July 25, 2012

THE ROAD TO BERLIN




The road to Berlin took the group to some pretty interesting places along the way. We departed Bonn, our wonderful home of six weeks, and headed to Erfurt, where we took a tour from the crazy lookin’ guy above, and learned about the history of Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia and home of the Thuringia Bratwurst. Our Friar guide led us across the city of Erfurt where the group got free chocolates (which made it the best tour ever, of course) and showed us a little piece of DDR history and a large portion of Judson’s face.
We ended our tour at a very cool restaurant, where all the food was served to us on a spit and we were allowed to eat like messy college students and not use utensils.
The next stop on our Deutschland tour was Dresden. Dresden is the capital of the Free State of Saxony in Germany and is a beautiful city with a great mixture of old architecture and new architecture.

After a tour of the city, the group headed to the banks of the Elbe River for the public viewing of the Germany v. Italy game.

Even though Germany lost the game, the group united with the fans of Dresden in cheering for our team and the great work they did during the Euro Cup.

The group finally reached Berlin where we would conclude our study abroad with AIB. We toured the city of Berlin where we got to see many historical communist sites and World War II influences across the city. At night, the group explored the city of Berlin, eating at different restaurants and even seeing an opera one night. When it came time to leave, the goodbyes were heartfelt and meaningful. It is incredible to think that we spent six amazing weeks in a beautiful country, experiencing things we have never experienced before and meeting people we’ll never forget. We will always have the memories, the pictures, and maybe the German section of our grocery store to remind of the summer we spent studying abroad in Germany and the amazing time we had.


Written by: Laura Blackerby