, but by 2pm on Sunday, we really didn't have a lot of time left.

So we and our tired feet hopped on a rather short Thalys train, considering how long the half that went another way was--we almost missed it it was so short! And took the ride home.

Cool beans. Brussles is fun

Kendall

Music: uhh . . . Something Corporate . . . Sujan Stevens. I dunno. I was really sleeping for most of the train ride, and while we were in Brussels, I was making fun of all the people speaking Dutch, so I wasn't listening to music. hehe.

A weekend at home

This weekend stayed at home, and Karl came to visit! It was nice that I didn't have to ride any trains or worry about getting anywhere . . . We saw Cologne on Saturday and Aachen on Sunday

Cologne is a typical big german city. They have the biggest or the tallest (or something like that) cathedral in the world--or so I was told. And we climbed to the top of it. Something like 500 steps. They were spiral steps, too. I should have taken a picture. It was quite dizzying. Anyway, the cathedral in Köln is huge. It's ridiculous to stand under it and look up.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20024.html
we climbed to the top and took some pictures of Cologne
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20003.html
here's the inside
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20006.html
and we saw the bells, too! Sadly, they don't change ring with the pull ropes anymore. In fact, the bells don't even swing anymore. The best Karl and I could figure was that there was either something hitting the bell on the outside, or a mechanism that just moved the clapper inside. They still ring, though! One went off while we were up there. It was just a small one, but it was still loud
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20008.html
We also went to the chocolate museum in. yummy.

On Sunday, we stayed in Aachen. I was a little embarassed that I actually hadn't been to most of the tourist sites in Aachen. So I saw them all with Karl. We went to the Rathaus and the Dom. That's German for town hall and cathedral, but it's doesn't really mean the same thing in English (well, I suppose catherdral dose, but . . . you know), so we usually call them by their German names. The Rathaus is pretty impressive for a Rathaus, because Charlemagne built it in Aachen along with the Dom as the center of the Holy Roman Empire, because he apparently had arthritis, and there's hot springs in Aachen that are good for that sort of thing. It is also where the Karl's Prize is awarded each year. The Karl's Prize is given to leaders who are seen as having helped unify (I think it's specifically unify Europe, but I'm not really sure). President Clinton won the award a few years ago. Here's Karl and Clinton!
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Aachen/slides/Aachen%20011.html
After that we saw the treasury of Aachen (more like the treasury of the Cathedral. They have a lot of crazy stuff . . . the most of which was, I think, the thigh bone of Charlemagne. He was apparently a saint and had some sort of cult following, and back in those days, people collected relics (which were things the saint owned or I spose parts of his body) from saints and then put them in these elaborate encasements (I think there's a word for those, too, but I don't know what it is). Ew, so I saw Charlemagne's thigh bone. They also had his radius and ulna in a large golden hand. There was a little rock crystal window you could see them through. crazy medival europeans. gross.

Then we hiked up to the triple point (Where Germany, the Netherlands, and Blegium meet), and we walked around in a bush labyrinth for about an hour. We were two quite frustrated MIT students. We couldn't seem to figure the way out. We finally got it, though, but we had to sit down and take a good look at the almost map they gave us (it was a very small picture from a long way up in the air). We finally figured it out, and got out alive. hah. Also, most of the festivities around the triple point ar in the Netherlands, so everything was in Dutch. We had a good laugh listening to the people speaking Dutch ;-)

I'm back to work now, I've got a lot to do.

Kendall

Music: Goo Goo Dolls, Train, The Pixies, Third Eye Blind.

A Tale of Two Cities

So I forgot a something, and I suppose that's good, because this doesn't really belong in the London post.

