Berlin Trip
On the Thursday before half term, 5 year 13s from AHS and 9 AGS boys crammed into a minibus. After a journey of much talking and eating, we arrived at Stansted airport to check in for our flight to Berlin. It was quite late when we arrived in Berlin, and due to Mr Baird’s dubious transport skills we arrived at our hostel for the night slightly later than expected. This slight detour, however, did have the advantage that we could admire some of Berlin’s more attractive train stations at midnight. After a good night’s sleep in our group rooms we met up the next morning after breakfast with our luggage to take to our next hostel. This was our first chance to see Berlin during daylight, and after depositing our belongings we took a better look around the city. A highlight of the day was visiting Checkpoint Charlie; this was the crossing point of the Berlin wall that allowed access from the American sector in the west to the communist east. A museum has been founded at the site, showing, amongst many other things, methods that people used to escape to the west. We thought the idea of one man was particularly ingenious; apparently he dressed up as a cow and grazed his way across the no man’s land between the walls that separated the east from the west. That day we had an opportunity to look around Potsdamer Platz and also to visit the Reichstag. An enormous glass dome has been built on these old buildings of parliament to symbolise the fact that the German government is open for all to see. The next day we took part in a cycle tour of the city; slightly worrying was the lack of cycling experience of some of the group, which, coupled with heavy traffic on the roads was frankly worrying. Thankfully the day passed without any serious accidents, and our guide was able to tell us a lot about the history of the city. After an enormous lunch in a German beer garden we visited places such as the Jewish Holocaust Memorial and the site of Hitler’s bunker. In the evening we went to the Brandenburg gate which, due to the excitingly named ‘Festival of Lights’, was lit up in pretty colours from underneath. After dinner in a Mexican restaurant, we went back to the hostel for our last night in Berlin. The fact that we were leaving was made all the more difficult by fact that we had to get up at 5 in order to be on time for our flight, however we all successfully made it out of bed and into the aeroplane. Our weekend in Berlin was an amazing experience to help us understand the city’s fascinating history, and I’m sure we’d all love to go again!
