Spring Break: Berlin March 22-24

We took a plane from Amsterdam to Berlin, Germany. We found our hostel pretty easily and had some time to explore. The city was very industrial-like. The streets were big. The buildings weren't very pretty. We found a pretty good pizza place to eat lunch at. Then that night we set off on a quest to find Sarah a pork-bun. Supposively Berlin has a China Town, but we were having trouble finding it. After trekking around for a couple hours we found a place.

The next day we took a free Sandeman tour. It started in Pariser Platz, which is the square in the center of Berlin. On one side of Pariser Platz is the Brandenburg Gate. The gate became one of the checkpoints on the Berlin wall when the city was divided. Down the street from here you could see the Reichstag building where parliment was held. On the top of this building there is a giant dome you could climb up into.

Brandenburg Gate

After this we walked down the street to one of my favorite sites of Berlin. It is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is the size of a street block. In it there are tons of concrete slabs. The closer you get to the center of the square the bigger the slabs get. When you enter the paths between the blocks you get lost. You can't see anyone else and you can't really hear much else. The blocks tower above you and you feel small. I think this is a great memorial because it actually makes you feel something. You reflect upon yourself.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Next we walked down the street to a little chunk of grass outside of apartment buildings. It didn't look like much. We stood in the middle of this grassy area and found out that under our feet was the bunker that Hitler had commit suicide in. This was one of those moments that felt unbelievable.

Then we walked and saw the Luftwaffe Headquarters which was one of the only big buildings to survive ally bombings during WWII. Then we saw the 17th of June memorial which was a memorial to all the fallen Soviet Soldiers. Afterwards we made our way to what was left of the Berlin Wall. The wall did not seem like much. It wasn't very high at all. The thing that made the Berlin Wall so dangerous was the guards. Also the top of the wall was rounded so it was hard to get a grip on it. The reason why the Berlin Wall was so devastating was because seemingly out of nowhere this wall cutoff people from their families and their jobs. In an instant, life was changed. We also walked past Checkpoint Charlie, where the Americans would help smuggle people from the East to the West.

Berlin Wall

Then we saw the S.S headquarters. And after that we made our way to Gendarmenmarkt. Gendarmenmarkt is a square in Berlin that contains two identical churches. One of the churches was for the French people while the other was for the Germans. It is said that the church for the Germans was built one foot higher. Another square we saw was Bebelplatz where the Nazi book burning took place. This is where they gathered books written by Jewish authors and burned them.

Gendarmenmarkt

We also saw Neue Wache, which was an old royal guard house until the end of World War I. Inside of the building now is a sculpture called "Mother with her Dead Son". The sculpture is under a big hole in the ceiling. This is so that the sculpture is exposed to the rain, snow, and cold of Berlin; which shows how it endures suffering.

Mother with her Dead Son sculpture

The our tour ended at Museum Island. It is a pretty little place surrounded by a bunch of Berlin's museums.

After our tour we stopped at a restaurant that was under the metro and had some German Beer. I tried one of the beers that the french had brought to Berlin. It was beer that had strawberry syrup mixed into it. It was kind of gross. Then later that night we went to one of Berlin's really nice theaters and saw the "Hunger Games". We got to see it in English. The seats in the theater were super nice and they even had an intermission!

It was a nice, short visit.