Welcome to Berlin, Germany!Home of:Grey food•Berlin Wall parts•“F- Biden” graffiti•The 16 year drinking age•A lot of holocaust memorials•Shot up buildings•I was traveling in a school group with my mom and sister. The first night in Rome, my mom got a callat 5AM from the Italian police in the hotel lobby. She came down and they asked her if she wasseparated from her husband (thankfully she’s not) and they checked her and my passports. But theyhad no interest in my sister. Only making sure my mom wasn’t taking me out of the country withoutmy dad’s permission or knowing? They seemed satisfied with my mom’s answers and left.There was a memorial with some statues rocks on the platformbeneath them. As our guide was talking, I started stacking them andmaking pretty shapes because I saw that someone else had donethat.A man from our group swatted my hand away and told me Jews putthose rocks there to honor family members and I was basicallymaking sandcastles on a grave.I didn’t say anything because if I did I’d cry. But later I thoughtabout it. If my grave happens to have sand on it BUILD MESANDCASTLES. Turn sorrow into something beautiful! Morn mefor a week or so but after that I need you to laugh at the funnythings I did and admire my accomplishments. Remember me formy life. Not my death.We need to acknowledge suffering, but don’t make that sufferingcause more suffering.What was probably more interesting was my run in with interpol. Let me explain.We got another call from the police for leaving our car inthe church parking lot at home for carpooling to theairport. But that wasn’t related.To get back to America, our group flewfrom Berlin to Amsterdam and thenhome. As we were trying to leave theAmsterdam, while the guy was checkingmy and my mom’s passports, he got afunny look and pulled us over to a sidearea to wait. Now we had only had anhour layover in Amsterdam. The Berlin
flight had been slow and by the time wegot to passport check, our next flightwas boarding. We had to wait 10min andby that point we were getting reallyworried about missing our flight. Butthen they let us go. ApparentlySOMEONE WITH MY EXACT NAMEAND BIRTHDAY IS A MISSINGPERSON. So pray forMonkeybearQueen #2 because sheprobably really needs it.We ran over to our gate and it turned outthe plane had been delayed and we hadplenty of time to get on.