Schwarz, Rot, Gold!

Friday, June 22.

In the morning, Sara and I used the last day of our 3 Day museum pass to go to Nikolaikirche, St. Nicholas’ Church, the oldest building in Berlin.  I worked on some of my project along the way.

The church is stunning from the outside, but even more interesting on the inside.  I thought this would be more like the Marienkirche we saw on our first tour of Berlin, but it is a lot more in depth than I expected.  The church itself was beautiful, with interesting sculptures and architectural details.  The buttresses of the church were particularly colorful, which was an unexpected detail.

Much of the items were epitaphs from wealthy families who could be buried in the church.  Some were simple, some were a lot more intricate than the others.  There was a small room off to the side with an exquisite altar cloth, and filled with small items used at the altar.  The Nikolaikirche provided a good history of the church, along with history of artifacts from many places in Germany.  I used to audio guide this time, which I really enjoyed, because I could listen to the information while closely examining the artifact from all angles.

After the church, we walked around the neighborhood, styled as an old East Berlin neighborhood, and looked around some tourist-y shops.  I definitely want something with the Amplemannchen walking symbol on it.  Sara wanted a photo with the Berlin Bear.

After resting, working on homework for a bit, and eating dinner at the hostel, a huge group of us left for the Germany vs. Greece quarter final.  It was even more packed than the last game.  We were still by the third TV from the Brandenburger Tor, but we had pretty good views.  There were some obnoxious people behind us, but we were able to move up enough to get away from them.  We were able to stay together as a group until the end, which was surprising and a great accomplishment.

Kari, Lanna, and me.

Alex, Catie, and me.

Germany fans celebrating after the first goal verses Greece!  The game went pretty similarly to how I expected, Germany won 4-2, the second Greece goal coming at the very end when the game was pretty much over.  We had fun at half time, dancing to the German version of I Like to Move it!  After the game we took a long trip back to the hostel, and then Kari, Lanna, Andrew and I went on a little adventure to find this band playing at a bar.