Once we landed we went to the tourist center to pick up a map and the MyWelcomeCard that I had pre-ordered (It is a transportation card that ended up not being worth it at all). We hopped on the S-bahn and got to see the sun set over the out skirts of Berlin. A short walk in the dark brought us to our hostel. We dropped our stuff off and headed out to eat at a beer garden. You would think a beer garden would have an amazing selection of German beers but in only had one (which I opted out of). It was really just more of a semi-fancy restaurant. Here we got our first taste of the European Tourist Tradition of not offering tap water.Next we began our trek through the dark, unfamiliar streets of Berlin in search of the "Festival Center". I put this in quotations because Potsdamer Platz was not really much of a festival center. It had a couple of cool exhibitions but all of the major ones (as we found out the next day) were over in Alexander Platz. This being said, one of the displays I liked the most was there in Postdamer (shown right).
The next morning we grabbed some breakfast from the market just down from the hostel and started making our way towards the city center. We took a nice walk down the Spree on our way to the S-bahn which would take us into the heart of the city, Alexander Platz. This is where our bike tour began. The tour, run by Fat Tire, ended up being the best part of my trip to Berlin. The guide was fun and gave us a lot of historical information while also showing us plenty of sights. The guide was also good about stopping in the areas that allowed for the best pictures of the monuments and sights (unlike some of the guides I've had since).
At the end of our bike tour we headed back to the hostel to have a quick meal and get ready to go see the lights. We went and saw all the major monuments and I got a chance to set up my tripod and really get my photography geek on. We walked around for quite a while and saw just about all the Festival of Lights had to offer. To be honest the light festival wasn't absolutely spectacular but it did give us something to do at night. Me and four other people weren't terribly tired yet so we went down to the other side of Berlin to check out what was once the heart of West Berlin. After everyone else had headed back me and Caleb took a detour and spent almost an hour taking picture of one monument (which I referred to as "angel on a stick" for lack of a more informed title). It was really late and pretty cold but I got one of my better pictures out of it.
In the morning Kyle and I went up to the top of the TV tour to get the birds eye view of the city. We then met up with a couple more people to visit Museum Island. The museums were pretty good and had a lot of beautiful sculptures. By far the coolest place we went was the Pergamon Museum. In this museum they had packed up and moved entire monuments such as the Market Gate of Miletus, the Ishtar Gate, and the Processional Way of Babylon. Now perhaps like you I didn't really know the historical relevance of these things either, but they looked pretty sweet reconstructed inside this museum. To me it did seem kind of messed up that they would take these monuments from where they once stood, but at the same time I do realize that the monuments would be much more protected there in Berlin.
While we were walking back to meet up with the rest of our group we ran into an Occupy Berlin march. They had taken over the entire road and stopped traffic but in a completely peaceful way. It was so weird seeing first hand an extension of protest that started in America. Once we had met up with the entire group we got on a train to Potsdam.
Potsdam is the home of Sanssouci which some just call Potsdam Palace. It was the summer palace for Frederick the Great who was the king of Prussia. When we first arrived to the estate we were amazed at the beauty of the palace. It was seated right next to the equally beautiful University of Potsdam. Then we were informed that this magnificent structure was the New Palace, which functioned as the guest home. Yes, this entire palace was nothing but a guest home. Along with this information we found out that for one night a year Sanssouci was lit up, and that one night was tonight. After finding this out we walked down from the "guest house" to see the lights. On the way we past yet another building, Orangery Palace, which was held a great hall and was the guest estate intended for Tsar Nicholas I.
The primary residence was not not an imposing building but the garden in front of it was impressive. We came up on it right when the sun was setting which painted the sky and the palace in beautiful colors. I snacked on a pretzel while we waited for the rest of our group to walk around and see everything. we snapped a couple more pictures once it was completely dark and the took a bus back to the train station.
For the last morning in Berlin we went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is an extremely direct title, but that is what the builders wanted. The memorial was really moving and something that I think every visitor to Berlin should see. It was an experience that made us all think. One quote posted on the wall right as we entered really hit me. It read, "... It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say". This made me think of all the other genocides that have happened and are happening in various parts of Africa and the Middle East that don't get nearly as much recognition.
After a mellow walk back to Alexander Platz we went to an October Fest tent set up in a market to lighten the mood. I just had to drink a German Beer out of a beer stein. I got a wheat beer and it was actually quite good, except for the bottom bit (this coming from someone who isn't a huge beer fan) . The train and flight back to Liverpool went really smoothly. Our train home also went exactly as planned, being that the plan involved a less than comfortable accommodation for the night.
We had about 3 hours to spend in Liverpool before our train was schedule to depart. This is when we found out that Liverpool is one awesome city. We ate dinner at Pizza Express (which was delicious) and then took a walk around the city. It's definitely a place I want to go back to and spend more time in. I would especially like to see the Beatles Museum and Liverpool seems to have an awesome night life.
After this we took a fairly short train to Crewe which arrived around 12:30am. Problem was our next train didn't leave until past 4:00, so this meant a night in the station. It actually went pretty well although I didn't get much sleep. It only got really cold once but we fixed this by hanging out in the elevator. I was able to get a little sleep on the train home and got back just in time to grab my books and head to class. 
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