Berlin

This past weekend I got the chance to take a very long and picturesque train ride to Berlin. The ride took about 4 hours and we traveled all throughout the German and Czech countryside. It was so relaxing to just sit and stare out the train car window, and I began to realize how much I am going to miss this semester of exploration, travel, and limited responsibilities. It is so nice for once in my life to step off the treadmill and just enjoy three months of traveling.

When I finally reached Berlin, my amazing and forever lively friend Hillary greeted me with a huge Carleton hug and tons of stories to catch up on. We spent the rest of the day just being in each others company, walking around her neighborhood, shopping, grabbing coffees, laughing, catching up, and reminiscing about good times at Carleton College. Before I knew it we were eating dinner at a traditional Mexican restaurant and heading off to a German play that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of . We sat in the 4th row of the play and the entire time it was "raining" on stage. Although the entire play sounded to me like angry German men yelling at each other, Hillary kept me updated on what was going on.

On Saturday Zoe joined us in Berlin and again we spent the morning just as girlfriends going to brunch and walking around the city. Of course we saw the Brandenberg Gate and the memorial to the Jews who died in the Holocaust, but the majority of the day was spent laughing and walking. Later in the evening we got horribly lost trying to find a mysterious beer garden so we settled for a tapas dinner at a posh little hipster restaurant next to a park. We had all kinds of vegtable and olive tapas and topped the night off with entrees to boot.

On Sunday morning I packed my giant traveling around Europe backpack and prepared to take the train home once again. First Hillary and I spent the morning walking around the Berlin flee market and I managed to see the hipster culture in full swing in Berlin. But before I knew it it was time to get on that train once again and head home to the city of spires. I am not going to lie, Prague feels more and more like home each day. While I am nearing the end of my time here in Prague I feel as if I have just gotten here.