One fine Saturday afternoon in Dublin, I ventured out with some Americans to visit Jameson Distillery, just a few Luas stops away.
The girls.
The boys.
Collin, quite excited, jumping on fences.
The tour was fun, but the distillery isn't actually a distillery anymore. Most of what you see is old equipment or models of the equipment. But if you like whiskey, it's pretty cool to hear about, and kind of see, how it's made.
Plus, you get a drink at the end of the tour.
You can volunteer to do a taste test of different kinds of whiskey and become a real connoisseur -- like me.
I was only in Berlin for a few days, but I think I could see myself as a Berliner.
There is barely a language barrier as, like much of Europe, everyone learns English at a young age. Especially in cities, where there is a large amount of tourism, everyone starts speaking English as soon as they hear you say "hi."
The coolest thing about Berlin? The wall. It was actually the coolest thing I think I've ever seen. Naturally I will wait until the end of the post to show you the photos, both to create suspense and because I took around 40 of them.
Berlin is so full of history, and it shows. While a lot of the city's oldest and important buildings and places have been destroyed, there are a number of memorials around the city to make sure the past is not forgotten. Most of them are rather abstract, not explicit in what they represent, but allow the viewer to take away their own meaning.
The above photo is not mine and legally snagged from Wikipedia.
This memorial is for the Nazi book burnings of 1933 in Bebelplatz. Around 20,000 books were burned because the Nazi regime didn't agree with their content or their authors. When you look down into this glass, you can see an empty library.
Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny
This building was once a guardhouse. Now it's mostly empty except for this statue of a mother holding her dead son. Buried in the building are two unidentified bodies - one a soldier and the other a concentration camp victim.
This is the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, or Holocaust Memorial. It consists of 2,711 concrete slabs in a grid pattern, all the same width and length but varying height. It's a sort of chilling sight to see, with no real explanation of why this was chosen. Everyone can take away their own interpretation of it.
Brandenburg Gate
Checkpoint Charlie
Sums up German food pretty well.
The moment you've been waiting for: the wall!
I thought Berlin, as snowy and grey as it as, was a beautiful city. I think the abundance of graffiti as well as the architecture is what makes the city beautiful. Graffiti (or Street Art, as some would say) seems more embraced in Berlin. It's everywhere, and much of it is political or social messages rather than just gang signs or profanity. I think party of this has to do with the wall, and the way Berliners expressed themselves on there.
These murals from the East Side Gallery are by artists from all over the world. Some are messages about the joy of the wall falling down, of the terror of fascism, or commitment to never again let their city be divided.
