Berlin, Germany 2015
Yeah, I know I haven't posted in ages. But considering it is Winter Break. I'll do a post because I have time spare considering this is only the first week of winter break and I still haven't been bothered to revise for my January exams!
Anyway, during October Half Term, the schools History Department decided to take us to Germany, Berlin! We went for 3 days and it is probably one of the best school trips I went on. There was a mixture of year groups that went but the majority were from Year 11 my year group. Year 12s and 13s (the sixth formers) joined us too and we also had to share rooms with them. Before I carry on with the blog post - my roomies were - Elin, Romany, Cerys, Meghan (which were all from my year group) and Melissa, Hannah and Charlotte (who were in Year 13 - their last school trip so we had to make it memorable for them!)
Anyway, during October Half Term, the schools History Department decided to take us to Germany, Berlin! We went for 3 days and it is probably one of the best school trips I went on. There was a mixture of year groups that went but the majority were from Year 11 my year group. Year 12s and 13s (the sixth formers) joined us too and we also had to share rooms with them. Before I carry on with the blog post - my roomies were - Elin, Romany, Cerys, Meghan (which were all from my year group) and Melissa, Hannah and Charlotte (who were in Year 13 - their last school trip so we had to make it memorable for them!)
Thursday 22nd October:
After school, I went home and got ready, ready to go to Berlin with the school. We all had to wait at 9PM outside the school layby because that was where the coach was picking us up. We left roughly around 9:26PM because we had to wait for COUGH Brandon COUGH. He was the late comer to the bus when we were all ready to leave. We did indeed try to text him and stuff but he wouldn't answer his phone so, yeah. When we was waiting for Brandon, I painted Cerys's nails too. Cerys insisted on the Berlin group chat we had and Romany was my assistant to help with the smudges!
Some of us, also had Berlin hoodies because we personalized them. Not everyone had them though. The majority of the year group did and two teachers did. We basically had on the front of the hoodie 'Berlin 2015' in the colours of the German flag and our surname printed on the back of our hoodie in red bold writing, considering we all had grey hoodies.
It took us four hours to travel to Dover for the ferry? I'm unsure. I cannot remember from the top of my head right now. But, as soon as I got on the bus and finished painting Cerys's nails I was fast asleep for like two hours. Until we got to the services I was wide awake, however some people were not and there was me blasting music out because I was listening to some good old 90s music now but some people didn't approve with my singing because
1. I wasn't aware of how LOUD I was singing (even one of the History teachers, Mr Freter told me to be quiet as soon as we got to Dover Port services)
2. People were getting tired because it was like 1AM the next day? (Friday 23rd October)
Anyways. As soon as we got to Dover Port ready to go on the ferry to cross the border to Calais in France, we had another toilet stop, because the boat hadn't arrived yet and we had to wait before the gate was open to let the coach on, we had to wait 30 minutes? It was like a mini services. There were obviously toilets, Costa Coffee and WH Smith. I think there was burger king too but it was shut because it was early hours of the morning.
30 minutes later we managed to get onto the ferry, we traveled with P&0 Ferries. It was a OK ferry I suppose. It's not that often I usually travel on ferries, so I don't really know, but it was really clean and quiet (probably because it was still pretty early). As soon as we got onto the ferry most of us went shopping especially me!
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| Yeah, we took another toilet selfie when we got onto the Ferry. |
After we done a little shop (I bought the Benefit Foundation in Honey for £23.70? It was worth it because on the high street it would have been around the £27 mark?) we went round the ferry. Elin, Fern, Aron, Alisha and I went outside of the ferry. My other friends - Cerys and Romany went to look for a place to charge their phones. It was indeed very windy outside the deck of the ferry though!
Berlin as a city is absolutely gorgeous. When we were walking to the Reichstag Building I walked passed some gorgeous coloured trees and I couldn't resist but to take a photo of them and yeah you guys have probably seen on my Instagram, but here they are again! :)
After the girls and I finished look around the ferry we went back to find the others and I got myself a cheeky Starbucks and hella yes it was good! :D
We just basically went around the ferry with the others after we got our Starbucks because we basically did our little shop, we were just waiting to arrive at Calais! There was still another 40 minutes left on the Ferry though. Brandon then decided he'd go for a little wander around the ferry and he found an arcade.
So, of course we followed and went to the arcade! We had a lot of fun in the arcade and probably wasted a lot of money too. But it was worth it, especially all the dance battles on the dance machine!
