June 25th - June 27th

June 25 - June 27th
Was a Friday through a Sunday and these were days for exploring more of the heart of Berlin. This was such a fun weekend it consisted of a lot of rest and watching almost every game of soccer that was scheduled. When the U.S. played Ghana (Saturday) I went to a American style Bar & Grill by the name of Route 66. The menu of course had American foods well i think so. There was a choice of a so called "Cajun Chicken" but I didn't have the nerve to try Cajun Chicken in Germany but I did have the chili cheese fries and they where amazing. To bad the U.S. lost but I still had a great time. Later that weekend Germany played England (Sunday) and I believe the entire city of Berlin was in the Tiergarten watching the amazing game that the Germans put on 4 - 1 Germany. After this defeat the entire city was filled with noises of celebration. Such as cars honking, fireworks going off, people yelling / chanting. All in all the city did not go to bed early that night. It was a new experience for me and i will probably never forget it. Well that was my weekend in a nut shell hope you enjoyed it.

June 23 - June 24

June 23 was a day on the Bus. We traveled from Stuttgart back to Berlin ( about a 10 hour bus ride). But no means did we just sit on the bus we had many stops all in the town of Wolfsburg. One of the three stops we made was to the Phaeno Museum. Which to most of use was a flash back to our childhood because this building's interior was a child science center.Even though we were there see the architecture we had some fun while we were there too. This building was a concrete building designed by Zaha Hadid. This building was one of a kind for sure. Every lrg to this structure was one of a kind and that also means that all the form work was also one of a kind. Since this building is made solely out of concrete one would think it would have expansion joints right. Well you would be wrong this building had non.

Phaeno Museum

Also along our stop was a Library done by Aalto and also the Heiling-Greist kiche (a church). The church had a really interesting way of doing a corner on a brink building (shown below) and the chapel had this really interesting ribbon like form running on the ceiling.


June 24th was mostly a history driven day with our class starting at the Topographies of Terror exhibit a few blocks from our apartments. Our afternoon began with a very infomative lecture by Dr. Etheridge. Manly talked about Hitler's personal history, pre WWII, and the SS along with the Gestapos and how much of a thriving power they where when Hilter was coming into power. Soon after the lecture and a quick tour of the Topographies site and we ended our day at the Jewish Museum by D. Libeskind.

model of museum

Garden of exile with the museum

Museums exterior

June 22nd

June 22nd Was the day of days or just every teenagers dream. We toured the Porsche museum and the Mercedes-Benz museum in the morning. Talk about a wake up call. Of these two I enjoyed the Porsche's layout better than the Mercedes museum. The Porsche museum had more of a linear time line describing the history of the company. As the Mercedes museum just had too much. Their set up was a clover leaf style of ramping. That had the history on one leaf and the other leaf was just to show case all that Mercedes-Benz has done from the beginning. From the outside Mercedes bets the Porsche Museum hands down and in my preservative if the Mercedes museum's exhibits where laid out better it probably would have taken the cake.

Porsche Museum

Mercedes -Benz Museum

June 18th - June 21st

I have a feeling my followers are wondering where I have gone. We have gone on a southern excursion through the beautiful country side of Germany. Our southern stops consist of Dessau, Leipzig, Nurnberg, Munich and Stuttgart. There has been a lot covered since the last time I wrote. So here is a little taste of my adventures.

Friday June 18th

Dessau was our first stop on the excursion. The first part of the day consisted of a tour of the grounds of the all famous Bauhaus. Bauhaus is German for "Building house" or "Building school". The Bauhaus was established by a famous architect Walter Gropius.

After leaving Dessau we drove to Leipzig and had a tour of the BMW Plant where the 1 series BMWs are made and also the New X1 line. It was every 20 year old man's dream watching these amazing pieces of machinery come to life. This BMW plant is also the home of a famous architectural designers work Zaha Hadid.

Saturday June 19^th

Our morning started at 7:30 and we hopped on the bus and headed to Nurnberg to see the Nurnberg Frauenkiche. Which is giant coo coo clock that sits within the steeple of a church. This church and clock were built in 1509 which was amazing.

Shortly after 1 we hopped back on the bus and traveled to the Nazi Party Rally grounds. Which to me was a little eerie just knowing what all went on at these grounds.

The photo above is just one of the many building that Hilter was having built at the time but this was the only one of two that survived post war. If you cant tell Hitler was obsessed with the Roman style architecture. This building you see above was massive.