Anyway, I visited London right after I visited Berlin, and I would say that if you are able to do it that way, then you should, because it's kind of cool. Maybe it also works if you've been to both places, but I thought it was really weird to compare those cities. They had so much in common--they are both humongous with lots and lots of people and many many years of culture along with complicated but still very good subway systems and lots of shopping! But they were also very different. Some of the differences you could see, like the bullet holes in everything in Berlin. A lot of things they didn't even patch up--they just fixed it enough to keep it from falling over, and spent their limited money elsewhere. Some things are even left broken to remind us of the horrors of war. There's a church in Berlin that is missing most of it's roof, because they decided to leave it that way as a kind of memorial. The memorials in the two cities obviously have 2 very different tones. They are all memorials and thus about remembering, but all of the memorials in London are proud. They are for remembering to give inspiration to future generations. They are stories about brave young men and names in stone and lists of countries who sent volunteers to help Britain when they needed it. The memorials in Berlin are very different. They are about remembering so that future generations can see what war and prejudice is like and so they can see why they should do their best to rid the world of these things. There are also stories, but not about brave young men. There are also names on plaques and in stone, but not of soldiers--of poets and great thinkers who no one understood before. But mostly, the memorials are simply places to contemplate things and ideas greater than you, because in Berlin they know that you can't be simply be warned or told of some things. You must understand them completely and believe them in your own heart to be truly effected by them. Kendall

So at least London is cooler . . .

I was in London this weekend! And I didn't tell anyone that I really had no idea how to spell the name of their country . . . They probably wouldn't have been surprised, but I like to keep up the facade that I at least know a little bit about countries besides the US. But we did have several discussions that started out: 'It's our language--we came up with it,' 'We invented your country,' 'Your country is like the son who ran away from home and now thinks he should run the world,' 'You call that a president?' etc. etc. Which were quickly rebutted with comments such as: 'Well, Tony Blair is our bitch,' 'Maybe we should run the world,' 'The English talk funny,' 'So wait, how many times did we save your asses in World Wars?' and 'Wow. You guys totally stole all that stuff that's in the British Museum, didn't you?' All in all it was a pretty exciting weekend.

But back to the title of this blog . . . London is definitely cooler than most places in the US I would say. Just look at all the old buildings and amazing architecture. And they have memorials and monuments everywhere. They even have living monuments. I mean they have a queen. She doesn't do anything except look cool and for some reason be loved by the English. The only problem is that London knows it's cool. And you can tell, too. Just look at all the people
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20004.html
who show up to watch the changing of the guard. Obviously the tradition is ridiculously unneccessary (I always spell that word like that just to demonstrate its meaning that and I can't ever remember whether it's the c or the s I need to lose.), because they only do it once a day (at 11:30am--I mean, when do the guards get to go for tea?) and because they have more real guards with bulletproof vests and huge guns behind the gates. And they've got even more guards in the front of the palace making sure all the people don't go crazy and start asking the guards who are doing the changing for their autograph or something. All of these things, and they still do it just cuz they know it's cool. Just look at these guys.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20011.html
You can just tell they are thinking "oh man. I am so cool marching around in this fuzzy hat. Just look at all those people watching me." I got a few funny looks when I started cracking up when they started marching around. Dude. I want a hat like that. I would be so cool.

After Buckingham Palace, I went and saw Westminster Abbey and the Parliament . . . So around all of these places there signs that all say 'City of Westminster.' Ah that would be why it's called Westminster Abbey. But wait. That means that the Parliament and Buckingham Palace are not in London . . . So the capital of the UK is not London? It's Westminster? I brought this up with many British folk, and most of them were confused by this when I asked them, and I never really got a satisfactory answer, but by the end of the trip I got a conglomeration of answers that summed up to something like: Westminster is a city, but it's not really a city, it's sort of part of London, but not really, and the capital of the UK is London. Anyway, I gave up on that. I'm sure someone has a good response to that which I will never hear. I took lots of pictures of Westminster Abbey and Parliament. I took more pictures of Parliament than I probably should have, because I was standing in line waiting to go in and listen to them do their thing in the house of commons. Here's Big Ben
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20036.html
When I was around Parliament, all I could think of was the movie V for Vendetta when the whole thing blew up. That place is huge. And everything is so pretty and ornate. Another reason why London is so much cooler. This was a translation from Greek from one of the memorials in Parliament. I really liked it.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20070.html
And this guy was standing outside of Parliament. He looked really scary when I walked in, and so I decided to take a picture of him, but when I told him he looked really scary and asked him if I could take a picture, he smiled and laughed and said 'I look scary?' in a wonderfully British accent, and then he didn't seem the least bit scary. oh well. Took the picture anyway ;-)
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20071.html

