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Published: September 2nd 2008
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Ample Man
In places in East Berlin, they have Ample Man for their crossings. This has something to do with the Berlin Wall. We started off the morning going on a walking tour. We went to a few places, which to be honest, I can't remember all the names for. Some real wicked architecture though.
The Germans obviously have a lot of really bad history but are taking corrective steps to fixing what they can, which is really cool. There's pleanty of history throughout the city and lots of explainations for what has happened.
Things like, the Monument of the Jewish Holocaust in the centre of town to commemorate the Jews. The monument caused a lot of controversy for reasons like: People thought it should be for all those that died, not just the jews; they thought a better way was to improve public transport out to concentration camps; or just plain unhappy with the location.
The monument got built about 5 years ago, right smack in the middle of town. I think it's really cool because it shows that the Germans aren't hiding from their past. It's in the middle of town so everyone can see that they know that they fucked up, but they're confronting it as opposed to hiding it like other cultures do. The momorial gives me the creeps
though. I get really weird Karma around that kinda stuff.
Our tour took us around the old parliment building, Hilters Bunker (which is now merely a piece of grass), the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie was the name given by the Western Allies to a crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. It was the 3rd Military checkpoint along the Berlin wall.
I went into the Checkpoint Charlie Museum which was 7.5 euro ($15) to get in. It was alright, shitloads of reading. There was lots of stories about escape attempts, which was quite cool, but it was incredibly humid inside which made it hard to concentrate.
I then went with a group of people, one of them Helen (the vomit girl from day one who's actually really cool), around town to do touristy things like take photos and all of that kinda stuff. The girls made me do all sorts of really gay poses, so when you see the photos, they put me up to it. Honest.
I've been finding it real hard to find remotely healthy vegetarian stuff at the moment. Most stores speak tiny bits of
Building
Can't remember what this was! English but I've had a few crossed eyes when I look for vege stuff. I pretty much go into places and if I can see something without meat, I order it.
One thing that annoyed me about Berlin was stores only sold postal stamps if you bought a postcard, even then they one sold a single stamp for the card bought. Bastards.
That night we went on an Eye Spy tour which was meant to be a bar hop kinda thing with clues of hot to get to the next bar. We went to this area where they're reconstructing a replica of what the Berlin wall looked like from both the East and the West sides. Scary stuff. Sadly I didn't have my camera.
The Eye Spy was the biggest waste of time and money. They dicked us around with stupid clues that made us go around the block and by the time we got to the second bar, everyone had 1 drink and then 20 of us walked home. Heh, half of the tour group.
Off to Prague tomorrow, stopping off in Dresend on the way. Until then.
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