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Published: July 24th 2005
Berlin, Germany July 19 - July 22 A&O Hostel
On our way from Amsterdam to Germany on the train, which was supposed to be non-stop our train breaks down and they say there is no more electricity to run it! So they dump us off at a train station at the border of Germany in I still dont know what town and tell us there will be a bus to bring us to a different train station where well take a different train to Berlin! What a mess. So after waiting for about an hour we all piled into this bus with all our bags and drove an hour to the train station. At the train station we sorted out our tickets and barely made the train to Berlin.
We have finally arrived in Berlin and nothing is in English and barely anyone speaks English! We tried to buy train tickets to Poland, but didnt realize that was not included on our eurorail, so that through our whole itinerary off and it took us foooorever to decide and figure out where to go next. We decided to skip Poland completelz and go to switzerland but then we realized out crazy expensive switzerland, so now we still didnt know what to do. Then we met some people in our hostel and they had just came from Krakow, Poland and after talking with them and hearing theyre testimony of Krakow, we decided to go there and skip switzerland.
Anyways, Berlin is great. There is so much history here it is absolutely crazy! By the way I have no clue where the apostrophe key is, so sorry if it makes it hard to read. This city is constantly in a state of change. We are actually staying in East Berlin, which is a bit cheaper than West and they have these fantastic donor kebabs. Its a pita filled with cabbage, shaved meat, garlic yogurt and chilli sauce. There are lots of punks over here to and tons of colored mohawks, its kinda funny. There is also so much graffiti everywhere it makes the city look dirty and trashy. The weather is cold and rainy right now as well.
Our first day here we went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum which was amazing. It was fascinating to see how people snuck across the border, for example someone hollowed out two surf boards and that is where they would put someone and sneak them across the border. After the museum we headed to this lovely and very cheap Italian restaurant next to our hostel and met up with Carmen and Chris, a couple we met at the hostel. The restaurant lit candles and was just a fun place.
The next day we had planned to do the bike tour of Berlin but it downpoured all day long, so instead we went to The New Jewish Museum which had the history of Jews. That was really neat as well. They had some very interesting displays such as the Holocaust Tower that was very tall, there was nothing in it but you could hear outside and see a bit of light. This was supposed to represent what it was like for the Jews when they were transported to the concentration camps in the trains. Another cool display was thousands of different size faces cut out of metal and you could actually walk on them and they made this loud, annoying horrible sound when you walked on them. This represented all of the innocent vicitms of the war and crime. It made you feel as though you were walking over thousands of dead bodies...really freaky! The other display we thought was really cool was outside and there were rows of pillars that were probably 4 feet by 4 feet and 20 feet tall, but they were placed vertically on slanted ground and when you walked in it, it made you feel really disoriented and goofy. This was supposed to represent how one feels after learning of Berlins history and leaving Berlin. We almost missed the craziest part of the museum which was upstairs and showed the draft boards where people made the designs for the incineraters that cremated and burned the Jews and there were many stories of the horrific things that happened to the people in the concentratoin camps. Then we saw a display of tons of shoes and urns that were found in the concentration camps after liberation...that was something else! Very very sad, it makes the Holocaust very real. After spending nearly 4 hours at the museum we headed back to our favorite Italian restaurant Humanus for dinner.
The following day the rain stopped and we were able to do the 4 hour bike tour of Berlin which was absolutely amazing. It summed nearly everything up in 4 hours. Some highlights were Hitlers bunker, The Berlin Wall, checkpoint charlie, museum island and much much more. Then we left for Prague at 5 that evening. Well write in a few days and hopefully have pictures now that we have our charger thanks to Dwight and Jinny, Justins parents! Thank you so much!!! That helped us out huge. Believe it or not the camera actually lasted almost 2 weeks before the battery died.
Hope to hear from you all soon. Everyones blogs are great, we love reading them!
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Jughead
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Hit the stasi museum and do walking tour with a history teacher in berlin