'Parent's Weekend' in Berlin

I realized most of my blogs so far have been about big-picture take-aways from my time here in Berlin, which might not be helpful if you’re a prospective student trying to decide to study here (which you absolutely should). So, the next few posts are going to be about my weekends, random days, or especially fun events I’ve gotten up to. 

Everyone’s been calling this weekend “parent weekend” because it’s Easter Break, so a lot of my friend’s parents were here. We had the day off on Monday, and because we also don’t have classes on Friday, it was a reasonable enough amount of time for visitors to come from the United States or elsewhere. 

Anyway, here’s what I did this weekend! 

Friday

• It was Good Friday, so essentially everything in the city was closed. This was a bit surprising to me, but I guess Germany is much more Catholic than I thought. So, I went to the gym with my friend Sara who gets a monthly buddy pass to the place at the end of our street. It was hard but there was a live DJ in the gym which made the time go by much faster. I also loved seeing people do little dances in between their workouts. Also this was the first time I’d gone to the gym since arriving in Germany. Soooo, it was hard. 
• After this, I met my parents for a coffee in Charlottenburg and we people watched while my dad scoffed at how many people were smoking cigarettes. 
• We walked around Charlottenburg and got the juiciest, most flavorful raspberries from a fruit stand we stumbled upon.
• We took the U-Bahn to the East Side Gallery because I would have been a horrible tour guide if I hadn’t taken them to see this monument.
• I took the bus back home, got ready for dinner, met up with my friend Emma and her family for a delicious meal at a German restaurant. Most of us had schnitzel that almost exploded off our plates.
• Went out to a bar and a club with my friends and danced and laughed.

Saturday 

• Woke up feeling sore AF from the gym.
• The day prior, when walking around Charlottenburg, my parents and I came across the Charlottenburg Palace, but the tickets were sold out so we went back to have a look around. We got tickets to the New Wing of the castle, which had mainly been transformed into an art gallery. The palace itself was built in 1695 for Frederick the Great, but this wing was mostly inhabited by his nephew and successor King Frederick William II. Designed in an interesting combination of Chinese, Etruscan, and Neoclassical styles, this grandiose home boasted a collection of French art and sculpture. It was cool to hear that Karl Friedrich Schinkel–the architect, painter, and city planner I learned about in my architecture class for his role in shaping Berlin’s cityscape in the 19th century–designed some of the furniture in the house. 
• We walked around the palace’s sprawling gardens, admired the dogs running around which worsened our own longing for our dog who was home in Massachusetts, and got lunch at a cafe before heading back home to chill out before dinner
• Ate dinner with Sara and parents at a fancy French restaurant. Ordered a steak, but had a few bites of my Mom’s salmon, which later came back to haunt me.

• Come back from dinner, go out with my friends, leave early because I’m not feeling well. 

  This is where things take a turn for the worst so stop reading if you’re faint of heart.

Sunday

• Wake up at 3am, vomit profusely. Wake up again at 6am, vomit more. Wake up at 9am, you can guess what happened. 
• Call my parents, find out food poisoning has struck the family. It was the salmon. 
• Lay in bed all day. Watch reruns of Modern Family. I feel disgusting. 
• Finally feel a bit better around 8pm, which then made me feel simultaneously more gross for laying in my bed all day, so I went for a walk around my neighborhood before eating a dinner of crackers and ginger ale.

Monday

• Wake up feeling much better (!! yay)
• Meet my parents for a good-bye brunch and a teary goodbye.
• Come home, sleep, do some homework.
• Meet Sara (again, I have other friends I promise, but she’s my main squeeze) for a project in our Urban Design and Sustainability class. We’re doing a presentation on the Pfand recycling program in Berlin–more on this later–that’s due next week.
• Get pho, sit in the Wassertower park, watch the sunset. 
• Bounce on the trampolines in the park, feel silly, head home.