Sav: Today we had planned a museum day in Berlin… Though one incredible task remained in our way before we could delve into the German past: LAUNDRY. Cue foreboding music. We were both completely out of socks and were getting desperate to wear clean clothes. We trekked around Berlin early to find an open laundromat (everything closes on Sunday and tomorrow is a holiday). Laundromat found, Meaghan went to the corner café for pastries and coffee, and upon her return I said “Hey Meaghan, guess what I am doing right now?” She gives me this look like I’m planning something and suspiciously narrows her eyes waits for my response: “Dyeing all my clothes pink.” I watched helplessly as the locked washer slowly tortured my poor shirts, and Meaghan cried in laughter for the next 3 minutes straight. On the bright side I get to go shopping in our next city because half of my clothes are pink with a lovely hint of sickly grey.

I also found out that my waterproof jacket is in fact not waterproof for more than 3 rainfalls. I guess that’s what happens when you order a jacket from amazon for $20 that is labelled ‘showerproof.’

Meag: After what will now be referred to as The Laundry Incident, we met up with Carla at the Topography of Terror museum. It is in the footprint of the former SS headquarters and tells the story of Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s, focusing on the role of the secret police. As much as we’ve read about it in textbooks, it is different to be here learning about what happened. I’m always struck by the cold and calculating way in which people were ostracized and killed.

All three of us were a little sad when we left. We headed towards the German Historical Museum, stopping at Checkpoint Charlie on the way to the train station. It was super touristy and small. Had we more time we might have stayed and looked at it a bit more, but The Laundry Incident gave us a late start. We stopped for lunch just around the corner from the museum and had fun with the suggested useful phrases on the back of our map. These included simple things like “teapot” and “I’ll have one of those,” but also gems like “please may I fondle your buttocks?” and “watch out, there is a huge frog about to land on your head!” Surprisingly, we haven’t actually had to use any of these phrases yet. Too bad, because I would love the opportunity to say “watch out, there’s a huge frog about to land on your head!” in German.

S: I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if I’d had to use “look a bear on a bike!” Because we literally saw 3 or 4 people dressed in bear costumes around the city. We spent the next 3 hours at the German Historical museum, and honestly we could have used double that. My feet would have complained but was it ever an interesting museum dating all the way back to 900 CE. Filled to the brim with thousands of artifacts and paintings and everything in between you couldn’t take 3 steps without finding something new to read about. It was really cool. There was a moment when I was standing in front of a sketch of a man being tortured when I received a particularly funny message from my step mother Andrea and I laughed out loud. Keep in mind this is a large room, with vaulted ceilings and a lot of space so sound reverberates off those walls like nobody’s business. Suffice to say I received a few nasty looks….

M: Matt, Farzin, Carla, Savanna and I headed out to meet Tobi at an Irish bar for some live music. We had Some Guinness, of course. And some shepherd’s pie because it felt like a homey Sunday night dinner. We had some good laughs tonight, and I had the wonderful opportunity to say “Matt, will you accept this rose?” with a (mostly) straight face, holding a real rose.

S: Meaghan, and in fact everyone, took turns handing the rose to Matt in some form or another, always enduring fits of laughter from the group. Also the live singer was incredible! He sang ‘Galway Girl’ which I have fallen in love with even though it’s an old song that I’ve heard before. Something about hearing an Irish man sing it loud and live in the bar changed it for me. But walking out of an Irish bar into the streets with a group of friends and a hilarious rose was the perfect final night in Berlin.

M: It has been amazing here.

S&M