One Step Closer in Berlin

It might take me a while to get it to you guys!

Before I start with Berlin I would like to thank everyone for an amazing trip home for the holidays.  I am blessed to be surrounded with people who make life more enjoyable!  For my guys Eric and Virus... since you are big timers now I got you a little something in Berlin... it's not as cool as the Star Wars LEGO watches but it might help Virus get Kalyn! Love y'all and can't wait to see you soon!

So my blog will start to have many more travel updates since Melissa and I will be doing a lot more traveling... starting with this past weekend in Berlin!  A quote that really relates to my weekend experiences is “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.Discover.” -Mark Twain.  Coming back to Spain after the holidays was very difficult and I began to think why do I need to go back... and this quote helped me realize what I'm really doing here.  It would have been easy for me to stay home in the safety of my comfort zone but I would have been missing out on the chance of a lifetime to explore the world and myself.  So here I am again... ready to go!

Melissa and I have pretty different schedules so we really only see each other at night and on Saturday and Sunday.  I work Mondays and have Fridays off and she works Fridays and has Mondays off... soo some of the traveling we are doing will be me leaving on Friday and returning Sunday and her leaving Saturday and returning Monday.  But it really worked out well this weekend!  I arrived in Berlin late Thursday night and immediately went to bed from exhaustion (still a little jet lagged) Friday morning I woke up in an attempt to get lost in the city.  For those of you who have lived in Boone or visited during the dead of winter let's just say that Berlin could probably be it's twin without mountains.  I decided to do a lot of walking instead of taking public transportation because when I'm by myself I want to get lost walking around and discovering some hidden "gems" of a city.  Well this was a horrible idea... I was bundled up pretty well (with some experience from living in Boone) and still managed to get some windburn on my face.  It felt like I had been snowboarding all day and all I was doing was walking around from 10:30-1:00.  Needless to say it was not fun but I still saw some pretty inspiring things despite the weather.  

While waiting on Melissa to arrive late Friday night a new acquaintance who was sleeping above me in the hostel asked if I wanted to grab a beer downstairs (the hostel reception was a bar).  I agreed since this was where I was meeting Melissa anyways.  This new friend offered some very insightful comments and brought me to the realization that I am one step closer... to what you might ask.  Well the things that I want most from this experience which are to discover me, to not let things pass me by, experience different cultures (be awestruck by history), decide what I really want to do with my life and conquer my dreams.  I must say after talking with this very intelligent individual (can't remember his name for the life of me... I'm horrible with names) I feel one step closer to the most important thing for me... conquering my dreams.  I am in no rush to figure things out quite yet but right now I feel like I have all the time in the world.  What a great feeling!

Berliner Dom

Currywurst! Yum!!

 During the day on Friday I saw the Berliner Dom, Brandenburg Gate, Topography of Terror (the former location and remains of the basement wall where the SS Headquarters were), The west side of the Berlin Wall, attempted to find Führerbunker (where Hitler's Bunker was) and Checkpoint Charlie (the most famous crossing point between East and West in the Cold War).  I enjoy history so of course I found everything very interesting.  On Saturday when Melissa arrived we went and discovered a little more of Berlin.  We were a little bit smarter today and decided to use public transportation (which I think Germany has every form of transportation imaginable under the sun) even though it wasn't quite as windy and cold as the day before.  We walked along the East Gallery of the Berlin wall, got lost a couple of times on the subway, made our way to the Holocaust Memorial, enjoyed some great Vietnamese food and of course some German currywurst.  Despite the freezing temperatures Berlin was an amazing city filled with amazing people.  My favorite site was the Holocaust Memorial.  The design was very intriguing and the story behind it makes it even more impacting.  From a distance it is 3,000 concrete blocks but while you weave throughout the memorial you begin to understand the designers reason for the monument.  The blocks change in size and are located on an area that has slight hills throughout the monument. 

The Holocaust Memorial

From a distance you can't tell any of this.  Many believe the designer wanted to produce an uneasy confusing atmosphere that as a whole represented a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason... in the tourist pamphlet it states that he wanted to create a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial.  Either way if you think of both of these while observing the monument all you can do is be silent and imagine the impact of this memorial and the history it portrays.  I still believe that Germans are some of the nicest people I have met thus far and one of the cleanest countries I have visited.  I would definitely live here for a prolonged period of time.  Until my next adventures of discovering the world and conquering my dreams this will have to do!