Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.

Well, well, well, look who's back! Having finally returned from a month of adventuring through Europe, it's time to start writing about it. Unfortunately I'm also heading into the exam period which means I may be a little busy studying to keep blogging, but fortunately I'm willing to do pretty much anything to avoid studying in the first place (just kidding, mum!). Basically my trip in Europe involved travelling with a group of other exchange students from the USA, Australia and one lone New Zealander, getting the train from city to city, seeing some of the major sights that Europe has to offer.

The first place we arrived was Berlin, which is a pretty great introduction to Europe I think. I do have to say that I think my experience in Berlin suffered a little from timing. Being right at the start of the trip I hadn't quite settled in to the rhythm of travelling, we only had two full days there, and the weather was less than ideal. I did like Berlin, but I think I would need to visit again to really fall in love with the city. Our first day was largely spent walking around, first a little exploring on our own, disrupted by repeated sudden downpours, and in the afternoon a walking tour. In my head I thought that I would prefer wandering around a city at my own pace and picking out my own sights, but I went along with the rest of the group and realised that this was by far the best way to be introduced to a city. We took a Sandemans free tour which uses tipping instead of a set price (ideal for us poor students!) and had a great English guide for the 2.5 hours of walking. We started at the Brandenburg Tor and were then taken around the central city, seeing sites mostly associated with World War II and the Cold War. A lot of this was quite sad, because the effects of the past 100 years are still very visible, and it really lacked the classic old architecture in most other European cities. On the other hand I guess this is what sets Berlin apart from everywhere else, it gives it some of its unique character and culture. In any case, our guide did a great job of balancing both the good and the bad within Berlin's history.

Having tired ourselves out from basically an entire day on our feet, and put off by the miserable weather we spent the evening at the hostel. I have to say I was pretty nervous about hostel living, having had the privilege of only ever travelling with my parents in relative comfort, but it ended up being great. Everything was clean, the showers were surprisingly great and I even survived the top bunk. The hostel in Berlin had its own bar which was a nice place to hang out, and meet people. In our case this was an entire Norwegian girls choir. While eating our dinner suddenly the table next to us burst into beautiful song in a foreign language, causing every boy in the bar to turn towards this table of blonde norwegian girls in an entirely comical way. As one of my friends pointed out, it was basically like the Veela in Harry Potter.

The next day a few of us walked out to the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall which was commissioned to be covered with street art.

This was a very cool sight, with a huge range of art from the beautiful to the creepy to the just plain weird. We only walked a short section of the wall because it really did seem to stretch on forever. I think the only disappointing thing was the amount of graffiti covering the art, despite the many signs requesting otherwise. I mean is it neccessary to write "John and Jane 4eva 2k14" on a historic wall, I don't really think so. We walking back into the city with the intention of visitng the Holocaust Memorial and underground display. We got to the memorial, but the queue for the display went on for days, so we just walking through the memorial itself.

That evening we took a train out to Edelweis, a bar recommended to us by our tour guide for its Tuesday Jazz Nights. In explaining how to find the bar he said "you'll walk through an abandoned railway at which point you might think you're going to die but if you just keep going you'll get there and it won't be at all dodgy". Heeding his words we did eventually find the place, without dying, and it was much nicer than the surroundings might suggest. We headed upstairs to a small room where the jazz band was setting up. At first it seemed very quiet but in just a few minutes the whole place really filled up. The first hour or so was a jam session from the house band, a group of americans, and then an open session. The whole thing had a very cool vibe, and it was a nice relazing evening, although it got a little suffocating with a crammed room full of people smoking (an experience to be repeated many a time in Europe). In any case, it felt like a really authentic experience and a great way to end our time in Berlin.

Having satisfied my need to eat a Berliner in Berlin we hopped on a train to our next destination: Prague.