Thursday, May 17, 2012

Mein Geburstag!

    Today was my nineteenth birthday and it started early in the morning.  On the 16th of May I was invited to a German party because the 17th happened to be Christi Himmelfahrt Tag (Christ going to Heaven) this year and is a free day.  This meant no school for the rest of the week.  My birthday started out with a rather unusual round of Happy Birthday. I didn't get to sleep until 3 in the morning and then woke up later that morning at 6 something, which I promptly rolled over and tried to get more sleep.  The reason for this was because I was going to be heading to Berlin for the day.  After squeezing in a bit more sleep I was privileged enough to have a ride home that allowed me time to get ready for the day ahead.  The first thing we did after a wonderful breakfast that included cheesecake for me was open my present.  A sock and a pair of earrings... the sock is the second to one I am still knitting.  After that we took the train to Berlin and enjoyed a little bus ride through the city.
"For the German People"

The Reichstag

Then we visited the Reichstag.  This meant we walked in and around the glass dome, which was super cool.
The glass dome of the Reichstag.

Anna, Me, Jakob
   The view was amazing - Berlin was spread out before me.
The Brandenburger Tor (The Brandenburg Gate)

Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Central Station)

Chancellor's House
After enjoying the opening in the center of the dome we headed down and ate Italian food.  I had a gigantic yet delicious pizza.


After that we headed to Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears), an old crossing point (East/West Berlin) by the Friedrickstrasse Bahnhof (Train station).  At this point I was dragging a little because of my lack of sleep and during our guided tour I almost fell asleep standing up, a feat which I didn't think was possible until I nearly crashed into a display.  After that we got ice cream and took the train back to Brandenburg.  All in all it was a birthday that will go down in the history books of Hanna.