What an incredible past couple of days this has been. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to expect when I got here, but whatever my expectations were they were far surpassed. Right now, I’m on the ICE train (fancy term for the fast train) headed north to Hamburg, where we will be staying until I board the ship on Saturday.

The city of Berlin is absolutely amazing. From the people, food and drink, and culture all the way to the history, landscaping, and attractions. Everything is so much different here. Everywhere we went we either took the train or subway. The entire city is connected by the S bahn (city train) or the U bahn (subway). If people weren’t taking the train then they were riding their bikes. I know, strange.

I swear, I had a greater chance of being hit by a bicyclist than by a car. Bikes were everywhere and the people took them everywhere and would even wear their work clothes on them…like do you even sweat?! That, to me, was very interesting and is still hard for me to fathom.

As far as good food, everything I had was nothing short of delicious. From the pastries to the bratwurst and everything in between- it was all delicious. Also, while is may be 5 o’clock somewhere it was 5 o’clock all the time here. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner you could always find someone enjoying themselves whether it was at a restaurant, on the train, on their bike, or even walking. It was pretty awesome lol.

First pic is of me, my dad, and my cousin, Pennie. She grew up in Germany so she’s fluent and even though she got us lost a couple times, she was an awesome tour guide. As soon as we landed in Berlin, she met us at the airport and we took a taxi to our hotel and within 30 minutes of checking in we were already back on the streets headed to the train station.

We took the train to the Brandenburg Tor (look it up its actually pretty neat) and walked around the plaza, with pastries in hand, just admiring all the history that had taken place here not too long ago. We also went to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie and got our picture taken with the security officer that was there. Later that evening, Pennies Aunt drove in and she and her husband took us for dinner and ice cream in the city which was also delicious.

The second day we did a “hop on hop off city tour bus”. If you can’t figure out what that is it’s basically a bus that you hop on, tour the city, and when it gets to a stop you want to explore then you hop off and explore and then hop back on the next bus that comes. So we pretty much saw all the must-sees of Berlin including the Holocaust Mahnmal, Siegessäule, Berliner Mauer, Museumsinsel, and the Berlin Cathedral (look those up too). The second picture is the view from the Siegessäule where we could see the Easy and West skyline, the countryside, and all of parks the city has to offer.

*Not pictured is the over 300-step spiral staircase we had to hike in order to get to the top, but it was definitely worth it.* My favorite part was the boat tour that was included in our city tour bus. It took us up and down a short segment of the Spree River and gave us the history rundown of the all of the historic buildings alongside it and through the government district.

The coolest thing about it was that in the business district I got to see the Berlin office of PricewaterhouseCoopers (The accounting firm that I will be interning with in the Spring of 2017)! Upon returning back to our hotel that evening we found out that literally across the street from our hotel was an actually segment of the Berlin Wall, so the next morning after breakfast we walked up and down it. You can see all the wall art in the background of the last photo. 
For more pictures go check out my Facebook! And if you wanna contact me then download the app “WhatsApp” or email me at: andrew.santiago.fa16@semesteratsea.org

Next stop—-> Hamburg, Germany.

Cão!!