I went to Berlin for this past weekend, and it was so cool. It was a lot colder than Barcelona and I definitely was not prepared for this weather, but luckily I can legally drink here!
I went with some people I met through my program and they end up being Kappas (Kappa Kappa Gamma, the sorority I am associated with) as well! So we threw up our KKG sign in front of the Reichstag (Picture below), which is the meeting place of the Bundestag "Federal Assembly", the lower house of Germany's national legislature. More info on Reichstag here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reichstag-building-Berlin-Germany
First trip, of course I had first mistakes. I did not bring enough money and finding an ATM was like searching for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I even went to two banks and they couldn't tell us where to go for one. Feeling a little homesick, Lizzy and I stopped at Starbucks and got something to remind us of home. I don't know why but Starbucks here is 1 million times better than in the United States (not surprised).
Since we were only there for the weekend, we did all the most touristy things possible, including a tour bus. I am normally very against this but it was a double decker bus and that was on my list of things to do here. Below is an area of the bombed out Berlin wall. We also went to Museum Island and checked out all the artifacts that were stolen from different countries by Germany and found in mass warehouses.
The first night we were here we meet some great people from Dublin who rallied us to go out; and the last night we befriended some locals who took us to a local bar. What appeared to be a bar from the main entrance turned into a big dance floor and club that was hidden in the back.
Some interesting things about Berlin (Disclaimer, these are things I have observed and may not be the law, norm, whatever):
-You have to pay to use the Restroom everywhere-even train stations
-You can drink while in public, and when you are done with your beer it is nice to leave it on the side of the street for someone to pick it up and recycle for money (A local told me this and he was probably messing with me so fact check if you go)
-You can smoke in almost every facility and closed room which I hated because your clothes smell like cigarettes