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Published: September 9th 2008
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Berlin.
Day 21
We had to wake up early today to pack the coach and leave for a long drive to Berlin, with many of the group feeling under the weather due to the night before. On the way we stopped off in Dresden, in Germany, a place that was flattened during WW2, but had been rebuilt using the pieces of the original buildings that had been destroyed during the Blitz. Dresden’s buildings therefore look rather dirty and worn, a result of the fire bombs that scorched everything in the city. Apart from this, the city was rather nice, but full of wasps, could not believe how many of the little bastards were flying around our food and drink, and seemed to plague any store that had its door open. Alex tried to walk into a bakery but was met with a swarm of Wasps that were buzzing all over the pastries inside.
After lunch, we returned to the coach to continue our trip to Berlin, finally pulling up just outside the remains of the Berlin wall. We walked around the remains of the wall, which have decades of graffiti covering their facades. After a good long look
of the Wall, we had our driving tour of the city, seeing such sights as the Toothpick, a tall structure which was a gift to the Eastern side of Berlin from the West soon after the wall was brought down, we saw parliament building, the Reichstag, the Pergamum, Brandenburg Gate, the huge Park, with supposedly the first Soviet Tanks that rolled into the city during WW2. We also passed the sights of the SS headquarters, and various other building of interest that were used by the Nazis during the 3rd Reich.
After our driving tour we checked into our hostel, I went straight upstairs for a power nap before dinner. Dinner was a fair walk away so we all met in the lobby to walk down together, we were all together as we started the walk but when I made it to the restaurant I noticed that Alex was missing. After waiting for a fair amount of time I decided to skip dinner to find him, I wandered back to the hostel to find that he was feeling a little unwell. We are still not too sure what caused him to be I’ll whether it be the kebab he
ate while I was sleeping or the water from Prague or Germany, but whatever it was it put Al out of action for a good 24 hours which was a real shame as Berlin was the top of his to see list.
Day 22
Most of us dragged our bums out of bed early the next morning to do the Berlin walking tour, it was definitely worth it though. The tour it’s self was unlike any others we had been on as we had a local tour guide and most of the sights we went to see didn’t exist anymore so we were taken to each location told the stories then shown a picture of what the sight looked like at the time. The tour took in sights such as the Berlin Wall, the Victory Monument, the Jewish memorial, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, the topography of terrors, Hitler’s bunker and finished at Checkpoint Charlie. For me Hitler’s bunker was one of the more memorable stops, we were taken to a car park where we were told of the dimensions of the bunker which was below our feet. The guide went on to tell us the story of Hitler’s last
days and pointed out the sand pit no more than 50 metres from where we were standing, telling us that it was the location where Hitler’s body was burned after his suicide. This was for me sobering as this is a place where children play.
After the tour we walked the streets to take in a few of the sights on the way to the Lowenbrau Brewhaus for lunch. I sat down to a steak as others has schnitzel, giant sausages and other authentic German dishes, we were hassled through our lunch by the wasps so much so the waiter bought out extra coasters to put on top of our steins. The girls and I went shopping after lunch, finding plenty of souvenirs and I decided it was time to spoil myself so bought a necklace.
For the evening we had a pub crawl planned for us, we were taken to the first bar where we were all given a shot and a t-shirt. The t-shirt was bad but we were all wearing it so it wasn’t so bad, they took us to 3 bars at which we were given a shot at each and ended up at
a ‘club’ if you could call it that. The night was fun because the whole tour group was there and we were coming to the end of our tour so the group was becoming quite close.
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