THE BERLIN WALL IS COMING DOWN!

ok ok so its already come down, but you can guess where i am, yup berlin germany. ive been here since friday night. the train ride in from amsterdam was interesting. so im on my merry little way hop on the train and head towards berlin, well i thought it was a direct connection boy was i wrong. we came to a stop and i went to the bathroom the intercom came on and said something in dutch. idont know any dutch so i payed no attention. we started moving again then stopped all of a sudden. well when i walked out of the bathroom everyone was gone and the train was in the middle of the tracks...I WAS STUCK ON THE TRAIN! i ran up and down and no one was there i yelled out the window for help and they had to get security to come and get me...so embarressing to be the white american girl stuck on the train because she didnt know dutch. well after that i got on another train and made it to berlin. my hostel it nice, its called baxpax. its a little out of the city, i think in the west part of berlin in kreuzberg. anywho on saturday i woke and went into town to take a tour of the city. the tour was amazing, now it was a free tour so the tour guide only worked for tips, so his enthusiasm was on point and made the 4 and a half hr long tour so worth it. anywho we started in pariser platz. this is where the brandenburg gate is. this is the last remaining gate in berlin. the tour guide said that when the french invaded germany they marched through the gate and napoleon stole the statue on top of the gate. well when the french went to war against the english i think the germans stole the statue back and called the women lady victoria (for victory) and the square around the gate pariser platz to kind of make fun of the french for the defeat. kinda interesting huh? well across from the gate is a hotel that is the most luxurious hotel in the world, hotel adlon. this hotel is where micheal jackson hung his baby outside the window...and you know i got pictures of that window haha. we proceeded to the holocaust memorial for the jews. this memorial is like no other. the designer wanted people to interpret their own way and not really have an explanation of it. its an area of different sized stone slabs going from small on the outside to tall in the middle. the ground itself gets deeper as you go in. some people think of the slabs as coffins, or graves or tombstones. my interpration came in the middle with the tall slabs, i felt very secluded and small standing there, and thats how i think the people in the concentration camps felt. its an intense feeling. we then walked to the only remaining nazi building in berlin. its actually interesting because after hitlers reign they pretty much destroyed all the buildings, well the ones that were left after the bombings in the war. but this one the communists kept around because inthis particular building their was a big conference room that hitler liked to have his meetings. well the communists needed a board room as well so thats why they kept it around. across the street is the remains of the berlin wall. its not wide at all but the tour guide said getting over it was not the problem. there was actaully 2 walls, the berlin wall and the inner wall. the space between the two was called dead mans land...if you were caught going from the east to the west in this area you were gunned down. next we walked by checkpoint charlie, which is where any american )journalist, soldier, etc) stayed/had to check in during the war. the actual checkpoint isnt there anymore but they have a fake one in its place. we then went to musuem island where we got to see the berlin dome. its a beautiful church inside and out. the tour was over after that, and like i said it didnt seem like 4 hrs. i learned a lot of the history behind the war and hitlers reign, and its a lot different than learning it from school because im actually in the city that it happened so it was a lot more interesting. anywho i went to dinner with a guy i had met on the tour and he knew of a good german place to go to. i had the traditional bratswarts and saurkraut with potatoes. and to my suprise i liked it! the saurkraut was not like anythin from the states, it was sweet so thats why i liked it. the sausage was also cooked and served in a beer sauce, so of course that was good! at night iwent on a pub crawl. it was only 9 euros and we got free beer for an hr and free vokda shots all night long. we went to 3 bars and then a club. the club was awesome. it had 5 different rooms all with different music. there were 3 dance floors and there were even dancers in cages. it was fun but i felt like i was back in freshman year, where everyone was 18 and really couldnt handle their alcohol. me and this one guy who was 29 and from london i think were the oldest ones there. but it was still fun.
yesterday i went to sachsenhausen concentration camp. this camp was the "model" camp for all the others. this is where they actually sat down and decided what to do with all the jews. it was an hr away from the city by train. when we got there there were a lot of soldiers with different uniforms on. it happened to be the anniversary of the camps liberation. so seeing the memorial (although in german) was amazing. there are actually 2 anniversarys of the camp, let me tell you a little history. the nazis heard that the soviets were coming into the camp so on april 21 they took over 33,000 people away from the camp and walked into the forest. now the soldiers themselves were afraid they were going to get caught so they left the people there in the forest. the next day, april 22nd the soviets came to the camp and found 3000 people left in the camp. these were the people that were too weak to walk, everyone pretty much in the infermaries. the people the forest were found between may 3rd and may 6th. but 7000 people had died in those 12 days, which is why its called the death march. so thats why there are 2 anniversaries. the desendants of the people who walked in the forest walk the same path that they did in remembrance of them. so theres a little information for you :) we walked through the camp and it was very intense, more intense than the holocaust musuem because we were stood on the ground where the people were murdered, starved, burned, beaten, everything horrible you can imagine. the tour lasted about about 3 hrs, it ended with us seeing the cell where they kept the dead bodies and we saw the actual wheelbarrel that carried the bodies to the fireplaces. i really had no feeling for awhile after the camp just because it was so intense and mind boggeling to hear the stories of the survivors. but i feel that everyone should go to alteast one concentration camp, just so we will never forget what happened. its like the saying goes, if we foget about our past it will come back and kick us in the ass. this is why i am glad people have these tours, so we will always remembe what people had to go through...ok enough preaching. after the camp i went back to the hostel and just hung out with people in the common room playing pool.
today i just went around town and took pics, berlin is a very big city a lot of ground to cover so i tried my best.
tomorrow im headed to prague, check republic. im really excited about it because there is a castle!! but hope things are going well back at home. i miss everyone but im having an amazing time :) ill write later.

Kelly