Berlin

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next stop, Berlin, where the people are not quite as nice or as
helpful as they were in Vienna. but first it was a matter of
getting to the airport. it had been cheaper to book a flight for
6:45 in the morning, but we had not realized that the Tube does not
run from about 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. (at least in San Diego the trolly
runs every half-hour), so we had to leave the night before and sleep
in the airport. it was SO COLD!!!! we camped out outside of the
check-in desk, under this HUGE window, and Courtney was so cold that
she didn't sleep at all. i had been smart and brought my down
sleeping bag, wrapped myself up in it, and had at least 4 hours
sleep. she was miserable the next day, and i was on the sleepy
side.

once we got to Berlin, we stayed in this little hostel called, i kid
you not, "John's cozy little backpacker hostel." when we had
initally booked the space, we had read that John was "David's son,"
and Courtney and I both thought, "well, who's David? For that
matter, who's John?" so when we first got there, of course,
Courtney asks the lady working there, "Who are John and David?"
thinking that she would show a picture or something. no, the lady
looks at her with this look of suprise and says, "Oh, you don't
know? John is David's son!"

I only did one really outstanding thing in Berlin, which really
messed up the rest of my time there, but it was worth it. in Berlin
there is the Pergamon Museum, an ancient history museum. my plan
had been to go to this museum, then the Berlinerdom (proof that
Protestants can be as extravegant as Catholics) and then the art
gallery. but the Pergamon museum was SO increadible that i spent
ALL DAY there. literally, about 5 hours. they have an entire Greek
temple that they excavated and rebuilt inside of the museum. and it
is EXTREMELY well preserved. they rebuilt the steps to the temple
so you can walk up inside. absolutely fantastic. there was also
a gate to a Roman city that they had rebuilt inside, and you could
walk through the gate and everything. needless to say, i did NOT
get to see the other things i wanted to see. next day, Courtney and
I went to Checkpoint Charlie, and to the Jewish Museum. that buseum
was also the reason i am glad i went to Berlin. it goes into the
history of the Jewish people and has a lot on what they experienced
during the holocaust. there was a memorial set up for them which
was entitled "memory void" where you are let into this room with a
small slivver in the ceiling, which i'm sure was very high, but i
couldn't tell, because once they shut the door behind you, you could
not see ANYTHING!!!! i could only stay in there for about five
seconds, because i freaked with how dark it was. there was another
visual representation with this long corridor, and the floor had all
these circles of iron about three inches deep, and you walk over
these things, and the room is entirely quiet except that with each
step you disturb these circles of iron and it makes a really loud
clanging noise. then you look down and realize that each circle has
screaming faces carved into them. so you're walking on all of these
screaming faces. going through the museum, it gave me a better idea
of just how hard it was for these people during the holocaust, but
it gave me an even bigger feeling of how it is entirely possible
that it could happen again, especially as we come closer to the end
of time when Jesus comes back and we are persecuted.

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