Sunday June 20^th

We left this morning to head to our next stop on the tour of southern Germany. The Next stop was Dachau. We traveled here to get a tour of the Dachau concentration camp which was one of the first concentration camps under the Nazi party. This concentration camp was open on the 22^nd of March 1933.

Later that day we toured the BMW Welt.

Monday June 21^st

We started our journey to Stuttgart but before we got there we stopped off in Wiel – am- Rhien and toured the Vitra Campus. This Campus was filled with amazing architecture and amazing furniture.

Zaha Hadid - Fire Station

Next stop before we got to Stuttgart was at the Hohenzollern Castle. I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

Wednesday 16th - Thursday 17th

Wednesday was the day through the Tiergarten. Our day started at the Brandenburg gate and then we walked west to the Victory Column which was sad to say, was under repair work. Soon after eating lunch we took a tour of Schloss Charlottenberg.

Brandenberg Gate

Victory Column

Today being Thursday the 17th was another thrilling day in the heart of the city. We started our day looking at several of the Embassies that are in close range of one another. We also went through the Bauhaus Archives which I might add where very neat I enjoined the light exhibit the most(no pictures inside though sorry). Later on in the morning we got a tour of the Nordic Embassies. One of the awesome things about the Nordic Embassies here in Berlin, is all of them ( Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and the Finnish) are all within the same complex. Berlin is the only place this happens.

After lunch we went to the Berlin Dome which to me will probably be one of the many places ill remember from this trip. I felt extremely small within the interior of this cathedral. Just to give you some perspective form the floor to the top of the main dome is 72 meters. This height will allow the Victory Column to fit inside the cathedral.

Nordic Complex outer facade

Norwegian Embassy

Berlin Dome

Berlin Dome interior

View from top of Berlin Dome

Monday June 14 - Tuesday June 15

Monday was the beginning of our history lessons with Dr. Etheridge. We started our morning with a walk through Alexanderplatz to the oldest church in Berlin, Nicholaikirche which has now been turned into a museum. Soon after this we traveled along the Spree until we and Dr. Etheridge came upon a very narrow area of the Spree. We all sat down at this location and had our first History lesson. This lesson was about how this location (by the spree) had become birth place of Berlin and why. As the lesson conclude we began our walk in search of many more churches and other buildings which we had just discussed in our lesson. Below are just a few of the Jewels this city has to offer.

Nikolaikirche - Started in 1230

Interior of Nikolaikirche

Marienkirche - Karl-Liebknecht-Straße

The St. Hedwig's Cathedral was after lunch and this Cathedral had the WOW factor for me when I entered the heart of the building.

Tuesday was our day out of Berlin we went Potsdam which is a city just south-west of Berlin. This day trip has to be my favorite trip so far. We went to the Nicholaikirche church in Potsdam not to be confused with the earlier Nicholaikirche. Our group also visited the other Brandenburg Gate.
After Lunch we entered my favorite part of the day. We walked through the Sanssouci Park/Gardens.

Nicholaikirche

Nicholaikirche - Interior

Brandenburg Gate




Sanssouci Gardens
Here are only a few photos of the many I took.

Following up on the first week

As our first week comes to a close I will share some pictures of my favorite building we have seen so far.
The Building you see above is the Reichstag which is Berlin's Parliament building. On Thursday evening our class went to the top of the Reichstag and walked inside the glass dome. The views from the dome were absolutely amazing we are going back at the end of our travels follow me till the end and you will see a birds eye view of Berlin as I did.

Friday was another full and adventures day of this cities unique buildings.

British Embassy-Michael Wilford

DG Bank Interior - Frank Gehry



BrandenBurg Gate - Carl Gotthard Langhans

This is just a small snap shot of our travels so far keep following me to see more of my adventures through Germany.

I have been in Berlin for two days now. These last two days have been very full and eventful day. When we arrived in Berlin it was early evening and there we many things that where obviously different than the states. One of course is the weather and two is the way the sun rises and sets here. The Sun comes up around 5 a.m. and does not set until 10 or so p.m. These two differences are just a few of the many differences this country has compared to ours.

Our second day was all about getting acquainted with the cities infrastructure and massive land marks. This was also an interesting and full day of history and absolute wonder of the surviving German monuments. I'm looking forward to learn more about the history and architecture that this thriving city has to offer.