SO where did the name Berlin come from???

well just a quick note to say i have made it to Berlin, Germany, and i will be on my way to Copenhagen on the 16th of May. then farther north i go from there. when last you left me i was on my way to prague. wow what a wild city that is, beautiful sights and crazy people. Prague castle was absolutely amazing and exhausting. other sights of prague included the History of Communism Museum and the Alfonzon Mucha museum, the guy who basically invented art nouveau on his own! i have more exciting adventures that i will tell you about later.

i also made it to Dresden Germany where i stayed for one night, always wanted to go and now i have. beautiful city, i got up at like 7am and walked around the city before all the german tourists came out, as there are not very many english speakers there. the city was basically flattened during the war but they rebuilt the city beautifully. hopefully the photos will be amazing as the city is!

In the afternoon i took a train to Berlin, didn't do too much the first day, just went to the wall and an all veggie burger place. i went to the part of the wall called the east side gallery, and basically after the wall came down so to say, the city invited a bunch of artists to do murials on the wall. so today i went to the bauhaus gallery, as the school is out in the middle of nowhere so i will not get there, on this trip. I also went to a free sight seeing tour of the city. basically the most amazing tour i have been on i learned so much german history as well as to why berlin is called berlin. so basically berlin was originally settled by some slovaks and since berlin is built on a bog or marsh and the slovak word for this in bern and lin means city. you have the name bog city born out of this mangle of words. pretty cool. i also visited the old Reichstad building, it's called something else now but i forgot what but it is the HQ of their government. the building is amazing, it made me have so much pride in the german country and people-and i'm not even german. it basically made me want to write a letter to there state leader and say when can i sign up to come live in your country, because basically it is amazing!?! it made me wish i had that much pride in my own country but hey it's something to start thinking about when i return home. the people here are so kind they just don't know how to tell a joke. but i had a man today ask me where i needed to go as i was looking at the map and the street signs and then he told me the directions that has never happened b4 in any country i have been in! so good night and hope to go to shushenhausen or something like that tomorrow, which is a concentration camp. so that should be intense. so off to bed for me.

xoxo,
christie