Koln / Nuremberg - Last Day of our Excursion!!!

Once again, we arise gloriously out of our California King sized beds, draped with million thread count Egyptian cotton and silk sheets. The butler brought us an array of exotic fruits and fresh baked goods. Then we boarded our first class coach off to the happiest place on earth…. Disneyland!!!!!

After a long 5 hour train ride from Koln, we found ourselves in a 45 min. delay due to a down train on the tracks...  Going along the Rhine was amazing.  We saw many castles and of course the best one was to come.

In ‘Disneyland’ we went to an exhibit of the history of Hitlers regime. Oh, before we go any farther, ‘Disneyland’ is German for Nurnberg. We skipped through the Dokumentationszentrum Reichparteitagsgelande, also known as an exhibit highlighting the third Reich. It was based in the mega coliseum which reminded us of the good ole King Dome, but not really. In this mega dome, they had massive rallies including the brainwashing of the German military, however, today it was being used for a monster truck MONSTERJAM! It was shocking to see that the Nazi propaganda spread all through this one location.

After figuring out the bus /tram system (very similar to our metro, except better), we headed into town! It was interesting because most people know Nurnberg for the terrible history that occurred there when, in actuality, it is a very quaint and cheery city. Small café’s lined the streets with many street performers.

Whilst perusing this Epcot Center of cuteness, our group meandered along the cobblestone streets toward the castle of Nurnberg. It was b-e-a-uuutiful (how Jim Carrey says it in ‘Bruce Almighty’) as mentioned by Mrs. Parker-Haas (HI MOM! -Lackie).

By the way Mrs. Parker-Haas, while we were in Berlin, we did visit the Soviet memorial, appreciated the grandeur, the intricate details, and of course the history behind it.

Once Aaron woo’ed the youthful princess, we had a spot of free time in the town.

We cruised the streets like a band a Mexicano Bandito’s, shopping at vendors and enjoying the sun. This scrumptious town filled us with a mood of European delight. After our afternoon snack of baked goods, we made our way to the train station for our last train ride of our excursion before starting our presentations to our sister school.  See you all on Monday!!!   Love, Chris and Lackie.

Koln - Day 2

This morning was the hardest morning to get out of bed. Our new hostel is practically a hotel and the beds were just so warm and comfortable compared to the rainy weather outside.  Reluctantly we all dragged ourselves out of bed and we dowstairs for breakfast by 7:30.  After a delicious breakfast we got ready to go climb the spire of the Cathedral.

We felt right at home walking to the U-Bahn in the rain.  When we got to the Cathedral we waited outside for a couple minutes waiting for the cathedral to open.  As soon as the door was unlocked we rushed inside to start our journey to the top.  Typically it takes a good 30 minutes to climb to the top but we finished a bit before that.  Upon reaching the top we observed the view then climbed back down.  A few of us got dizzy come back down the stairs since a majority of it was spiral. 

Then we went inside the church which was huge! We observed the church more on our own than as a group which was a nice little chage.  We saw the relics of the three wise men that were placed in the church. 

Afterwards, we went to the chocolate factory.  It was pretty interesting but we were all still pretty tired.  Fortunately, they had some free samples that helped to wake us up!

After we were done Mr. Mobini let us wander Cologne freely as long as we could get back to the hostel on our own. So Jessika, Aaron, Connor, Karan Jagt, Willow, and us went to find a place to eat.  We found this little restaraunt on the Rhein river and decided it would be a great place to have lunch.  Turns out that food there was AMAZING. 3 of us ordered a "flamecake" which is basically a pizza but without the pizza sauce and was not as thick as regualr pizza.  Afterwards we wandered about doing some shopping and just enjoying our adventure together downtown Cologne.  Then we gave us an hour to get back just in case we got lost.  So we got to the main station and half of us said we take the U-bahn and the other half believed we were supposed to take the S-bahn.  After discussing it and taking a look at the map we figured out it was the U-bahn. We boarded the right U-bahn and got to our stop but then we werent sure which way to go to get to the hostel. We kept trying to use the map but it was very confusing until finally Jessika found our current location and figured out how to get to the hostel.  Needless to say we found our way back and even had 10 minutes left until 5! Overall today was a fantastic day in Cologne despite the weather. - Katie & Renee

Aachen/Koln - Day 1

Thursday morning, we woke up very early to meet in front of the hostel for our short walk to our bus stop.  We got on a train that took us from Berlin Ostbahnof to Cologne. From there we got on another train that took us to Aachen.  once we got there we went to a church where Charlimagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The church was beautiful and we saw a place where the bones of the emperor were kept as well as some other religious relics. After this we walked into an area with several resteraunts and everyone got lunch.

