Day 10: Reichstag, Brandenburg
Gate
Today turned out to be my day
of great bad luck. The only thing scheduled was visiting the German Parliament
building the Reichstag. Before coming on the trip this was one of the buildings
that my brother insisted I visit. So of course with my luck, we had gotten all
the way to the main station before I realized that I had left my passport in my
room. So I got on the next train back to the hotel. I was freaking out the
whole way back thinking that there was no way that they would let me go on the
tour if I got there late especially since it is a federal government building.
So of course on my way back to the main station the train decides to stop for a
good 5 minutes before even getting to the first station. Finally, I get to the
main station (Hautsbanof) and of course it takes forever and at this point it
was made clear that I would not be joining the rest of the group on the tour,
but that maybe they would let me on the roof and the dome of the building. Much
to my luck they let me go up to the roof in an elevator full of what looked
like diplomats and public officials. I took the audio tour of the dome which
was really cool because as you made your way up or down, it would tell you to
stop and look out into the city and tell you things about certain buildings or
areas. I learned that one of the buildings that was standing tall was actually
where they discovered the cause of tuberculosis! Finally I just waked around
the rooftop for a while hoping that my group would eventually make its way up
to the roof since other small groups had come up to the roof, yet they never
came. Turns out that they weren’t event allowed to go up there because of the
dinner that was taking place with the diplomats.
After the Reichstag, I met up
with Lydia and we headed to the Brandenburg gate where we encountered some sort
of concert or rally because there was a large group of people holding up some
red flags. There was police all over the place as well so we decided to ask one
of the cops what was going on. Turns out it was a protest by Armenians and
others about some new legislation that the German government had just passed. I
don’t think I’ve ever seen a protest, but this definitely wasn’t what I
expected. People were singing and chanting stuff that I didn’t understand, but
it seemed pretty peaceful. Despite it looking peaceful, you could tell that all
the cops were on high alert. We even saw some cops in full body armor and some
big assault rifles. Lydia were across the street taking some pictures just
because it seemed interesting, then we kept going and walked past the US
Embassy and to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Later we met up with some of the people from out group at a beer garden near the spree for a night beer and of course a soft pretzel. I really think I could get used to this lifestyle of spending evenings out at night just relaxing inside a big city.
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