When we arrived at Calais, we still had to travel further to reach Berlin. We traveled through France, Belgium and I think the Netherlands. It was supposed to take us around ten hours to travel from Calais to Berlin, however because we was stuck in traffic it took us longer and we didn't get to Berlin until 9PM that night. We was supposed to arrive at 6PM. But traffic is traffic. We also didn't manage to have proper food that day either because we kept on doing service stops and those service stops were not long. Half and hour was probably the longest.
Once we arrived at our hostel - A&O Hostel Hauptbahnhof, we got our bags too our rooms and the people who wanted to have food had to go and meet the other at 9:45 downstairs in the lobby. Elin, Cerys, Romany and I totally forgot about the time and we left pretty late to go downstairs and meet them, so we had to chase after them which was a bummer because I carried my handbag and I was in shoes that were not made for running....
We all looked for food in the central station which was Hauptbahnhof. The station was so big and beautiful. But we didn't really have much time to have proper food, so once again we had fast food and we all met up with each other at 11PM in the station so that gave us time to go and grab food. Not many fast foods were open at the time. There were McDonalds signs but Romany and I couldn't find a McDonalds so then Romany and I decided to go to a fast food take out which sold Chicken Nuggets, I didn't end up have chicken nuggets though because I saw they had Bockwurst sausages with chips so I decided to have that whereas Romany wanted to have chicken nuggets. Once I ordered my food, I ordered Romany's food because she didn't ant to order it herself. But sadly they sold out of chicken nuggets, so that night Romany didn't have food other than a few chips I shared with her considering she didn't like sausages.
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| We was looking for Wi-Fi everywhere, luckily the station had Wi-Fi and I managed to post my first every Berlin snap onto my Snapchat! :) |
With my meal I had a drink with it, so I decided to go for a healthy option and choose water until I took a sip of it after I finished my Bockwurst I realized it was sparkling water and I absolutely hate sparkling water but because I was so thirsty after my Bockwurst I had to have a drink because the guy decided to put SOOOOOOOOO much ketchup on my meal. I wouldn't usually complain about the amount of ketchup I have because I love it so much, but this time, he put WAY to much on my meal!
Once we got back to the hostel. All of us went for a shower. It was pretty late but our showers were needed because we literally haven't cleaned ourselves for more than 24 hours. After we all showered, none of us really got to bed. Cerys did though. Romany and I had single beds to ourselves, Cerys shared a bunk with Elin, Meghan shared a bunk with Hannah and Melissa shared a bunk with Charlotte - we basically had 12 in a room with 3 bunk beds with 2 single beds attached together like a double bed.
Melissa, Hannah and Charlotte were the sixth formers in our room and Elin, Meghan, Cerys, Romany and I were the only Year 11ers with Aron next door too us and Brandon and the other boys directly opposite us! Only Elin, Cerys and Romany went out to look for food that night so we were the only people late to go back to our rooms and have a shower and they were the ones fast asleep when Elin, Romany and I were still wide awake.
Also the highlight of that night was Elin setting off the fire alarm when climbing back to her bunk. Hannah one of the sixth formers jumped out of her skin when she heard thhe fire alarm but soon she was fast asleep snoring again haha. Let's just say many of the girls snored in our room, hang on now expect Meghan, Elin, Romany and I!!!!
SO DON'T ACCUSE ME OF SNORING BECAUSE I DIDN'T SNORE AND DO NOT SNORE!
However, that night was an eventful night.
Saturday 24th October:
After have 3 hours sleep in the hostel because Romany, Elin and I did not sleep that night, we had a full day of sightseeing! I woke up at 6, because I like to get ready and stuff but we had a morning call at 7:30AM but our teachers and by morning call, I mean knocking on our doors hahaha!
The breakfast the hostel was terrible. I didn't eat anything expect for half a french baguette and a cup of orange juice but the juice tasted so weird considering I only woe u and brushed my teeth not long ago. Because I didn't eat during breakfast, Romany and I went back to our rooms and we ate brioche because we bought personal brioche to the trip.
What is a trip without brioche anyways? I god damn love my Brioche!!
After we all got ready, we had to meet everyone downstairs in the lobby at 8AM. So we can get our lunch and stuff sorted and meet our tour guide. Forrest which was from America, however we studied in Cardiff University.
We went around Hauptbahnhof that day. We visited Brandenburg Gates, Reichstag Building, Checkpoint Charlie, Topography of Terror and the Jewish Memorial Site.
