Berlin

Saturday May 11th I took my first weekend trip out of Kaiserslautern, I know I had mentioned I would not be going until the 25th, but I got a last second trip with ODR (outdoor recreation) on base to Berlin!! It was so wonderful. ODR has express trips that are basically 24 hour days. You drive over night, get to the city, spend all day there exploring on your own or with someone you meet on the bus, and then leave late that night. So here is an overview of how my day broke down:

1 am we left base and drove to Berlin.
9 am we arrived in the city.
Once at the city Vanessa (a girl I met on the bus who was also traveling alone) and I set out to explore the city.
The day began slow. We first at at Einsteins which was a small coffee shop with some of the best butter and croissants.

Following,  we made our way over to the Berlin cathedral or Berliner Dom. 

After making our way to the top and looking out over the city 

We headed to Brandenburg gate to start a walking tour

On the tour we saw the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe

Then Check Point Charley 

And several other places along the way. After a few hours of walking around on the tour we broke off on our own again. We ventured on to see the Berlin wall,

 running into some crazy Germans raising money for a bachelor party on the way,

 tried to figure out the rail system (getting lost a few times along the way), finally making it to Ku' damm shopping, and ending the day with the TV tower

 before trying to make our way across town in 10 min,  pouring rain, and dealing with an angry German taxi driver to make it to the bus on time! Over all it was a great trip and I had a great time, even when we ended up on the outskirts of town haha. We arrived back to Kaiserslautern around 5 am.

 (For all the pics and places I went you can find them on my Facebook under the album Berlin.) 

**When traveling in Germany always have spare change to use the restroom.