Some of us had some bratwursts that were pretty good.

After our late lunch we went back to the main train station in Aachen and took another train to our destination, Cologne, where we will be for the next two days.

We could see the Cologne cathedral from the window of the train, it was very tall! After taking a tram from the Koln Hauptbahnoff, we got off the train at Neumarkt station and walked to our hostel. Mr. Mobini checked us in and we got ourselves situated. After about an hour we all met in the lobby of our hostel and went on a walking tour of the city of Cologne and also visited the outside of the cathedral and learned a few facts about the history of the town & church. We then continued to walk across the bridge over the rhein and the girls enjoyed seeing these locks locked on the gate on the bridge that had lovers names on them.

We kept walking and made it to our dinner destination, a traditional German pub where we had Shnitzel after which we got some ice cream on the way back to our hostel. As we began to walk towards the U-Bahn, Eleana was checked her bag for her phone and she realized that she had misplaced it! She stopped and told everyone we had to go back and find it, since it was her IPhone which she has her pictures on.  To which, we see Mr. Mobini, in front of us, holding up Eleana's phone, which he had taken for her.  She was soooo relieved!! We made it back to the hostel and went to sleep right away because it was such a long day!  Cologne is beautiful and we look forward in seeing more of it soon...      -Eleana & Jena

Memoirs of Berlin as we journey to Aachen/Cologne

5:15 A.M.: A shrill distortion of sound-waves fills the room, a sound inducing terrible agitation amongst the slumbering beasts lying in the scattered bunks, one that is most common amongst the average working man, the regular business woman, or the dedicated student, a sound that could only be described as the scream of the devil from the pits of hell, a sound that could only be coming from one device: an alarm clock (an iPhone, to be exact).  As we rise from our crusty, bed-bug-ridden mattresses, we comb our hairs for lice and hit the showers, ready for another endless day of travel and tourism.  After contracting several forms of athlete’s foot, we drudgingly dragged ourselves back to the room, stripping the sweat-caked sheets from the bed and packing our bags.  We tip-toed around mysterious stains and piles of rat-dung on our way down to the lobby, only to realize once we reached it that we were the first ones there.  After being sarcastically filled with guilt from Mr. Mobini for not having rallied everyone downstairs, we promptly hustled back through the ruins of feces up to the girls’ room to awaken the trolls and Willow.  Once the screaming ceased and all of the men had managed to overcome their fear, the group of us ten adolescents marched down to greet Mr. Mobini: head high with his sunglasses on indoors.  Once we had overcome a little more sarcasm, we were on our way to the train station. 

Less than an hour later, we were all sound-asleep on the train, freezing our bum-bums off due to a trigger-happy air conditioning controller.  As we slept, we dreamt about the last 72 hours of our lives, having not survived, but thrived in the jungles of a modern small town called Berlin.  We reminisced on the seemingly endless hours of touring, having ventured over the river and through the woods, but instead of arriving to a warm-hearted grandmother with fresh cookies, we instead ran into a couple walls, checked off Checkpoint Charlie, yodeled a Brandenburg Concerto while hopping through its gates, threw a stone at the glass dome on the Bundestadt, along with viewing many more monuments.  We dreamt about our tremendously extensive bike-ride all over Berlin, having seen what we believed was every square inch of the city, including ancient buildings, contemporary buildings, and renovated buildings that appeared to be somewhere in the between.  Finally, we looked back on the independence bestowed upon ourselves as we navigated superfluous streets and crowded corridors, each of us believing that we would be able to complete the tasks of our scavenger hunt before the others, only to discover that there could only be one team in the end: Connor and Karanjot (after they broke our knees to take the lead, of course).  However, we can now all confidently admit that we know the streets of that great city like the back of our hands. 