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| Here is a picture of the main station in Hauptbanhof. The one we went prowling in looking for food the night before. |
We also stopped to take a few photos of building too because the architecture of the buildings were soooo damn fine!
Once we got back onto the bus, we went back to the Jewish Memorial because we only had like 10 minutes there earlier in the morning. It's known to be the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. I didn't take a picture of what it look liked because it was dark and you couldn't really capture a picture there at the time.
All these building were pretty close to the Reichstag, in fact just round the corner. We stopped at the Reichstag Building for a little gathering so Forrest could tell us some information about it and stuff but because we stood so far back, we couldn't really hear Forrest so we just stood back and took some selfies and artsy photographs!!
The Reichstag is such a lovely grand building. I'm absolutely in love with it! We was supposed to enter the Reichstag the building but they then rejected our request because our tour guide, sent a really heavy worded e-mail to them. I'm not sure whether it was Forrest or not because he was lovely, I doubt he sent them that message and made the government reject our visit in the Reichstag! :(
Next Stop: Brandenburg Gates!
Ah, tick this of my bucket list! Brandenburg Gates is one of the places where I really wanted to visited and I managed to do that. I was hoping we'd visit the gates at night time too, but we didn't. I've seen many photos of the gates at night because they are absolutely gorgeous, but I sadly didn't witness that experience (I'd definitely be re-visiting Berlin again. Writing this blog post like 2 month late gives me major holiday blues!) I only saw a little glimpse of it when we traveled passed it at night to go bowling.
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| Selfie with Elin by the gates |
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| I took my Polariod camera too (Instax 8) to take some artsy photographs too and here's one of them! |
There was a lot of entertainment around the Brandenburg Gates, there was like a clown which I absolutely hate, horse and carriages, that kind of stuff you would usually see really and Elin and I decided to wander off around when Forrest gathered us all for a briefing of the gates and we saw these really cute horses so we had to take a photograph with them. In the photo below it looks as if i am really scared of the horses, I actually was hahaha, no lie.
After we visited Brandenburg Gates, we went to the Jewish Memorial but we only had 10 minutes there before we had to go off to the Story of Berlin because there was a time schedule or something. We had to travel to the Story of Berlin by our coach because it was pretty far away and we drove past like the city center I suppose! It was lush and all of us couldn't wait to go shopping there!
When we got to the Story of Berlin we went to one of the German bunkers. We actually had a tour of the German bunkers and it as pretty creepy if you ask me because it was dark and I am scared of the dark if you didn't know. I still have to sleep with a night lamp on. Anyways, after we had a tour of the German bunker we went to the Story of Berlin Museum, we basically had our own free time to wander off and look around ourselves until we all got some little gifts and got hungry because it was around 2PM-3PM at the time?
The Story of Berlin Museum or Exhibition was very big and informative, so we had to get round a lot of things. However, me and my friends didn't really bother reading the things. We just looked at things ourselves and whatever we saw interesting we took a photograph of it basically.
Towards the end of the exhibition we had to walk down a staircase and they had loads of pictures, I'm not sure who they were, but I thought they were pretty cool and we took a picture of it. Thanks to Aron! :)
Ok.... these pictures your about to see are very embarrassing and disrespectful. Actually I won't even bother putting those photos up (the embarrassing ones now)
Like, I said none of my friends and I bothered to read the information that was on the walls until our teacher came and told us how the photos we were taking were 'inappropriate'.
You know us girls, if we see something nice or good lighting we 100% wanna take a decent photo, so that was what my friends and I were thinking until our photos got a little out of hand and Jacob and Ben decided to join in with our photographs and that was when our teacher saw. In the photograph below, you wouldn't see what we was doing wrong but above us were hooks. And those hooks represented how the German's killed the Jews, Communists..... So yeah.. Enough of the negativity and let's carry on!
You know that place I told you about which was like the city center of Berlin? Well we went there for lunch after we visited the Story of Berlin. We had an hour of free time to find food and go shopping (we'd be going back on Monday morning before we left back home anyways). So Romany and I decided to go and look for MAC because Romany wanted to get MAC Velvet Teddy lippy and I wanted to get MAC Whirl, however theyy were sold out worldwide at the time, but II have managed to purchase one now, so that is all good! So instead of MAC Whirl. I bought MAC Kinda Sexy and the make-up out in Berlin was much cheaper than UK too! After we went to Douglas were was basically like a Beauty Department we went for food in McDonalds. Finally, Romany managed to get her chicken nuggets. We asked for a medium meal but it was more like a large! :O
After, Romany and I finished our chicken nugget meal in McDonalds, we decided to go back into Douglas and pick up a Naked Palette. We both got Naked 3 - its around £30 in UK but we managed to get it for £23? So it was a good buy! One of our aims were to try and have German waffles too but we didn't find any waffle vans :( so we just went back to meet the others and we sat out on some steps just staring at people walking by because our time was nearly up and we had to go back to the bus to go to our next stop!
