Classes, My Birthday, and Berlin!

The past few days have been a busy and fun one! It started with my first week of classes. The economics classes here in Germany take a very lax view of how the classes work. There is no form of registration and they do not really seem to care whether you come to the classes or not. You merely show up to whatever classes you want and at the end of the semester your register for finals. So my first week of classes I had a good time going to multiple different classes and seeing which ones I wanted to take for the rest of the semester. I finally decided on a set of classes that will only have me taking classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This should give me plenty of time to travel!

My University Building 

I took this extra time to travel to plan a trip to Berlin! But first I decided to stay the weekend in Wurzburg and celebrate my birthday with my newly made friends. I started out the evening by doing a bar crawl that was organized by the  business department. It was something very different to go on a bar crawl that was organized by the school itself! After going to over 6 different bars around Wurzburg I retired to be exhausted, having to catch a bus the next day to Berlin.

I will say that the festivities of my birthday made me miss the first bus that I was supposed to take out to Berlin......but luckily I caught another later that day. Berlin is an amazing city, with plenty to do during both the day and the night. I spent a total of three days there and managed to see the Brandenburg gate, the victory monument, the Reichstag, six museums, and ended the trip with a visit to the Berlin zoo. The city is alive with tourism everywhere. And the city itself has so much history it is amazing. The scars of the cold war are still very visible in Berlin and something that the people there have to deal with on a daily basis. All of the history however only makes it that much more special to visit.

My only regret for Berlin was that I didn't have a bit more time to spend in the city. This was the first time that I had a chance to stay in a hostel and I would have liked a bit more time to just interact with the people passing through. I managed to meet people from all over the world that were all doing the same thing that I was, sightseeing. It was something truly amazing and I even managed to take away a couple of there suggestions for future trips in Europe. One thing is for sure, visiting Berlin has only given me a taste of what it is like to travel..... and I want more!