Day #1: Berlin

On the plane ride to Berlin I sat next to a German woman and her daughter. They lived in Dachau and were visiting Berlin for the next couple of days. The woman's father had grown up in Germany during the war, he was 17 in 1945. School was cancelled because kids were told they had to fight but her father ran away because as she put it, "it was a stupid war". Her husband was a south Vietnamese immigrant who had escaped from a North Vietnamese prison camp at the end of the war. He was able to get on a boat to the Philippines where he lived until 1979. 

I found out that Germany, and Berlin in particular has a large Vietnamese population. After the Wall was put up the West started bringing in a lot of Turkish workers so to compete East Berlin brought in tons of Vietnamese workers. I just think it's so interesting because you would never think that Germany would have a large Vietnamese population. Also, that's one of the reasons I love traveling; you get to hear people's stories' and they can be just fascinating.  (Michael K)

The Olympic Stadium
Although I was jet lagged and hadn't slept in what seemed like days, I was really excited to go to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the home of the 1936 Olympic Games and Hertha BSC of the Bundesliga. It was a really cool experience to be in the same stadium that Jesse Owens and Usain Bolt set world records but also to be in the home of a top-flight, European football club. Our tour guide, Tim, was an absolute beast, because although he has lived in Germany his entire life, he is a massive American Football fan and has watched almost every Super Bowl since 1982. The stadium itself was pretty awesome, it has hot tubs, a golden chapel, and the room where Zinedine Zidane sat, after he head butted Materazzi, during the 2006 World Cup Final. Although the stadium has been rebuilt many times, I did enjoy the fact that they left a lot of the Nazi sculptures standing, because I respect the fact that Germans feel that it is necessary to come to terms with their history, even though most of them strongly resent it. --(Bill H)

The Berlin Olympic stadium was sooooo cool. The inside was awesome with a huge field and seating for upto 100000. My tour guide Tim was super sassy and revealed to us that he actually hates soccer but loves American Football.  To be quite honest I was really sad we weren't allowed onto the track or field, for as a track team member myself I wanted to run the same track Jesse Owens "won Hitler's Olympics" on. But it was really cool to see the field and go into all the VIP boxes and guests of honor rooms. All in all it was a great tour and the Hertha BSC have the best hot tub in Deutschland in their locker room. (Emily B)