Berlin (9th-10th September)

On the 09/09 Felix and I took a tour to Sachsenhausen concentration just north of Berlin. It was a very contfronting visit. Felix, me and Laura (an Australian we befriended on the tour) were left feeling like we just didnt know what to say about the whole situation. But it was definitely an experience that was important to have.

When we returned to Berlin we met with Kent and Alix, who had apparently spent the day doing bugger all...and that night we returned for happy hour at the hostel bar after having a quick kebab for dinner. On Laura's we went to check out a bar that was in the back of an abandoned department store. It was extremely cool. The building is apparently an artist coolony qand it covered in graffiti. There was also a pretty cool band playing. We ended up getting to sit on what was essentially scaffolding, whcih required us to shimmy up a couple of metres.

We had a pretty late start. One highlight of our hostel has been the breakfasts...we get rolls, tomatoes, cucumber, spreads, coffee, juice, cereal etc. The highlight has been the toasted sandwich maker...mmm toasties. so we essentially have been stuffing ourselves stupid at breaky and then skipping lunch.

Following that we took a trip to the Kaiser Wilhelm II memoprial church. It is still standing and still has the original damage from the allied bombing campaign. Then we headed to the Sony Centre here as a group we were incredibly tempted by the Lego World there, but coosts made us baulk at the last minute. I then split from the group to go to the Checkpoint Charlie Mueseum. It contains a lot of the history of the Berlin Wall including chronicling many of the escape attmpts...some of them are incredibly ingenius.

We then regrouped but merely to say good bye to Alix and Felix who are headed to Copenhagen. Very sad to see them go, as we have had a great time over teh past few days.

Kent and I then made a visit to the Jewish Holocaust Mueseum, which is situated under the Memorial to Murdered Euorpean Jews (I think thats the name?) Its is quite an amayinf memorial and consists of approximately AFl field size opiece of land covered by giant blocks that get gradually bigger in the middle to the point where they tower above you. The mueseum itself recounted the very personal stories of the holocaust and provided quite a confronting experience. I left some tuime before Kent, and paid a visit to what I believed was the memorial to homosexuals who were murdered int eh holocaust. It was essentially a giant block that had a window to look inside. When you looked in teh window you could see a looped video that showed two men kissing.

we finished up our touristy advebntures in Berlin by visiting the giant glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag building, which is the German parliament. We were lucky to be there at sunset and had panoramic views of Berlin.

now we are just back at the hostel, doing laundry, writing postcards, and then I think we willl go to the bar on the roof yet again for a quiet beer and a pizza.

Tomorrow we are off to Czech out Prague...