Hallo! (That is not a type-o, it is hello auf Deutsche)
Sorry for the long gap in blog posts but as you can imagine we have been incredibly busy with our travels. So I will attempt to update you all on our journey thus far. Getting to Germany was quite a chore, but we finally made it to Berlin unscathed and learned a very valuable lesson along the way. Never assume that a train leaves from a certain station, in other words, double check your ticket! However, the first full day in Berlin proved the increased travel time well worth it.
In the morning we decided to take advantage of Berlins free walking tour. We met our guide, a charming Britt named Sam, at the Brandenburg Gate. He was full of interesting and pertinent information as well as some fun, erroneous stories. On our tour we visited Hitlers last stand, where he committed suicide along with his new bride, the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie, Humboldt University, where our guide as well as Albert Einstein have both attended college, and a wealth of towering museums. One of the points that I found most intriguing was at Hitlers last stand. The Germans have chosen not to commemorate the spot where the most evil man in history met his demise. Instead they have built a drab gravel parking lot over the site where the bunker once stood. Wouldn’t Hitler just be rolling in his grave to know that a parking lot stands where he took his own life?
That night for dinner we trusted good old Rick Steves and went to a traditional German restaurant downtown. We all tried and enjoyed some of the Berliner cuisine, I got the Schnitzel, another tried the curry wurst, and brats, etc. Overall, we had a great dinner and I think that Erik especially loved his gigantic German beer!
The next day we took another tour from the same company to Sachenhausen Concentration Camp, a slave labor center 45 minutes outside of Berlin. Although we prepared ourselves for what we about to see I don’t there was anyway to be fully ready mentally for what we were about to see. For me, it hit when I saw the famed “Arbeit Match Frei” on the camp gate. During its operation from 1936 to 1945 the camp interned around 200,000 gays, Jews, Gypsies, and members of the opposition. Thirty thousand of those people never left the grounds and the majority of the others were sent to other camps designed specifically for extermination. The guide explained that Sachenhausen was one of the first concentration camps in Germany and set the standard for how prisoners across Europe were dehumanized and then extinguished. The hours that I spent at Sachenhausen were by far some of the most solemn and moving of my 22 years. I think that I can speak for the group when I say that the visit stay with us for the rest of our lives. I don’t think that I have ever had a better understanding for the need for a peaceful coexistence of people on earth.
That night we revisited an Italian restaurant that we ate at the first night and attempted to lighten the mood with a couple beers. Some of the members in our group hold that the penne there was some of the best they had ever eaten! Later we packed our bags and prepared for our trip to Prague!
More later!, Love, Brenna
