Ich bin ein Berliner!!!

The famous words uttered by JFk on June 26, 1963 on the steps of Berlin city hall in a show of support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after the Soviet-supported Communist state of East Germany erected the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West.

Unfortunately for him the words when translated mean "I am a donut". As our tour guide said, bad year for him,, what with the assasination and all!

It was a great tour, very informative but not boring, and took us through lots of history and all the main sights. We stood on the spot where Hitler and his wife poisoned themselves (and Hitler shot himself in the head), which is a stones throw from the Menorial for European Jews killed in the War. This memorial consots (as you can see in the pics), of over 2,000 grey concrete squares and rectangular prisms (a little bit of maths lesson as well as history!) protruding at different heights and angles from the ground. It is a successful monument I suppose in that it has generated mass amounts of controversy and discussion, mainly due to the incredibly abstract design. And because of the fact that the anti-graffiti spray used on all of the blocks is manufactured by the same company who supplied Zyklon B gas pellets to the Nazi extermination camps. Ooops!!!

Lastly- if you are going to Berlin, stay at the Circus, it is an absolutely amazing hostel.

Here's Chez to say a few words about the Berlin Pub Crawl that passed in a blur of Jagermeisters shots.

So we headed out on a cold wednesday Berlin night to the meeting point of the first pub. Here there was a free keg for 1/2 an hour...great for amy, not so great for me (dont like beer!) so I went and got a glass of wine which came with a free shot of vods. So we are both off to a good start! We meet lots of good people (there were 2 guys who went to Scotch on it, few years older than me....both really annoying actually!) but the best were Jenny and Mike from Canada (bro & sis). We didnt take long to bond with them and at the next pub wasted no time taking in turns of rounds of Jagermeister shots (only 1 euro each!!) However I skipped on the Jager but Amy took no time introducing it to Jenny! In between clubs we also got unlimited shots of vods which made the walk between much more entertaning! As for the rest of the night well it just seem to disappear. We went to 5 different clubs in total and it felt like we were only in them for 10min, but somehow we managed to get back to the hostel after 4am so we must have been in them a bit longer?! The funniest thing was looking at our photos the next day of which we cant remember half the people in them! All in all a funny, random night, highlight def meeting Jenny and Mike who made the night even more enjoyable!

But overall Berlin was a great place filled with lots of history and amazing architecture, though it did get a little cold! Our souvenir from Berlin was a pair of the famous Birkenstocks (how could we not, especially as SO much cheaper than in oz). As Amy said above the Circus is a fab hostel and it has the biggest beer glasses ever, which Amy managed to get through quite easily I must say....it was a very proud moment! (you'll see the photo!)

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