Next Destination: Topography of Terror/Berlin Wall
Once we got back onto the bus, we went to see the real Berlin Wall, because so far we have only seen the knocked down pieces of the wall placed in the towns. We also got free time again at the Topography of Terror so we wandered off again.
Cerys, Aron, Romany and I didn't bother entering the Topography of Terror museum, we was so busy looking for our waffles we didn't go there. However, we did not find any waffles once again but what we managed to find was one of those vintage photo booths which I absolutely adore! I only found out about these on Pinterest and supposedly they are everywhere around Berlin. But that was like the only one we saw!
We took many pictures in the photo booth, however Aron wasn't in any of them because he didn't want to be in them. And lets just say the photo booth doesn't really fit four people. We just about managed to squeeze in three! The photographs in the photo booth took a long time to process and print and the captures were so instant, you didn't know when they were coming or not, you literally have to be prepared for the flash and stuff because there was no count down what so ever. But it was all good because none of us were serious inside the photo booth.
There was also a pretty cool post card photo booth too! We all had one of those postcards though because you basically pose for six photos outside on the street where everyone can see you and photo bomb, which I thought was pretty damn cool. Let me insert a picture of what they looked like below....
Next Stop: Checkpoint Charlie
After we all met up after our free time, we went to Checkpoint Charlie which was the American section of Germany. In the middle of the road you would literally be able to take photos with soldiers which of course are not real soldiers, but you had to give a small donation before you're allowed to have a photo with them. I think it was 3 euros and you was allowed to take 3 pictures with them, so I done that. Brandon and Aron also did it too!
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| When we was walking back to the coach, I saw this very cute bear and couldn't resist and took a photo with it! |
We had like half an hour free time there whereas Romany, Cerys and I went scavenging for waffles again. Unfortunately, we did not manage to find any waffles and lets just say throughout the trip there were NO WAFFLE VANS what so ever. We only managed to fin crepes, and crepes are better than nothing so we all bought a crepe. I had a nutella and banana crepe and it was absolutely delicious!!
When we was in the crepe shop, we were all in a panic attack because we didn't know how long we were supposed to stay there for and Cerys, Romany and I basically went off to another place to find food LOL. So after we got our crepes which did take quite of a long time to make we went straight back to the Holocaust Jewish Memorial where we supposed to be, luckily they were still there and we didn't leave until 15 minutes later. The crepe was absolutely delicious and we literally ran back to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial with our crepes - I was very scared that I was going to drop it at one point because I was eating it as we were running. Please never try that people
It was a long tour around Sachsenhausen which eventually got us very bored and cold but after the tour of Sachsenhausen we went to get lunch and I managed to get myself a nice Hot Chocolate because I was so cold! I did enjoy some parts of the tour but some were just very boring, if you know what I mean...
Final Destination of the Day:
Wannsee Conference Memorial House
OK. The Wannsee Conference House was amazing! Like Oh My God. I was expecting it to be like that but it was gorgeous. The house was so big you would have thought it would have been a mansion house not a museum memorial house. The house basically overlooked a spectacular view I think it was the sea? But my oh my, it was gorgeous! We didn't have long at the house because it was closing at like 4PM? I don't remember it was either 3PM or 4PM... I didn't really keep track of time then!
Once we left the memorial house. We had a night view of the East Side Gallery which was the East side of the Berlin Wall and we got to see all the amazing graffiti on the wall and after that we were supposed to go to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner but Hard Rock would't accept us as a school going there so the school had to find somewhere else for us to go last minute and we went bowling!
So once we got back to the hostel we got changed, glammed up a little bit and then we went to knock some pins down. Everyone got so damn competitive in the bowling place!
When we got back to hostel, we didn't' do anything much other than pack our bags ready to go home tomorrow! :( We all decided to have a midnight feast too but that didn't go to plan - we decided to have a midnight feast because I didn't want to take all the food I brought back home with me LOL.
Last Day :(
Monday 26th October - Morning at Leisure
Instead of going to Charlottenburg by coach we had to take the train - this was because our bus drivers had to rest because they'd b driving us home for 24 hours again! We didn't do much that day other than being able to have 2 hours free time to go shopping because we had to go back to our hostel at 12PM, so we could all depart and go home.
