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.
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| "For the German People" |
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| The Reichstag |
Then we visited the Reichstag. This meant we walked in and around the glass dome, which was super cool.
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| The glass dome of the Reichstag. |
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| Anna, Me, Jakob |
The view was amazing - Berlin was spread out before me.
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| The Brandenburger Tor (The Brandenburg Gate) |
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| Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Central Station) |
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| 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.
