Two week update: Berlin & Venice

This update will be a little longer than the previous ones because I missed last week. Two weeks ago, I went to Berlin, Germany with three of my friends from school. We had originally planned to be there for four days, but due to stupidly missing the bus because we took the wrong train- we had to stay an extra night and half a day. We had to book a new bus ticket, which sucked but I’m not complaining for that extra afternoon I got to spend in Berlin!

Berlin is by far the most lively city I’ve been to so far in Europe. It is a city that never sleeps. I’ve only been away from Hong Kong for just over a month, but it felt odd being somewhere that was so similar to Hong Kong in terms of liveliness. Berlin is also a very historical city, we took the chance to go to the Historical Museum, Topography of Terror and even went to the place Hitler committed suicide, which is now a car park. On my extra day, I went to the famous Berlin Zoo which is probably one of my favorite zoos I’ve been to. It was so big I didn’t even get a chance to see everything. I did enjoy seeing the gorillas and penguins though. The gorillas would look at you and smirk knowing that they’re being photographed. They’re just like humans! Or…. we’re just like them!

The beautiful Berliner Dom, dates back to the 1400s. (Feb 19. 2011)

Berlin was definitely full of adventure, from spending hours at bars and clubs to missing our bus and having to figure that all out. By the time we got back to the Castle, it was Wednesday morning. Tackled two days of classes and homework, then I went off to Venice Friday night for the yearly Carnival! (Yes, I do go to school and I do have homework!)

Venice is beautiful and the festivity during Carnival is pretty darn awesome. We fell in love with the quint houses and the water surrounding it the moment we stepped into Venezia. It was pretty quiet Friday night, I guess everyone was resting up for Saturday’s day of parties! As we walked around Venice, we stopped looking at the guide books for places to go. It was enough to stroll through the streets, to see the different outfits people had on, to listen to the random band parades walking past us. There was also many people with open bottles of champagne in their hands starting in the morning. I wondered what it’d be like to be living in Venice experiencing this carnival. I guess for some it won’t be such a big deal, and perhaps for some they’ll even try to avoid it. It’s almost like the Rugby Sevens in HK every March, except it’s related to the history of Venice… so I guess it’s a little different. Good old Rugby Sevens, North stand, drinking non-stop day and night watching games of rugby over and over again. It’ll be at least a few years before I’ll be able to attend another one.

I know this update might not suffice and definitely does not explain everything I did and felt in both Berlin and Venice but it’ll have to do for now. These couple days are packed with midterms and papers, on top of all the little errands and things I should be doing. We are having a Carnival night tomorrow for American night because we’ll be missing the actual carnival this weekend. It should be fun, I’ll try and update with a few photos of the creative outfits we will pull off tomorrow.

For now, Ciao!