Population: 3.4 million
BERLIN!!! Wow. I love love love Berlin and this entry will for sure be a million pages so I'll abreev like it's my job. Berlin arrive, find hostel in Charlottenburg area, go to Charlottenburg Palace (home of Sophie Carlotte wife of King Frierich grandmom of Fred the great...walk around, go to Museum Berrgreun collection of Picasso, Klee, Gioccametti the sculpteur of those skinny people, and Matisse. Walk around Christmas market there (Charlottenbergmarkt) get potatoes in a bowl and eierpunch (eggnog with Bailey's) keep the glass its cute you pay 2 euro downposit. See lots of german christmasy stuff- hats and scarves, jewelry, foodwise chocolate covered fruit on sticks, marshmallow mounds, sauerkraut, brats in tiny buns, potatoes and bacon, mushrooms in cream sauce, broiled meat and onions and vegetables, kinderpunsch, eierpunsch, apfelpunsch, glunwein...etc. Go back to hostel and get settled/check emails/read/sleep!
Day 9 BERLIN!!! Up early early head to grocery store for provisions, metro to Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg, see the concentration camp which was the administrative headquarteres of the SS operations, it's a big triangle only the prisoners barracks part was conserved, big memorial in the middle with orange triangles on this giant pillar type thing, execution trench, shoe testing track, medical experiments here too, krematorium that was blown up so only parts remain of the foundations, commander's house still there, soviet special camp from 1945-50, its in the former GDR, cold, saw prisoners kitchens with drawings on the walls and latrings in teh barracks and the laundry house..walked from the train station twenty minutes same route prisoners took through the town, quiet neighborhood houses right up next to the camp. Camp shown off to Poles and army commanders since its right neat Berlin, kitchens have "fine meals" people downstairs peel rotten potatoes alld ay, watchmakers, counterfeiting operation there, klinterwerks brick makers hard labor camp oustide of camp, over 30 division camps, all throughout the area no longer exist but where prisoners were sent for labor each day, mainly a man's camp again until Hungarian jewish women came 1944. Back to Berlin for walking tour of city..excellent, learned all my german history and twentieth century stuff again, but the guide was amazing (annabel). Saw Brandenburg Tor, Unter Den Linden Street, Reichstag with new glass dome, Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled the baby, the French and American embassies right in Parisierplatz in front of Brandenburg tor, setting up for new year's there too, saw Holocaust Memorial and stood above Hitler's bunker (they destroyed it), saw one of the few Nazi buildings still there all grey granite/concrete impressive, huge, over huge and was the air force ministry, somehow the allies missed it (but they managed to hit the royal opera and destroy it twice, Hitler rebuilt it during the war because he loved opera so much), now the building has a giant mural of socialism at its best on its side and on the ground this giant glass plate with a picture of strikers from 1952 the first strike against socialism that was brutally broken up by Russian tanks, first and only of its kind until 1989 but east germany started the agitation against the USSR, saw what's left of the wall and lots of graffitied parts still intact, took pics with these cute bears kind of like Chciago cows all around the city, the giant Steiff bear at one of the souvenir shops, saw Checkpoint Charlie and the sign saying you are leaving the American sector, had cappucinos and croissants right near there at Aroma Café on Friedrichstrasse, their really upscale shopping street that was lit up very nicely, saw this giant chocoalte shop Faussner and Rausch that we later went in and it used to be the royal chocolatier and now makes sculptures out of chocolate (the brandenburg to, titanic, Reichstag) saw the square with the French Church and the exact same church on the opposite side called the German church and the Concerthaus, designed by Schinkel because it has lots of columns (Gendarmmarkt) saw this memorial that used to be the royal guardhouse and its roof is open so the weather comes in, it's a big room with a solitary statue of mother holding wounded son on battlefied in the center, very somber, saw royal armshouse/military building that's pink but now the german history museum, saw the Lustgarden where royalty would go take a stroll and the museumisland (with the pergamon museum which has lots of middle eastern artifacts and its going to be closed for the next ten years for reconstruction) saw St Hedwig's cathedral built for the catholic poles of Silesia when Fred the great gained the territory in 1760, one of the few cathedrals in Berlin, saw the gaping hole where the Royal palace used to be (torn down by the GDR in 1950) saw the royal library on the square with berlin on ice and across from the famous Humboldt Unbiversity where Einstein taught, saw the memorial to the bookburnings in 1933 (a room with white empty shelves underground you can see through plexiglass hole down), saw the radiotower put up in the GDR to show their technological strength but really heelped by Swedish engineers, saw the Travi cars that used to be the most popular in the GDR and now are only used for tourist "safaris" because they are so bad for the environment and just not good cars, saw lots of starbucks and mcdonalds and some burger kings...eventually the tour ended and we went to the jewish museum and inside to a Hanukkah market that was not too spectaculy, then over to the christmasmarket we saw on unter den linde across from the lustgarden and walked around for a while, got latkes and applesauce and leslie got paella, they had the usual stuff again, ate under heat lamps with music performers around us, went to Checkpoint Charlie museum but just read the brochure no go in, a lot of artifacts from escape attempts are there, then went home.
