Day 33 - Berlin, Germany

Morning: Dragged myself up again this morning cos we have a day trip to make so quickly got ready, had breakfast again prepared by Johannes and left to take the S-bahn train to the Oranienburg. That trip took us about 1 hour to reach there and we took another half hour to walk from the station to the concentration camp.

Afternoon: By then it's already about 1pm when we finally started the walk in the camp which is really huge. It's called Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and it's a model camp for the public to learn more about the activities that happened here. The museum is free and so we started walking around the area starting from the museum to the bunks themselves. Lots of info to read and it took us a long time to finish all of them so after a while I started to jus walk thru cos it will take forever for me to finish reading the history of the war and most of the people who stayed in here. So we went to the bunks 38 & 39 to see how the prisoners lived in it and it was pretty saddening to picture how they were feeling when living in the bunks. Then as we stepped out of the bunks, we got chatted by this old man who seems to be talking to everyone that crosses his path and he started telling us about his father being locked up here but was liberated and how both of them became part of the team that informed the people abt the war and lots of stuffs that we kind of got stuck there for abt half an hour listening to him. Just as we were wondering how not to be rude and jus leave, our great Johannes joined in and started conversing w him which makes us free to go and continue our walk. Guess he talked to him for about half hour till we next saw him and then I think he was feeling tired and bored of the camp already so he waited for us at the entrance till we finished up going to the execution fields to take a look. They have pics of how the SS team killed the prisoners systematically and it's pretty horrific to see the gassing room, the killing fields, the incinerator and the neck-shot room's pics depicting how they are done. Finally we decided we have enough of depressing thots for the day or even for the week so we left at abt 5pm. A whole day of walking had made all 3 of us pretty tired and also quiet so we slowly walked back to the station and managed to get lost somewhere. Did a bit of adventure and Johannes suggested walking to the train station by crossing the railway tracks, umm I did this during my secondary school years while studying for the Os and these memories came flooding back and the tracks & the rocks look nostalgically familiar. But then halfway thru, we heard an intercom booming thru the whole train station in German. Of course both WY and me dun understand but Johannes stopped and started turning back so my guess is the intercom is meant for us. He said we have to turn back and this is trespassing. It was fun till it lasted tho so we walked back all around the station and had a quick bite before taking the 1 hour train back to town.

Nite: Both WY & Johannes are feeling tired due to the excessive walking so I decided to venture on my own to another part of Berlin before going back so we parted at one of the train stations and I put on my music and went to Charlottenburg at 6pm. Stepped off the train and started walking towards the Charlottenburg Palace, it's a nice & breezy day so I'm in a better mood compared to the sombre one earlier in the day. Really enjoy exploring places all by myself, hearing your own thots asking yourself questions and answering back, listening to great music and looking at beautiful sceneries along the way. Reached Charlottenburg Gardens and saw these beautiful inverted flowers that I have to take some photos to show. Walked thru it and continued on towards the Berlin Zoo direction, saw a beautiful tower along the way and went in to explore, only to realise it shld be an office building. The walk took another half an hour more till I reached the main shopping area near the zoo, and saw the bombed church in the middle of the streets. Standing proudly w its bombed roof, the church contains some real gold artefacts as I tried to stare thru the glass doors (cos it's already closed at 6pm). Made a u-turn and then headed towards the train station to take the train back to Turmstrasse and by then it's already 9pm and turning dark. Johannes is preparing dinner tonite and we requested for pizza since he's done it before. But it took a really long time to prepare the dough and then bake it so by the time the first pizza is done, it's already 10+pm. Really delicious and we are impressed that most of our hosts cooked really well. Then at 11pm, I had to go down to the video store to get internet there for some housekeeping stuffs so went down but at 12mn, got kicked out cos they are closing shop already. Came back and continued chatting w WY and Johannes till abt 1pm cos tmr is Monday and Johannes has to work!

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