Berlin: Day 15

Berlin walking tour today!
It was kind of gloomy and rainy today which fit with the overall vibe of the city.

Here are the highlights:

-the entire city is basically unoriginal which is different from the places that we’ve been so far. Berlin got bombed damn near to oblivion during world war ll, and they rebuilt everything the same way it was before. It was really hard to see some buildings that still had bullet holes and damage from grenades and thinking that the place that I was walking through used to be a battle ground and people died.

- I cried as we went through the Holocaust Memorial for Murdered Jews. The memorial is made up of hundreds of concrete blocks ranging in height. The idea was that as you walk through it you get lost, just as millions of Jewish people were during the Holocaust. Our guide informed us that the memorial was supposed to be 4 times larger, but was blocked by the city. Additionally, there was HEAVY pushback about the installation of a memorial at all from the people in the city. And you know what was even more interesting? At certain points in the endless maze you could see the American flag as the American Embassy was right next door to the memorial.

- the Reichstag was cool, but nothing like I expected. I may be over critical, but Germany never lost its knack for herding people around. In no way am I saying that being crammed into an elevator is the same as anything that people went through during the war/Holocaust, but it was a little uncomfortable to draw the parallels.

- we went to see the last remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. It happens to be right in front of an exhibition entitled “topography of terror” which outlined the rise of Nazi germany and key aspects of the war. I wish we had more time so I could have gone down to read everything.

- once we were on our own, we passed the memorial for the Roma & Sinti People who were also victims of the Holocaust. It was lovely, and there were even a few wild rabbits in the grass. It was a beautiful.

Here are 2 fun facts:

Documentation center didn’t open until 2005 about the 3rd reich. Which is crazy- nothing was formally available with information about the holocaust until then in Germany.
So actually hitlers bunker is closed and sealed up and cannot be entered. There is basically nothing left and ground water has started to enter it . I was honestly glad to hear this. There is a parking lot above the current location of the bunker.

Later, we went to go find some pretzels and do some shopping. The pretzels were pretty good, and were served with honey mustard.
We went to a few stores but by far my favorite was the handcrafted wooden store. They had gorgeous little tchotchkes and cookoo clocks and nutcrackers. If I could have afforded to buy one of the clocks, I would have. Bex bought the steins that she was hoping to get while we were in Germany.

The last thing that we did before dinner was go to TK Max. I have no idea why it’s called TK and not TJ Max. But it was the same store. Sam was in need of some new shoes so he acquired those.

We went to dinner at a oompah type restaurant. We had schnitzel and there was live music. Most of us ended up dancing on the little dance floor in front of the band. Dancing to dancing Queen in Germany with my friends was really fun. My favorite part of the night was my cup. They were selling the mugs that we had on our table, and I thought it would be a great souvenir for me. So I asked the hostess if I could purchase one, and they were out of the size that i wanted. They only had the massive XL option. So I asked her if I could buy the one in the case. She said that they couldn’t sell that one. So I asked “well what about the one on the table that I was drinking out of?” And she said “hey. One less mug means one less thing for the waiters have to clean up- just don’t let them see you taking it.”
So….. I took it. It’s mine now. I saved €9.
Then Sam told Gayle and she also took hers.

Ok so at the Reichstag there is one queue for the toilets and when I told the guy that it was just one queue, he exclaimed “ONE QUEUE???” “Surely that can’t be right.”Read more