Saturday, January 18, 2014

Another Day In Berlin: Museums and Onegin

To put it lightly, we have been very VERY busy people. We have been doing something new and exciting every day- and I suspect it will just keep getting better. Yesterday we were able to go to what remains of the Berlin Wall, and go to Berlin Wall museum and a Nazi museum. In the evening we saw the Magic Flute.....which was.... Interesting. Really quite amazing! But still was just weird. Read more in others posts to get a better feel of what it was like. Personally I was exhausted and had a hard time staying awake (felt by all of us) so most of it felt like a dream anyways and not just because of the random dream-like activities going on onstage. 
Now for today! The ladies started the day by heading down the street to find some sort of breakfast and found a little bakery. We foud the place completely packed so we had to wait outside in a line. Every time the door opened we could get a whiff of what was inside and we're drooling at the door. We finally get inside and the shop owner is a grumpy old woman who could barely speak a word of English and scoffed at our attempts to communicate what we wanted. It was worth it all though. We were all very satisfied with our pastries! We got back and ate them in front of the boys- who had got the same breakfast we had been eating every morning and pretended they "really didn't want any" :)
 As a group we then all headed to museum island to check out some of the (well you could guess I suppose,)  museums! On the way there we stumbled across the coolest market where they had all kinds of breads, fresh juices, sandwiches, fruit, pastries, flowers, jewelry, and clothes! One of the coolest things about this trip is that we are not being spoon fed a cellophane-wrapped version of Europe. We get to stumble across things, get lost, have the sorest feet, meet strange people, and embarrassingly struggle to communicate in German. Every one of us has had that deer in the headlight look after a person tries to say a small joke or ask a simple question to reply with a long "uhh" and tell them you don't speak German- or even better- just laugh smile and nod like you understood what they are saying. It all has been so wonderful! (No sarcasm intended^-^) Anywho. The museums were mind-blowing! We went to the museum of German history and the Pergamon museum. In the Pergamon there were HUGE displays- I mean HUUUUGE. If I could figure out how to make the font size bigger on this thing, I would to emphasize how gosh darn huge  these things were. Look.
Yeah. Big. I learned so much my brain is probably leaking from overload. And if that wasn't too much, a handful of us went to the German history museum- which didn't have huge displays, but was a HUGE museum. We walked around the museum for a couple hours , thought we had seen it all only to find we were only halfway through the darn thing. Very, very interesting things though! Soo interesting! Again, my brain is probably leaking knowledge. Highlights of this museum were original works from Martin Luther, old guns and swords, Napoleon's had and sword from the Battle of Waterloo, the clothing pieces, and the early nazi portion where we saw the unnecessarily large desk where Hitler planned his world domination. Here is Eric contemplating at the desk->
Then we drug our exhausted little selves back to the hostel to meet up and head to the ballet Onegin.
Onegin was just phenomenal. I can't even. The dancers were the best I've ever seen (that's putting it lightly) and the orchestra had the most lush, dark sound. Even the piccolo sounded dark and gorgeous! The horns sounded like the voice of God, the strings were blazing, and the trombones sounded like horns. I laughed many times, and cried throughout about the last half of the first act and at the end. It was one of the best performances I've ever experienced. (Elton John concert I went to once may come close, but this definitely wins). If anyone reading this EVER gets the chance to see a ballet from a well esteemed ballet company in Europe, DO IT. DOITDOIT. I wish that we had more ballets scheduled in our trip, but sadly that's the only one. I guess I'll just have to come back someday to watch another :) 
On the agenda for tomorrow- attend church at this->
Yes, be jealous. 
Also! Going to a Sunday flea market, maybe checking out the Jewish museum, and oh yeah we're seeing the Berlin Philharmonic. Good things ahead!

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