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Third Reich Tour
Victory monument. To commemorate 3 battles won by the Slaves... Then for Hitlers 49th birthday, they moved it for him and added another piece to it. They also stuck the goddess of war on the top and pointed it directly at Paris. France isn't a big fan of this monument Hello everyone!
We arrived in Berlin yesterday on the train, using our rail passes. Our first train experience was went relatively smoothly, we got to the station, got on the train, sat in the wrong spot but then got re directed with no problems, had a nice train ride.... The seats, to be frank, made my ass numb, but that was fixed with some bathroom breaks and a couple of walks, no biggy really. It was also really nice to see the country side. The only thing is that people smoke on these trains, or we were in a car where people could and HOLY CRAP did people ever smoke. Seriously, as soon as we got across the border and the Germans got on, I was coughing a lot. Its funny, my tolerance for smoke, I thought was alright.... But get me in a train with very little ventilation (no opening windows around) and people smoking on all sides, I don't handle it very well. Its funny, smoking is almost a social faux pas in Canada, total opposite in Europe. They smoke like chimneys and are damn proud of it too. We had 5 15 or 16 year olds smoking right
Third Reich Tour
The Russian Memorial that was built right after the Russians took over Berlin. in front of us... Honestly, it was gross and just sad.
When we got into Berlin I was very happy to breathe the fresh air! It was a 6 hour journey, we left at 7:13am from Amsterdam, so we got in about 1:15 to Germany. I must be chilling out a lot, or we are just getting good at the travellor's life style because getting the public transport to the hostel and navigating around was such a breaze! Berlin is huge, 8 times the side of Paris, but the transport system is wonderful and lots of information desks to help confused travellors like ourselves. So we got in, got settled, found an internet cafe, and we treated ourselves to a movie cause we were damn tired. We saw Scary Movie 4 in Berlin... haha.
Today we went on a 4 hour walking tour about the Third Reich and the Nazi Regime. Very interesting, learned a lot. Not a very happy tour, however it was packed with a lot of great information. Its very refreshing to know that Berlin is not trying to cover up this grim past. Quite the opposite really, the Jewish Memorial is amazing, 3 football
Third Reich Tour
The Jewish Memorial that takes up 3 foot ball fields. Made up of many blocks of various heights with an undulating floor to put you off balance. It's made to make you feel isolated like those in the concentration camps. fields in size with a wonderful museuminformation centre in the bottom. Really, the mentality is to inform everyone so the past will not repeat itself. While we were there some new German Navy graduates were there, aparently learning about it all is apart of their training.
After the tour we went back to some of the sites to look at them more closely, our brains are so full. Then we went to a restaurant that Anke suggested, the 12 Aposiles, amazing pizza and it was right under the sky train so you could hear it go by. Very cool atmosphere, we sat outside, where there were bullet holes in the walls from WW2! Aparently the restaurant was the 'home of the guns' or so said the waiter. Dan says that that probably means that this was where they kept the artilery and guns etc. for the war effort. Seriously, all the buildings that were from the war have bullet holes, or have been restored in some way. This place got hit so hard, to live here must have sucked some serious ass at that point in time.
So now we have found our internet cafe again, loaded up
some photos... Not all because it takes a while, but hopefully we will get to do some more tomorrow night. Now we are going to take a walk, maybe treat ourselves to some dessert. We'll see what happens. Tomorrow we have a Berlin city bike tour. After that I want to go check out the Berlin wall, the bits that are still standing. Thursday we are off on a tour to see the concentration camp just outside of Berlin, and then probably on a pub crawl to experience all the modern culture Berlin has to offer! Friday, we have a reservation for the noon train to Cologne to see Anke, my friend who came to Whistler on a school exchange for a year in my grade 11 year. So excited to see her!
Hope everyone is well,
love robyn and dan
PS I got sent pictures of baby Eli, I am a proud auntie of one of the CUTEST babies in history. My GOD I have good genes! or cute genes....! haha. I will try to post those pictures soon.
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Mom & Dad - E
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Lynn's being vicarious
Glad to hear all is going as planned. You're both going to be in great shape after all that walking, biking and "crawling." Congratulations Auntie Robyn!! I did a search for Dan's Jeep online - it is worth from 1,100 to 3000. I vacuumed it out, fixed the back door cover. Will take Jeep to body shop to get plastic put back on the fender and lock in driver's door. It's kind of fun fixing it up. We'll get as much as we can for it! Sorry we missed your phone call AGAIN!! Keep trying :) Looking forward to your next blog. Love Mom and Dad