Blog #4 Favorite part of the trip and language barrier?

Berlin Germany was a great city, and it is hard to pick just one part of this leg of the trip that was my favorite. But if I had to pick one day that was my favorite part of the trip it would probably be the bike trip to Potsdam. I guess since we saw such a wide variety of historical sites, there was a very relaxed atmosphere and the combination of a brewery and bikes led to fun for all.

One of the reasons why I picked this day as my favorite was the stop and tour of the palace where the Potsdam conference was held. The Potsdam Conference was the meeting place of the big three allies after the surrender of the Germans to decide what was going to be done with Germany. One of the things that I liked about the tour was the fact that it showed you how each of the main three had their own areas and entrances into the building and each of the rooms was set up in a way to make that leader as comfortable as possible. At one point in history, some of the greatest leaders walked the halls and rooms of this building and some of them met their political demise there as well; like Churchill.

The language barrier n the Potsdam bike tour day was not really an issue. Our guide from Fat Tire, which was the name of the bike rental shop, was from Texas and had just stayed in Germany after coming over for a foreign exchange. This was nice because you could understand the guided tour completely, which wasn’t always the case when we had a few other guides and their English was not as polished. Because the guide was American, I think that it really lightened the atmosphere and allowed for the group to feel comfortable and relax with the guide. I think this led the group to having a great time and an enjoyable day.

Language was not an issue at the Potsdam Conference location either. The tour had a guided audio headset that allowed you to take the museum at your own pace and just punch in the numbers of the displays as you walked from room to room. This was nice because if there was something that you really wanted to take your time and look at you didn’t slow down the rest of the group and it was like everyone had their own personal tour guide. There was also guides/security in every room that if you had a question that was not answered on the audio track they would do their best to answer the question for you and their levels of fluent English varied with each one.