Berlin

What a city! It is so full of history - you can spend then entire afternoon walking around finding memorials and squares with well known stories and events. There is the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Wall, the square where the book burnings took place. We got in, no problem, found our hostel and did loads of laundry. After washing your entire wardrobe by hand in a little sink, I will never again take for granted washers and dryers!! For supper we headed to the reknowned currywurst stand Curry 36. It was so good. To have something cultural is amazing with the added bonus that it is cheap! we then went to the Jewish Museum as it was open till 22h00. We got kicked out. It was a strange feeling, to get kicked out of a place and then the dude informed us that we were not even halfway through the exhibit. There was just so much interesting information.

Tuesday : we went to the main square in town and participated in a free walking tour. The guide's name was Jack. He is Irish. He came to Berlin for a party and never really left. He was great fun. He told us about Berlin and Germany and its history. As we walked around the city, he told us of the major events in a story like manor such that we could remember it all. It was intense and had a long lasting impact. We saw the Berlin Wall, Hitler's bunker, the Brandonberger Gate, the Canadian designed bank, the oldest museum in town, the ugly barowue style church, etc. all the big sites. the tour was 4 hours long, but you didn't notice the time pass until you were hungry. We chilled in Beachvolleyballplatz with a tub of ice cream. mmm... We went to the Reichstag later that night and just made it in. It is their parliament building. We could go up to the roof where there is a huge dome built over the senate house so that everytime the senators look up the are reminded that they are underneath the people and are responsible to them.

Wednesday : we went back to the Holocaust Museum to go through the information center. It was intense. we were there for three hours reading story after story of the horrors that jewish families had lived through. It was hard to imagine living through what they did and also to imagine doing those things to another human being. It was incredible. We then headed across town on foot to the New Synagogue, to see what a real jewish synagogue looks like. only now it was a museum and there was very little of it left because of the bombing. still interesting. we had dinner at a boulangerie - red currant streudel. these german folk know how to work with sugar and flour and butter!

we caught our train to Prague in an uneventful way after hitting up a grocery store for necessities - coffee and nutella. good times in Berlin.