So the next day we went to the British Museum which was really cool. They've got a ridiculous amount of stuff. They've got the Rosetta Stone,
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20097.html
something like 200 mummies,
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20101.html
1/3 of the decorations from the Parthenon rebuilt in one of their halls,
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20103.html
and a whole greek (roman? actually not sure anymore) tomb in one room,
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20095.html
and all sorts of stuff from Asia and everywhere else, too. Haha. It makes you wonder how they got ahold of all this stuff . . . We only had time for a tour of the Egypt section and the Greek and Roman section. That Museum is huge.

We did some shopping. It's hard because you have to multiply everything by 2. 10$ would be a pretty good deal for some cute flat sandals, but 10 pounds probably wouldn't . . . ah . . . I love this picture.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20111.html
A lot of the signs in London were hilarious. I especially love the signs in the subway. This one seems very 'deep'
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20100.html
when in actuality it only means 'stay behind the yellow line so that you don't lose a limb to an oncoming train . . .' I will admit that their way is shorter. The underground in London does not have any exits! It only has ways out. haha
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20092.html
I think of Astro every time I read a phrase that ends in a preposition. I also love all the signs on the cigarette boxes. I thought it was bad in Germany with 'Rauchen kann tödlich sein' which means 'Smoking can be deadly.' In Britain they are not subtle even a little bit. Smoking will kill you! And in big bold letters, too. Can't miss it.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/London/slides/London%20115.html

Anyway, I also met some cool people, went to a Brazilian club (awesome) and had some yummy Brazilian drinks with about 8 people only one of whom was actually Brazilian. We got home really late, but all in all and awesome evening. Did a little souvenir shopping the next morning and then flew home. whew. Now I've got to get back to work. Hope you enjoyed the post.

Cheers,
Kendall

Music: Trips to and from London used a list called cool stuff that contains most of the newly added music (listed somewhere before) and a few other things like 3EB and postal service. Right now I'm listening to my most played list . . . which I won't explain, because I really don't have time ;-)

World Cup 2006 Berlin!!

Wow. Berin was amazing. There's so much there. Everything makes you think, "hey, I've heard about that." Do you know how to tell if the building is really old? If it has bullet holes in it.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20025.html
Is that not crazy? I know I've told many many of you this already, but it's really hard to bend your head around the idead that 60 years about people were shooting eachother in the very spot you are standing. It's not really a big deal to the Germans.

