I couldn’t bring myself to leave Europe immediately after the
conference, so I decided to squeeze in one last adventure by heading to
Berlin to spend the day with my old friend, Nga.
Getting there
was super stressful, but well worth the effort. After frantically
hunting down the bus station in Prague, stopping for boarder patrol in
Germany and waiting for Interpol after a girl on the bus shoplifted at a
rest stop, I finally made it to Berlin at 4 a.m. I crashed at Nga’s
flat to get a few hours of sleep before a whirlwind of a day.
We
started by making a stop a Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall. I
have to say, I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I had heard from several
people that Checkpoint Charlie was a tourist trap, and I completely
agree. If you get too close, you have to pay money to take a picture
with the “guards” who are standing on either side. There’s also a ton of
traffic, and the McDonald’s in the background doesn’t exactly set the
mood. It’s something people should go see because it’s free and it’s a
significant historical place, but I wouldn’t suggest spending much time
there.
There are several portions of the Berlin Wall that people
can go see, but I decided to check out the East Side Gallery where
artists painted pictures of freedom after the wall came down.
Unfortunately, the wall is in pretty bad shape. A lot of it had been
graffitied, and a giant fence covered most of the wall to protect it
against vandalism, which made it kind of difficult to take pictures. A
restoration project is underway, but it’s slow going. As a total history
nerd, I hate to see such a cool piece of modern history fall into ruin,
so I’m hoping the restoration project will make significant progress in
the coming years.
Nga then took me to the TV tower, which was
built by the German Democratic Republic (AKA East Germany) and is the
tallest building in the city, the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag,
which I was pretty excited to see after studying German politics in
class.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was trying all the
delicious German food. Everyone kept raving about doner kebab, and it
didn’t disappoint. Doner is a Turkish food that’s like a sandwich with
meat, potatoes, lettuce, vegetables and different sauces. We stood in
line for almost half an hour at Nga’s favorite doner stand, but it was
seriously worth the wait.
Then we went to a Christmas market
where I stuffed myself even more with different types of dessert. I
tried this one dish that was like a pancake covered in applesauce and
powered sugar, cinnamon and sugar nuts, wheat bread covered in cream
cheese and mulled wine. Everything was absolutely delicious.
My
last day in Europe was amazing, and I am so glad I had the chance to
catch up with Nga after not seeing her for four years. It was a great
way to end a fantastic trip.
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Read more from Jaime at http://jaimed03.tumblr.com/
Learn more about past Model United Nations conferences at http://waltonblog.uark.edu/2015/01/26/national-model-united-nations-rome/
