berlin

brandenburg gate

I am finally blogging the last two cities on our european adventure. i can't believe how fast time has flown since i've been home but here it goes; after prague we made our way on a five-hour train to berlin, germany. a lot more english was found the more northern we got in europe and we probably heard it the most in germany (other than london... obviously ;). a nice, german woman helped us find our hostel which was brand new and really nice. it was the first time we stayed in a big dorm room with bunk beds but we were willing to save as much money as possible seeing as we'd been traveling for three weeks by then. but surprisingly the people in the dorm were all really nice and i slept like a baby since we were so exhausted every night.

The first thing that comes to mind about berlin (i'm really recalling everything by memory now since i've waited eight months to blog this) is the weather. it was COLD. we had to layer every warm item of clothing we brought and it was still pretty darn chilly because of the wind. but luckily we survived. berlin has so much history but a lot of it is hard to be seen since most of the city was destroyed in the cold war and has been re-built since then so a lot of the scenery is newer and more modern compared to the other european cities we visited.

I'm so glad we were able to take a walking tour of the city because there is so much about the history we wouldn't have learned without a tour-guide. we made a stop in the middle of a random apartment complex parking lot and found out that under that parking lot was hitler's bunker and that is where he was killed. however, they have obviously made no notice of it so that people don't worship it... or blow it up.

holocaust memorial

Going to the holocaust memorial in berlin was a very humbling experience. it is made up of a bunch of different sized blocks that you can walk in between and sort of get lost in. the ground is uneven through out the memorial. it was designed that way so when you go in it it is very unsettling and unpredictable which is probably how many people felt through out the war.

Then underground is the holocaust museum with many stories of Jews that suffered in concentration camps and lost their lives. there were letters written to families and journal entries that had been found. it was really hard to take it all in. our tour-guide told us that even now there is sort of a certain feeling in berlin of people who have not long ago lost so much and are still getting over it. it was a big eye-opening experience.

Berlin definitely had the best frankfurts (hot dogs) around. and German was still way over my head by the time we left however we did learn "ich liebe dich" which means "i love you".... and i feel that is always a good thing to know in any language.