So the trip was rather tiring. In order to not miss work and pay as little for housing as possible, we took an overnight train to Berlin Friday night. You have to pay extra for beds, and we're pretty sure most of the beds were booked, so we had a little compartment for the 6 of us in the train. It sucked, and Sam slept on the floor most of the time, and I joined him after I couldn't tolerate sitting up anymore. We left Dusseldorf around 11 and got into Berlin at 4:53. Wow was that ever early. No one was around. It was dead. We walked around and Ling tried climbing on some shoe-monument sort of thing
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20003.html
Then it started pouring down rain. It is not fun when you're wandering around a strange city soaking wet with a backpack with all of your stuff on your back. We looked for our hostels so that we could put our things down, but that took a little longer than expected. We finally got all checked in at 12, and had a really good lunch at this place called Miro (I think). We wandered around a bit more and then took a 4 hour walking tour at 3. It was nice. It was really a pain, but it was worth it. I couldn't believe I was seeing all the things I was seeing. We saw museums and churches and monuments and lots more amazing things. This is Neu Wache. It was a guard house but is now a war memorial of sorts. It is a statue of a woman holdind her dead son in her arms.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20029.html
The inscription says "For the victims of war and tyranny." There is a court across the street where the Nazis had a huge book burning. There is a plaque there.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20034.html
The quote at the top right is a from a Jewish writer from 1820. It basically says "it is a prelude where they burn books, in the end they will burn people." We next saw the Brandenburger Tor.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20038.html
Tor means gate, and it was a very big deal when the wall came down that people could once again travel through the gate. The funny thing is that since they have the fan mile set up for the world cup, you can't cross through gate. You have to go around and enter the fan mile down the street, so they can keep the it safe and glass and weapon free. The next thing we saw was the holocaust memorial. It was really amazing. It's only a few years old, and it's not actually called the holocaust memorial. It's called the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe. I bet you can imagine why most people call it the holocaust memorial. This one and the next few are pictures of it.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20041.html
There's also a video in the berlin part of my album that better shows just how big the memorial is. It's supposed to be left open to interpretation, but the tour guide told us that lots of people say from the outside it looks like a jewish cemetery. The inside is even more interesting. We also saw a part of the wall that is still standing and checkpoint charlie as well as places where many people were killed during demonstrations during the DDR. Checkpoint Charlie was probably the scariest place on earth during the Cold war. Right now if you look into the american sector you'll see a picture of an American soldier, and if you look into the Russian sector you'll see a picture of a russian soldier. Nothing compared to the tension during the cold war, when there were soldiers lined up on either side of the fence with guns and tanks pointed at eachother!

We watched the game that night. Deustchland ist Weltmeister meines Herzes! (Germany is the world champion of my heart). I really feel that winning 3rd place in the world cup like Germany is much better than losing 1st like France. It was a fun party, but we had to get back to our hostels, since one of them was a 45 minute train ride out of the city (whoops). We had all left our stuff at one of the hostels that was closer inside the city, so we headed over to get it all out. We we got there, we couldn't get the key to work. (I seem to have some sort of awful luck with keys and locks and things) There was a lady there that night who tried to help us, and when she couldn't get in either, instead of trying other things decided to yell at us because there were 7 of us there instead of 2 like it was supposed to be. That was fun. It's hard to argue with someone in German when you really suck at it. Well, eventually after yelling "Wir haben nur unsere Gepäcke hier!" "Wir haben einen andere Jugendherberg!" (we only have our bags here! we have another hostel!) I think she finally got the message and called another guy who i suppose is actually in charge of the place. It turns out when he gets there we've got to have the same arguement and explaination with him . . . so about an hour after we got there, he just breaks the door, we get our stuff, and we leave. wow. Anyway, after a 20 minute wait, a 10 minute tram ride, and another 45 minute train ride, we finally get to our hostel. It was really nice. no hassels that time. sweet.

On sunday we wandered around some more and ended up going to the Engineering museum. It was also very nice. There's some pictures in the album. There was a big display of old printed money. They weren't in any real order, so Simon bet Kunal a euro that he couldn't pull the examples of Peruvian money out on the first try. Amazingly Simon lost that bet.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/berlin/slides/Berlin%20073.html
Kunal decided that he had super powers. After the engineering museum, we had cake at a restuarant that had about 70 different types of cakes. It was gooood. Then we went to see the Berlin bears on display. There's one from every country in a group having to do with the UN (I'm not really sure it might be every country in the UN or every country recognized by the UN . . . something like that). Anyway, we had some fun with the bears. There's lots of pictures of them in the album, too. After that, the guys I came with went to the fan mile to watch the final, and I had already made plans to go watch the game with some friends from Aachen in a restaurant. I had to decide which team I was going for. It was really who I hated least, and I really couldn't think of a reason why I hated France, so I went for France! Which is too bad. but it was still fun. I met some cool people, too. After that we had to run back to the train station, because our overnight train (again with no beds) left at 12:30. It was a fun time. Next time I won't be so tired, and I might stay longer ;-).

Kendall

Music: Coldplay, because all you have to do to get a girl to fall in love with you is sing her some coldplay ;-) haha. I think the screen on my ipod is dying . . .