We returned from our nostalgic dreams and looked around on the train, not really knowing our location.  All we knew was that Cologne was steadily approaching at a steady rate of 200 kilometers per hour, for we could smell its greatness wafting through our olfactory senses, filling us with a strange brew of excitement and anxiety.    – Willow & Aaron

Berlin - Day 3 (Part II)

Scavenger Hunt

The Scavenger Hunt was a 5 hour activity that Mr. Mobini designed in order to lift up our spirits after visiting the concentration camp. We were given 12 different tasks of which we needed to complete 10 of and the winners receive free dinner. The tasks had us go to different landmarks in Berlin and get our pictures taken. Chris, Willow, Aaron, and Jessika teamed up together while Renee and Katie, Elena and Jena, and Karanjot and Connor were in their own groups.

We (Karanjot and Connor) took the S Bahn to Alexanderplatz in an attempt to get some food. Unfortunately, we did not get any food and ended up getting lost for about 20 minutes. After getting back on route, we walked to the Babelplatz. That is where the Nazis held book burnings. We waited for a group of old ladies to finish up taking their pictures before we promptly took pictures of us lying on the ground next to a memorial commemorating the event. The group of old ladies started to laugh at us. After that, we walked to Checkpoint Charlie, which is where the border crossing between East and West Germany was. The task asked us to pose as guards at the checkpoint, so we decided to cross our arms as bouncers. Next we went to the Topography of Terror. That is where the old SS and Gestapo headquarters used to be. We took some pictures, read the information, and then wrote two small paragraphs reflecting our feelings. Since a large portion of the Berlin Wall was still up close by, we decided to complete our next task there. The next task had us take our pictures while standing in no man’s land next to the Wall. After that we took the U Bahn to the Brandenburg Gates and walked over to the U.S. Embassy. Unfortunately we were unable to complete our task at hand as the police officer that we were to shake hands with and get our picture taken with said that it is against policy to take pictures of people in uniform or to touch a police officer. Next we completed our next task of getting a silly picture of us taken under the Brandenburg Gates. After that we walked a short distance to the Parliament building. The task that we had to do there had us get our picture while planking in front of the building. Next we walked a long distance to the Victory Tower to get our pictures taken next to it. For one extra point we climbed up all of the stairs to the top of the tower. The climb was long, but the view was spectacular. After that we took the S Bahn to the entrance of the Zoo. We got our pictures taken next to the main entrance. For another extra point, we had some live zoo animals in the background. With only one task left to complete, we rushed over to the S Bahn and rode over to the Ostbahnhof. Once there, we got a complete stranger to pose with us as we pointed at the platform 11 sign. Then we rushed onto the train and sped walked over to the hostel.

After showing Mr. Mobini our glorious accomplishments, we were rewarded with free dinner. We had traditional Berlinian dinner consisting of currywurst, doener kebab’s, and Thai food. It was good food and a really fun excursion. See you in Colonge! –Connor and Karanjot

Berlin - Day 3 (Part I)

KZ Sachsenhausen

After a late night full of goofing around telling jokes and talking about pet peeves, we awoke early this morning and made our way through the rain, to the train, and ended up at the gates of KZ Sachsenhausen.  Sachsenhausen is 40 kilometers north of Berlin and was a labor camp designed by Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's right hand men.  If you really know the people on our trip, you would agree that we are FAR from a quiet group.  However, upon walking through the main gates of the camp, we were silent.  The horrifying triangular shaped labor camp once held 200,000 Soviet prisoners of war, Jews, and other groups targeted by the Nazis.  Walking into the barracks were especially shocking.  Chris and I got chills up my spine as we walked along the creaky wood floor and saw pictures of intolerable work conditions, inhumane treatment by the officers who ran the camp, and pictures drawn by the people of various tortures inflicted upon prisoners.  I'm (Jessika) not a queasy person but I felt extremely uneasy and disturbed seeing and walking upon the ground were such attrocities happened. 