Day 10 BERLIN!!! Up early early again to the train station to Weimar, walk around Weimar for two seconds see interesting architecture, bus to Buchenwald camp, veru different than the others because the entire camp is still there, the quarry, all the SS houses or the land where they used to be (even the dog kennel), the armaments factory and industrial works, its also in the middle of nowhere in a forest, where Elie Wiesel was liberated, saw an art exhibit and the little history museum (the door on this one does not say Arbeit Mach Frei like all the other it says Jedem Das Seine (to each his own) confusing...very very cold there. Train back go to Tiergarten and the flea market there see lots of doorhandles, candelabra, some random jewish stuff (made it seem like a german market) and normal antiques/knick knacks, jewelry, etc went over to checkpoint charlie and got passport stampes from the GDR side of the checkpoint (so named because it's the third one in berlin, first is Alpha, then Bravo, then Charlie). Went to Reichstag to go in and climb the dome but the line's long, we'll be back tomorrow, instead go to St Wilhelm Kirche that has half a roof (its kind of like a space ship shape, very large, never restored after WWII bombing. Now a big shopping area in West Berlin called Europaplace. Also had a nice Christmas market. Tried kinderpunsch, got stollen bread (very dense, filled with raisins and dried fruits, much better and sweet than expected) back to hostel. Pack up to leave Berlin tomorrow, so sad!! We learned sooooo much history in the past three days and basically got inundated with information, we also put our bodies in burnout mode walking around so much, but it was totally totally worth it. Also, the Berlin mascot/symbol is a giant bear, which is clearly a sign, because I heart bears.
Day11 Berlin/ Loooooooooooooong train ride to Paris. Up early, get stuck on the lovely S Bahn system in front of Karstadt sports for an hour and some, finally make it to the Reichstag/Bundestag/Parliament and climb up the new glass dome with the dual staircase one up one down and you can see the whole city though its fairly cloudy and dreary today, there's a giant funnel thing in the center to funnel in sunlight to power and heat the building and its very shiny metallic, looking down you can see into the plenary chamber of parliament though no one's there today. leave, back to hostel stop at grocery store for food get Ritter chocolate, chocolate yogurt bars, musli, etc good train food, off to Hauptbahnhof chill out for a while in the cold train station and now we're on the train to frankfurt and then to paris (where as of yet we have no where to stay) very final tour. Turns out we got redirected Frankfort to Saarbrucken, who knows where that is, then paris. A little stressfu but we made it before the midnight bell on Notre Dame tolled and actually did manage to get beds in a hostel with a quick phone call, slept, up early for breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate, say bye to my travel buddy Leslie, and train to Aix. Have to smile to be back in this cute little city with so many good memories, even though I'll miss Leslie and Berlin and our whole journey. At least now I can take an amazing shower with a real towel, change clothes, and be in a stable location...for twenty four hours.
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