When we was in the crepe shop, we were all in a panic attack because we didn't know how long we were supposed to stay there for and Cerys, Romany and I basically went off to another place to find food LOL. So after we got our crepes which did take quite of a long time to make we went straight back to the Holocaust Jewish Memorial where we supposed to be, luckily they were still there and we didn't leave until 15 minutes later. The crepe was absolutely delicious and we literally ran back to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial with our crepes - I was very scared that I was going to drop it at one point because I was eating it as we were running. Please never try that people
When we left the Jewish Holocaust Memorial we went back to the hostel to have dinner. The dinner at the hostel was disgusting. We went down and there as a massive queue, queuing for the food, once I saw peoples dishes I went straight back to the room because I didn't like the food they served plus it was very watery, so I went back to my room and ate crisps because I bought food with me (if you didn't know I'm a very very fussy eater!)
Once dinner was over, we had to go to the bar to have a quiz. Literally nobody really wanted to go, but we had too, so we went. It was a general five round quiz which we lost :( I was on a team with Melissa, Hannah, Romany, Cerys and Charlotte. The only quiz we done well was the were the Cities and Chocolate Brands if I'm honest. When we went upstairs to the bar we didn't know they even had one and lets just say there were a few good looking fellas there but they were older than us sooo. The quiz probably ended at around 10PM, so we then went down back to our rooms but the internet was playing up in the hostel. So we all bought internet to see if the internet would work faster and properly but the internet we bought wouldn't even work. Sooo... I think it was playing up because everyone wanted to use it at the same time, but I'm unsure. I'm not a computer genius!
Sunday 25th October
Sunday was basically the last full day in Berlin before we had to go back home. We all had a morning call at 8AM. So we had a bit of a lie in again and we all had to wait in the lobby at 9AM because that's where Forrest would be meeting us!
Our first destination was Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum Concentration Camp. We spent the majority of the morning there and we didn't leave there until 1PM. We had to wrap up warm once again because it was outdoors and it was pretty cold. I even had to wear my North Face jacket on top of my denim jacket. I was very moody when we arrived at Sachsenhausen Memorial because once again I didn't get to sleep until like 3AM again the night before and I slept on the bus until Romany had to wake me up because we arrived. I literally did not speak to my friends for like half an hour because I was ever so tired! But it was still a good day!
We had specific rules from our teachers before we arrived that we could not take any selfies when we got to the Concentration Camp because it was to respect what has happened in the past.
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| Sachsenhausen was a triangular based camp. |
We had lunch on the bus and before Forrest got onto the bus we managed to all tip Forrest because he has been such a nice tour guide and the next place was the last place we'd be going before we all went back home to UK the next day!
Final Destination of the Day:
Wannsee Conference Memorial House
We the went to the back yard of the memorial house and took a view pictures, because it was absolutely gorgeous! I would so love to relive that moment!
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| Here's a squad photograph |
So once we got back to the hostel we got changed, glammed up a little bit and then we went to knock some pins down. Everyone got so damn competitive in the bowling place!
When we got back to hostel, we didn't' do anything much other than pack our bags ready to go home tomorrow! :( We all decided to have a midnight feast too but that didn't go to plan - we decided to have a midnight feast because I didn't want to take all the food I brought back home with me LOL.
Last Day :(
Monday 26th October - Morning at Leisure
Instead of going to Charlottenburg by coach we had to take the train - this was because our bus drivers had to rest because they'd b driving us home for 24 hours again! We didn't do much that day other than being able to have 2 hours free time to go shopping because we had to go back to our hostel at 12PM, so we could all depart and go home.
When we went shopping I bought some more make up - I bought the MAC Face and Body foundation and a cute crop top from Pull&Bear, Romany also got the same and we went to a little gift shop and bought more gifts for our friends and family. None of the shops opened until 10AM. So Romany, Alisha and I went to McDonalds and got ourselves a milkshake before we went shopping and when we went into Forever 21, we got escorted out because we were drinking by the security...
After done our little shop we went to other shopping mall and Alisha and I had an ice cream until Romany saw a crepe poster, we went looking for crepes and I also had another chocolate and banana crepe before we left back to the hostel. And that was basically our trip to Berlin - nothing else really happened other than we had another dance competition on the ferry again! :D
I hope you have enjoyed this blog post! :)
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Bye!
Ashley xoxo