The two hours we spent there were freaky, especially the chilled morturary underneath the disection room where the dead were examined upon the same table as the food was prepared for the prisoners.  There was no such thing as sanitation.  We also looked through the fence between two of the many guard towers and saw the foundation from the crematorium where the dead were thrown to get rid of the evidence as the Allied forces began liberating camps.  In the spot where they dumped the ashes, 20 tons of human remains were found.  Walking through this camp was unlike anything we have experienced before.  In the train on our way to the camp, we were curious and interested to go.  After we left, the atrocities that took place there had taken their toll on us.  We heard stories about people being shot trying to escape, families torn apart, and saw the spots were people were unjustly tortured.  It stops your heart and makes you almost ashamed to be human.  It was shocking to learn that Sachsenhausen is in the city boundaries of Oranienburg.  The houses around the camp had no clue what was going on there and taught us the true separation of the Germans and the Nazis.  It is unfortunate and sad that this awesome country has to carry the scars of such a horrible event and group of people. 

Specifically designed to cause the most horror and control, the countless watch towers, hanging poles, and roll call area of Sachsenhausen rattle the core of a person.  The group felt immense shock and fear at the attrocities that happened in the very camp we were in.  As a whole, it was a very somber time and it allowed us to really reflect upon history and gave us a deeper understanding of WWII. 

Thankfully, we have a scavenger hunt to look forward to this afternoon because our spirits need some lifting.  More to come of the hunt later, wish us luck!   ~Chris and Jessika

Berlin - Day 2

Today we woke up after our first night in the hostel.  To our surprise, it was not as bad as we thought.  In fact, the beds were really comfortable! Waking up at 7 was still pretty hard even though that is sleeping in for most of us during the school week.  We were down in the main lobby for breakfast at 8, then out the door at 9 to go on our bike tour of Munich.  Upon arriving at the bike tour place we met our guide, Sam from New Zealand and our new best friends…the bikes.  Each bike had a different name labeled on each of the bikes just for kicks and giggles! Our tour started off in Alexanderplatz where we reviewed the TV tower meaning, the world clock, and the buildings surrounding.  We saw numerous buildings that starred as backgrounds in movies including a Soviet club building that had a replica of Sputnik on the top. We went on our way throughout berlin until we got to the murals on the wall.  We walked by all the murals along the wall admiring the artwork that was displayed.  At this point the heat was starting to turn on! Pretty sure this is when the sun burning began; unfortunately none of us thought that maybe sunscreen would be a good idea.  Afterwards we went to see and original watch tower that was in the “no mans’ land”.  Afterwards we went to lunch at a Turkish restaurant.  We made a bet with Connor to eat all the hot sauce off of Willow’s plate for 5 €.  Needless to say Connor did not make the 5 Euros but came rather close to his early death.  Then we went along the Berlin wall hitting all the cool tourist attractions including the location of Hitler’s bunkers.  Obviously it was closed off but it was an interesting sight to see.  Our journey with the tour guide ended at Brandenburg gate but fortunately we had an entire journey ahead of us with the mobster!

After a quick stop at Starbucks we began our journey going through the Zoo gardens!

One could clearly tell a few of us were starting to get tired due to our lack of ability to control our bikes.  Luckily we had a goal in mind…well at least we did…TO GET TO THE ZOO! We made some pit stops along the way including the Victory Statue. Unfortunately on our way to our numerous stops we managed to anger pretty everyone who managed to come even close to our path.  Finally we reached the zoo or at least the Mobini’s thrifty speed tour of the Berlin Zoo…from behind.  We saw some birds, llamas, and even hyenas.  We tried so hard to make the hyenas laugh but to our dismay they only looked at us like we were weird.  After the zoo, we continued to ride around throughout parks, which was very peaceful. However, after the parks, we needed to get across the city back to Alexanderplatz. It was stressful especially because it was rush hour and we were getting yelled at and honked at by the German people. We saw the memorial for the Jewish community especially for the children that were killed and learned about the tradition of leaving a rock at the memorial. We also visited the Jewish Synagogue which was still to this day guarded by police. It concluded a very tiring tour around Berlin.

We went to return our bikes and walk to dinner. Mr. Mobini took us to an Italian restaurant and he ordered pizzas for us all in Italian, making us follow traditional Italian customs while in Germany… As dinner was wrapping up, we had a couple more guests meet us up: two bees. We all tried so hard to stay calm as to not aggravate it. Thankfully, we left shortly after and no one was harmed, not even the bees. Overall it was a great day and we were laughing the whole way home, literally.

-Katie and Renee