Friday, April 8, 2011

The Italian Alps and Berlin!

It has been too long since I've updated my blog. Since the last post I have been skiing in the Italian Alps and have traveled to Berlin, Germany! 
The ski trip was a three day adventure that started early on a Friday morning and ended late that Sunday night. Even though we have mountains so close in North Carolina I had never been skiing before like many of the other Erasmus that went on this school sponsored trip.  We actually had one girl from Singapore who experienced snow for the first time in her life on the trip! As soon as we arrived at our hotel at the top of the mountain we moved our bags inside and then went to get our ski gear so we would have a full day on the slopes. After all of us were finally given ski clothes and our skies, we made our way to the gondola that took us to the top of the mountain. The gondola ride up was an amazing view of miles of white mountains that couldn't even be captured by a camera. Once at the top of the mountain our skiing skills would be tested for the first time when we had to ski down a very short slope to the restaurant where we were going to eat lunch. Since none of us other than the ESN had been skiing before we all fell as as soon as we started going down the hill getting a little foreshadowing of the rest of the day. After eating lunch we went to the beginning of the first slope, which is when we quickly found out that there was no "beginners" course which made for a really interesting afternoon. The rest of the afternoon was spent slowly trying to make our way down the slopes with the help of several ESN members. When it came to the last slope some people felt they were so bad that they would rather walk down then attempt to ski it.  After making our way back to the ski rental place we returned our jackets, boots, and skis and then returned to the hotel. Saturday, we traveled to a nearby town known for their tax free shopping where we spent the afternoon. Sunday, we went back to the top of the mountain to take pictures and hangout for the afternoon until it was time to take the bus back to Castellanza.
The week after the ski trip 5 of us decided to take a last minute trip to Berlin, Germany. We left Wednesday night and returned early Sunday morning. On Wednesday after class we all packed our suitcases, walked to the old train station, got a bus to the new train in Castellanza, took the train to the airport where we boarded our EasyJet plane and flew to Germany. Once arriving in Germany around 10:45pm we grabbed our luggage and made our way to the train station. Once at the train station we got on a train that took us into Berlin where we got on a metro to take us closer to our hostel. After getting off of the metro it was about 12:30am and we had no idea where our hostel was. We had gotten as far as we had because we had gotten the hostel to email train and metro instructions to us before leaving, but once we got off the metro we had no idea where we were. The first people who we ran into to ask for directions actually turned out to be Americans who were in Berlin on a worldwide conference of people who were working abroad. After talking with them for a couple minutes and finding out they didn't know there way around either we went inside another hostel and asked for directions. The funny thing was that all we had to do was walk 30 seconds and we saw the name of our hostel. The next part is when it got interesting. We saw the name to our hostel but couldn't find the entrance. We then noticed a sign that pointed up the stairs to a dark courtyard. After discovering no evidence for an entrance in the courtyard we went back down the stairs and continued to look around. After about giving up hope we saw a girl begin to walk up the stairs to the courtyard. Curious as to where she was going and figuring we must have missed something we followed her. She went all the way across the courtyard and took a left which led us directly to the entrance of our hostel. After checking in we realized that the hostel was actually pretty nice unlike everything I had ever heard about hostels. The lobby was really nice with several couches, tables and chairs, a projector projecting the tv on the wall with music playing in the background. We then made our way to our 6 person room hoping not to have a 6th roommate. Sure enough we get to our room and it was just the 5 of us. The next morning we woke up early to take a walking tour of Berlin which we heard about from the guy at reception. The walking tour lasted all day and covered a lot of things including one of the parts of the Berlin Wall, the places where the burning of the books occurred, Checkpoint Charlie, and the best chocolate shop in Germany! For Friday we decided to take another tour with the company from the day before. Our tour guide was the longest English speaking tour guide in Berlin and had the tour name of "Tours with Terry". That day we covered the longest remaining part of the Berlin Wall that many famous artists had painted over the years; the site where Germany surrendered ending WWII; and the Soviet soldier memorial.  On Saturday morning we woke up early and went to the top of the TV Tower where we got a 360 degree view of Berlin. After taking pictures and enjoying the view we took the elevator back down to meet our tour guide for the day who was taking us to a Holocaust concentration camp called Sachsenhausenwhich. The concentration camp was the nerve center of the Nazi concentration camp system and was one of the first camps to open and one of the last to be liberated. It was a once in a life time opportunity to visit a concentration camp and notice that something so horrible happened less 70 years ago. After leaving the concentration camp we took a train to the 1936 Olympic Stadium, which was also used for the 1974 and 2006 FIFA World Cup. After taking pictures and walking around we headed back to our hostel where we packed our bags for our early departure the next morning. The next day we left the hostel about 4am took a metro and 3 trains and finally made it to the airport for our flight back to Castellanza. When we landed at MXP we took a direct train to Castellanza where we had to walk 30 minutes rolling our suitcases because the busses to the school don't run on Sundays.
Both the ski trip and the trip to Berlin were a lot of fun and are trips that I will remember forever!

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