Some visiters tracing their hands on the East side of the Berlin Wall. The dates on the hand prints were mostly 2012 and 2013.
Today was another chalk-full day. I woke up to my roommate, Carson, complaining about serious pain in her foot.
Despite the end result, which is possibly a torn ligament and doctors’ orders to stick with the crutches for a few days, she has a great attitude about it. I wish I were more like that! She even met some interesting people at the hospital. All my prayers go out to her for the rest of the trip.
A group of us then went to see the remnants of the Berlin Wall.
On our way there in the train, we were above ground and were able to see parts of the former east side of Berlin. It had a very European feel to it and it felt much more cultured and unique than the area we were staying in the west side. I couldn’t help but notice all of the beautiful cobblestone streets.
Once again, there were people from all over the world taking photos of the artwork. The west side had the typical graffiti, but the former east side had beautiful murals stretching as far as the eye could see.
Not to be cheesy, but some of the murals “spoke” to me. Some of them I did not understand at all, and some of them were just plain frightening. But I can tell that a lot of emotion went into the creation of each and every unique one.
Deutsche Welle was our next media stop. Fabian von der Mark was such a nice and eager host. Some highlights from his lecture about the public broadcasting station were that it looks to be the voice of the German people, but yet not its public relations department. It also caters to many different languages, which presents challenges for advertising and general organization.
He also took us up to the top of the building to see the view. And what a view it was. It was so beautiful. It seemed as though we could see for miles. What is interesting about the Berlin landscape is that there are not clusters of skyscrapers but huge old buildings are speckled throughout the city and stick out among the rest.
We then separated again and some of us went shopping near the hotel. For these past few days I noticed that Germans probably look at Americans so strangely because of our dramatic expressions. Now that we are all closer friends than we were before, we laugh easier and talk more. In the metro stations I notice that other groups of young people are not like us at all. Americans stand out because of our flamboyancy.
Tomorrow is another long day. Time to get some sleep!