Day 2 (by Sarah)

Day 2 was Easter, but it wasn't spent in a church. We woke up to the snow and to one of the longest, coldest winters that Germany has experienced in a long while.
The morning started off with a bus tour which took us all over Berlin. We saw thing like the Radio Tower, the Holocaust Memorial, and even the Pregnant Oyster. The part of the that tour was really fun wasn't the stuff we were learning, but the tour guide he was really sarcastic and made funny comments that helped the stories and information stay in my head. My favorite thing that we visited was the Olympic Stadium; we were able to get out and take pictures with it. It was so fascinating though because it was so huge when it was originally built it could fit 100,000 people.
Then we went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. I thought that this was really fun because they had the two different signs that would tell you that you were leaving the U.S. side and entering the Soviet side and then on the other side it said that you were now entering the U.S. side. I also paid my two euro to get my picture with the American soldiers and their post, which I personally thought was really exciting. I also found the actual museum to be interesting because it went into detail about the events in the Cold War, and that's what I'm learning in school, so it's very intriguing to me.
We then walked to the river where we had our boat tour, but the tour wasn't for another hour so we got free time until the boat ride. The actual boat ride was soothing though. I couldn't really see much, but I could hear over the intercom. It was also funny to see the people slowly fall asleep as the tour progressed. But by the end we were trying to play matchmaker and make relationships.
We then had more free time, and so naturally in the snow I got gelato. We also changed our money into crowns for Czech Republic.
Then we took the Metro to the Eastern Center and tried to get into the GDR Museum, but the line for tickets was too long. So we just had about a hour and a half of free time. I went to a art museum and I looked at the history of Germany from 1914-1994.
We then went to a Russian restaurant, but it served really interesting meat. I couldn't really tell what the meat was, but it was good. Then they gave us donuts for dessert which were also good, they were jelly filled, but only in one corner, and I didn't eat the whole thing so I didn't get any of the jelly.
This day was pretty fun, and I learned a lot which I enjoyed a lot.

Day 1 (by Sarah)

Day One was essentially just a continuation of the day before. I say this because we had a 9.5 hour flight followed by a 1 hour flight. Although getting onto the 1 hour flight wasn't as easy as it sounds; we missed our connection from Frankfurt to Berlin, so we had to rearrange the tickets and wait at the airport until the next plane was here. A cool thing that happened on the next plane was that there was another EF tour group on the plane, so we were able to talk to them and find out what kind of trip they were going on.
Once we got to Berlin we got onto the bus and got to see the rest of our tour group for the first time. The rest of the group consists of two different groups from Georgia: one from the northern part and one from the southern.
The first place we visited was Alexander Platz. It was really neat because at Easter time, the entire square was covered in little shops, merchants, and rides. Also, near Alexander Platz there was the TV Tower, which is a giant tower with a sphere towards the top. The most interesting thing that I learned about the tower was that it's the tallest freestanding structure in Berlin, and that the Germans were the first to create a lot of the ideas in television. But my favorite thing in the square was the fact that they had Starbucks right underneath the TV Tower.
Dinner was really sketchy; we went to the top of a department store and then somehow wound up at a restaurant. Surprisingly though, they had good food. There were a lot of vegetables and these weird meatball things. None of us were quite sure what the meat was, but they were good either way.
Once it was darker, we went to the remains of the Berlin Wall. I thought it was really cool because the East side had all of these different paintings on it. That was sort of interesting to me, because that side used to be the side that was completely bare. There were so many different artistic interpretations on the wall, varying from paintings about freeing Tibet to propaganda messages from the Cold War.
This day was pretty much one of the longest days of my life, although it was a pretty good one. From being on a plane for almost 11 hours to seeing the Berlin Wall, I feel like it was an easy and successful way to start the trip.

Germany 2013

Once again, students from Cherokee Trail are heading out of the country.  This time we are heading to Berlin and Prague.  We leave on March 29th and we hope to be able to blog while we are away so stay tuned.

Time to Travel Again

Mr. Chimento and I are teaming up again to bring students across the seas to experience yet another fascinating set of countries.  We have set our sites on Germany and Prague during the 2012-2013 school year and hope many of the CT student body will join us.

Hong Kong Day 3

Well this is Alex, today was a great day to end the trip. We had all the free time in the world because we never went on any of the extra excursions. So we went to the beach and Stanley market, they both were really fun. Wes and I went to swim in the ocean, oh it was so mice to have some salt. I can now say that I have swam on both sides of the ocean. After the ocean we went to the hotel and everyone besides Wes and are to group leaders and myself went on the cruise. Us four went to the cleanest Pizza Hut in the world, the food was really good. After that was walked along the ocean and watch the light show again. China is truly beautiful at night! It was nice to rest for once and enjoy the beach. Most of the time I found myself with only Wes next to me and almost the whole trip it has been this way. I could not have asked for anyone else to swim in the ocean with and put a smile on my face when I missing home. I can't wait to get back home but at the same time I am going to miss everyone here. We are now family and I will remember them forever. The person that changed my point of view on life is a boy from Maryland. He happens to be deaf and also he has CP, but I promise that he would always have a MILLION dollar smile on and he wouldn't let anything bring him down. He showed me that I should not take for granted everything that I got and take the time to be thankful. I am really going to miss him. I had an amazing trip, with amazing people.