Berlin!!

After visiting Amsterdam we decided that we really wanted to visit Berlin, and more specifically, the Berlin wall, so we tried to figure out the best way to get there. Turns out that the overnight train was completely full, and we really didn't want to stay in Amsterdam another night. So, we decided to try taking 5 different trains throughout the night to get there.
Sounds rough doesn't it? It was worse than you think, but we survived. It actually went really well for the first part until we got to Kohl Germany at 1am. Our next train didn't leave until 430am so we had some time to kill. We walked around a bit and finally found a place we could stay and attempt to sleep. They were two benches that sat two people. we laid out our sleeping bags and tried to sleep. I gave up after about 30 minutes and just hung out until our train came but Amy manged to get some, often interupted, sleep. She was wearing my beanie and looked, in my opinion, absolutely adorable, though, others may use the word, homeless!

We finally got to the Berlin train station and had breakfast at McDonalds where we actually brushed our teeth and got ready for the day.

We then stashed our bags in some day lockers and bought a map of the city for a Euro and made our way into the city. We started by eating a currywurst that we had read about online. A currywurst is essentially a hotdog with ketchup on it, sprinkled with curry powder. It was alright, but nothing exdrodinary.

Next, we walked around the city. We followed from the train station the former Berlin Wall where most major monuments and touristy things are. Probably the coolest thing we saw in Berlin was the Memorial for the Murdurded Jews. It is the memorial done by the Germans for the Hollucost victims. The exterior is incredible looking with thousands of pillars of differnet heights, and the interior was just was cool. There were six rooms: A timeline of the killing of Jews in Europe, a room with projected images of journals and letters of the victims, a room where they would announce the name of a victim and tell their life story, a room dedicated to different families who were affected by the genocide, as well as a room showing different hollucost sites and the last showing the diffent memorials in the world. It was a great experience, and being in Berlin really put it into perspective.

Another cool thing we saw was a large segment of the Berlin wall with a timeline telling of the rise and fall of the Nazi regime. It really was weird thinking that not so long ago all of this really happened, and how it all started in this city. It really put things into perspective.

All in all, Berlin was pretty much what we expected it to be. The architecture wasn't as cool as most of the other cities we have visited in Europe because it was almost all destroyed during the World Wars, and everything was a little spread out. It was nice though to be in the place we talk so much about though, as well as being able to better understand the German Culture.