TV Tower Dinner - May 28, 2013

Today started off with everyone in a panic to finish their projects, as they were due at 2. I had turned mine in a few days ago so I just hung out and relaxed until everyone else was done. My throat started to feel funny and everyone has been getting sick so I'm really hoping I'm not.

Once everyone had turned in their project we went to this little espresso bar near our hotel and had these really delicious sandwiches. Pretty much everyone got the mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwiches but seeing as I don't like tomatoes I didn't get that. I got Serrano ham and fresh mozzarella. It came on an herb bread and it was so delicious that I'm probably going to go back tomorrow and get it.

After lunch we wandered around Alexanderplatz for a while just to get out of the hotel. We went to another Humana thrift shop, but I don't really have the patience to find good things in thrift shops so I just sat and watched people try on weird clothes.

We then went back to the hotel and got ready for our nice group dinner at the TV Tower. Basically you get in the elevator at the TV Tower and it's super fast and makes your ears pop. The elevator lets you out at the observation deck where you can walk around and see a 360 degree view of Berlin. It was cool to look out in pretty much any direction and recognize a place we had visited or learned about during our trip.

Once we had looked around a bit we got to go up to the next floor to the restaurant to eat. The restaurant is situated like a donut, as Professor Freeman called it, with the tables all aligned in a ring next to the windows on a spinning platform with the kitchen being stationary in the middle. The restaurant rotates once every half hour, so it spins at a noticeable speed. This gave me a headache at first, but you get used to it.

This dinner was one of my favorite memories. The ceiling of the restaurant has little lights that look like constellations and it's really class and the food was delicious. We had a set 3-course meal because of how big of a group we were, and normally since I'm a picky eater I don't enjoy these types of things but it was so good.

We started off with bread and a potato soup. Our main course was roasted chicken with potatoes Au Gratin. It was so good, especially the potatoes Au Gratin. I could have just eaten a giant bowl of those for dinner. Amber ordered a vegetarian meal and got a really delicious risotto which several of us helped her finish. The only part of the meal I wasn't a huge fan of was the dessert. It was some sort of cherry something with vanilla ice cream on top. The ice cream was good but I don't really like cherries so Andrea enjoyed most of my dessert. I was pretty full from finishing Amber's risotto anyway so that didn't really matter.

The TV Tower dinner was a unique experience that I never would have thought to do, but was extremely cool. We felt so classy sitting in this nice revolving restaurant sipping our wine and eating delicious food. It was great.

After dinner a few of us had been wanting to go back to the Brandenburg Gate at night because it gets lit up and looks really pretty. We took a bus there and it was a double decker bus so everyone was excited. We went upstairs and sat in the front so we had a perfect view out the windshield. The gate at night is much more peaceful without the throngs of tourists and creepy people dressed up in costumes everywhere. I really enjoyed it. What I did not enjoy was the journey back. For some reason we decided not to take the bus back in the direction we had come from so we took an S-bahn to the U6, finally figured out that all those announcements over the past few days in German were about the U6 being closed between the street we were at and the street we needed to get to, then we went to another S-bahn platform and another and another before finding the right one. I was getting ready to walk out and walk because that probably would have been faster at that time of night when the trains don't run as frequently. But we made it. We even managed to see someone we know, Alex who was our walking tour guide and Lauren's project subject. That was actually pretty cool because it just shows that in a big city you barely know you can still see someone familiar.

Anyway, it was a really good night and I'm starting to get sad that tomorrow is our last day here. I really have enjoyed being here and I want to come back some day for sure. I am excited to go home and see my family and friends and sleep in my own bed though. As cliché as it sounds, leaving Thursday morning will definitely be bittersweet.