Berlin: Day 14

The very first thing I noticed about Berlin as soon as I stepped off the plane was the armed police at the end of the jet bridge. I thought that was odd and a not very friendly welcome.
Walking through the airport, I noticed that the architecture was very brutalist- which was a stark difference from every other country that we’ve been to so far. Most everything is grey and pointy and boxy.
I will also admit that while walking to baggage claim and waiting for my luggage, I was having a bit of an anxiety fit. I was extremely nervous for some reason, but couldn’t really figure out why.
Eventually we all collected our bags and went outside. Here are two things I noticed:
1. More brutalist architecture.
2. Berlin looks the most like American landscape wise.

After about an hour bus ride, we made it to the hotel. Our hotel is the tallest hotel building, and one of the tallest buildings in the city in general.

I was on floor 27 of 37. The view was great of course. Now, here are a few key details about the hotel and my experience:
- the elevator was very fast and I had to pop my ears each time I went up or down.
- the both the shower and toilet were in separate stalls but they only had frosted windows between.
-the TV tower was right outside my window.

Later, we went to go find dinner and went to a German restaurant and I had jägerschnitzel. It was delicious.

We did our usual pre tour, and tonight’s included riding scooters around the city and seeing everything at night. We scooted all the way down to the Brandenburg Gate and paused multiple times to take a few pictures and enjoy the city.

Although I enjoyed my scoot, this is the first city I’ve felt unsafe in on our trip. But not so much like “going to get robbed” unsafe, just like the air was too heavy. The city feels like panem and a dystopian society.Read more