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Published: October 1st 2007
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Berliner Dom
Finally.... we're away from the museum! Yes, I understand, you wanna hear about Germany, but I've spent the past two days freaking out about le début de mon stage (which was today)!!
I'll write a little bit about Germany, then maybe add a little extra later.
Stephanie and I took a train Monday morning from Prague to Berlin which was a good 5 hours long, even though we got off a stop or two early on the wrong side of Berlin and had to navigate the U-Bahn and S-Bahn to our hostel. Once we made it there, and waited 15 minutes for Mr. Schultz, the owner of the hostel, we were so happy with our (my!) choice. We had a private three-person room with comfy beds and towels and a bathroom (it was nice, even though we had to share it with the other room) and a kitchen with our own shelf. All we had to do now was wait for Kevin to join us... so we did what you do when you're in Germany. We went the local bar and ordered a snack and two rather large German beers. Kevin came just as the beers were arriving, and we had a great time hearing
about his trip to Belgium and sharing our tales from Prague.
By this point in the day, none of us had eaten since breakfast, so Stephanie played the "fine cute men and ask them where to eat dinner" game, and ended up at a little pizza joint, where Stephanie and I again shared food... although this time it was two large pizza's, not salads! The two best parts: 1. since we obviously do not speak German, we had a hard time communicating with the owner of the pizzeria, but it turns out that he speaks FRENCH! Although his translation for ham was "check"... it was rather helpful. 2. We got free chocolates and our plates cleared away for us by another customer who was staring at Stephanie the whole time!
The next day, we got up rather late, Stephanie and I went on a run leaving Kevin asleep, then went to a museum. We went to Märkisches Museum, which, if you ever go to Berlin, is a waste of time. We could not find our way around, and everything was in German and no one spoke English and all they did was laugh at us. We learned nothing,
and it was supposed to be an overview of all of Germany history museum. After that slight disappointment, we went on a long sightseeing walk. We crossed the river and somehow ended up walking down Unter Den Linden which is a big monument street, and seeing the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag and eating an expensive lunch (and since I didn't spend $12 on an Irish coffee that was more Irish than coffee, it was less expensive for me!) and then went to the Holocaust Memorial. This was the best part of the day in my opinion. Oh, and let me also note, it's actually called the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." I thought it was interesting that this monument to all the murdered Jews in Europe was in the middle of Berlin. It's sort of a sign that although Germany might not be proud of it's history, it's not trying to hide it. I've posted pictures, but I'll tell you a little secret now. In the information that we got, it says "This design represents a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial, partly because it does not use any symbolism. The grid pattern, consisting
of 2,711 concrete stelae, which can be walked through from all sides, leaves it up to visitors to find their own way in and out of the complex." We spent 20 minutes before reading that trying to come up with some symbolism for the whole monument, but apparently there isn't any. Interesting. After that, we went down into the underground information center, which had information on the victims and the places of extermination and today's memorial sites. After this, we decided we needed cheering up, so we walked several miles through the Tiergarten to KaDeWe, the second largest department store in the world (after Harrods) and splurged on chocolates and cake. For dinner (yes, we were still hungry) we tried to find a Spanish restaurant that our guide book recommended. Sadly, it was closed (oops!), but after wandering around a little, we found some other people who were lost. They were also French. And I never thought I'd say this in my life, but it was actually really comforting to hear the French language. They recommended a Tapas restaurant to us, so we spent the rest of the night there. It was yummy, although I only ate cheese and my
other dish never arrived!
On Wednesday, we decided to attempt something that we weren't sure if we really wanted to see, but decided we should. We took the train out to Oranienburg to find Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen. That was, I believe, the first concentration camp during World War II. It is where 100,000 prisoners perished, and where the chilling reminder of the deception and evil that was once practiced there is inscribed on the metal entrance gate, "Work makes you free." I've posted some pictures, and obviously a lot of is is reconstructed, but I can't really say much more about it, you just have to go there. We couldn't even finish the last parts of our audio tour, so we left... and went to McDonalds. And then returned to Berlin for a great night which included Indian food and accidentally running into German prostitutes in corsets that were soo soo soo tight!
Thursday was our last day, and the whole time Stephanie had wanted to see the Bauhaus-Archiv, so of course we put off seeing it again. After breakfast we decided to go and find the remaining parts of the Berlin wall that were a 5 minute walk
from our hostel, but we hadn't seen. Once we were there, we were slightly confused and had to ask where it was because we thought it was just a wall surrounding a football field that was covered in graffiti. Apparently not, it was actually the original Berlin wall. We were also directed to another part of the wall that was better preserved and had a museum. After that, we decided we should finally go to the Bauhaus-Archiv, a museum of the history of design and that celebrates the 20th century's most influential art and design movements, that Stephanie had been wanting to see since the first day. It was pretty cool, but the best part was getting there. We could never figure out exactly whether we should buy a metro ticket or not (it was an "honour system" type of public transportation), and it was pretty expensive, so we decided to buy the "reduced tarrif" tickets, assuming (and being given a thumbs up by a non-english speaking guard) that student = reduced. In fact, half the time we didn't even buy tickets at all because we didn't have time and the train was just arriving. On the way to the
"Work makes you free"
Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen Bauhaus we didn't buy a ticket, but got off within two stops to walk to Check Point Charlie, a checkpoint left over from the Cold War, then got back on the train, this time with a reduced price ticket. Sadly, and obviously by this point in my badly-told story, the wonderful little German undercovered train ticket checking men decided to check tickets on our train, and we were all escorted out of the train, infront of everyone. They tried to act all powerful and telling us that we have to pay a 40 euro fine each... but we finally convinced them that we are stupid Americans (although my argument, that didn't go down so well, was that the guy who sold us the tickets was stupid!) and we should just buy new tickets... so we did. You were all waiting a week to hear that story... aren't you glad you waited in suspense...!? It was actually rather funny when we were there. And then Stephanie's shoe broke, so all in all, a great last day.
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Jessy-poo
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Keep flirting with the guys to get around cities :) Just don't go putting on one of those super tight corsets!