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The February 2004 Year 11 Study Visit to Berlin
On Friday 13th at 1 o’clock in the morning 30 Year 11 pupils and three brave teachers set off for Berlin. Twelve hours later, after successfully negotiating the Berlin underground, we arrived at our hotel in the centre of the city. The hotel met with approval. Sadly the food did not, but luckily there were plenty of cafés just down the road! The rest of the day was spent looking at some of Berlin’s well-known sights, shopping on Berlin’s most famous street and being sent out to speak lots of German. The following morning we went to a local market before heading back into the centre of Berlin to go to Potsdamer Platz, which used to be the no-man’s land between East and West Berlin. Now it is full of very modern buildings, cinemas and, of course, a shopping centre. We also did a bit of star spotting as the Berlin International Film Festival was taking place. In the evening we went to the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament, and climbed up the dome. On Sunday we travelled deep into the area that used to be East Berlin for a visit to the former Stasi prison. The Stasi were the East German secret police and amongst other things, we saw where interrogations had taken place and the cells where prisoners were kept. More German history followed with a look at the last remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall and a visit to the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, the former border between East and West. In the evening we went ten pin bowling for our evening’s entertainment. On Monday there was just time for some last minute shopping and the last taste of German food before it was time to head off for the airport and start our journey home.
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