Second installment of our week in Berlin...

Last Tuesday 22nd Feb we got up just before 9am, not feeling too bad from the night before. We had a big breakfast again and met in the foyer at 10:15am to be taken to the start of the free walking tour. There were a couple of guys from Melbourne and some American women working in Paris who we chatted to on the way. We lined up in a long-ish queue, got numbers and then were put in a group with our guide George, who we could tell was going to be fantastic right from the start: he was funny, entertaining, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and passionate about the things he talked about. So the tour started in Pariser Platz, which stretches in front of the Brandenburg Gate, bank, the 'Wacko Jacko hotel' (where MJ held the baby out over the balcony) and the French Embassy. We saw the Reichstag with its big glass dome on top - you can go up there and literally look down on parliament. But apparently you have to make a reservation and/or there are always really long queues. We got to the holocaust memorial again and George told us a few of the ideas he's heard about the architecture: the concrete slabs represent tombstones in a graveyard of the victims; boxes of bodies to be carried away; soldiers all lined up; and just the general feelings of the victims - walking through the rows, one minute the rest of your party is with you, the next they're not and you don't know which way to find them. There's also a sense of helplessness when you can't see over the blocks and they rise up around you. We then saw the site of Hitler's bunker - as George described, "a dogshit-strewn carpark" which seemed an appropriate places for Hitler's resting place (although he's not actually there). Onwards to the Ministry of Finances with its Nazi architecture and wall images of how communism should have worked vs. the photos on the ground of the faces of those clearly showing it didn't. We saw part of the wall, with a pipe on top rather than the barbed wire which preceded it - nothing to grab once you're up there. Past Checkpoint Charlie (yes, we pretty much saw everything on this tour we'd already seen) and then for a well-needed break at a café (seriously freezing toes by this time, even with 3 pairs of socks).

After our break (taking photos and using the free wifi), we walked to some nice square which sat between the French and German protestant churches and a big building where the Philharmonic orchestra plays. In Summer, they play outside in the square and it is apparently arguably the nicest square in Germany, if not Europe. Pity I can't remember what it was called! Then we went to Bebelplatz where we had gone the previous day, where the Humboldt Uni was - where Einstein had taught and fled from - and also outside where the Nazi book burning had taken place, plus the opera house which will not be showing any opera till 2012/13. There is a little glass-covered hole in the square with empty bookshelves large enough to hold 20,000 books and has no doors to get into... George described it as sort of looking at your past, reflecting on it, but not being able to change it. There is also a plaque with a quote by Heinrich Heine, translated means "Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings", which was surprisingly relevant to the book burning, but his quote was actually from long before. We then walked again along Unter den Linden and into a building we hadn't really considered the day before, the Memorial for Victims of War and Tyranny - an open room is occupied only by a statue of a mother holding her dead child. The artist was a woman called Käthe Kollwitz, who lost siblings, children and her husband due to war, so her work used her own experiences and feelings. Back to the Museum Island and Cathedral, which George told us has mock baroque architecture and was actually only built in 1905. For the end of the tour, we stood at the other end of the Cathedral, in the shade, so so cold, and we heard the story of how the wall eventually 'fell'. We each gave George a £5 tip but wanted to give so much more.

We walked back towards Alexanderplatz, stopping to thaw in an office foyer for a while. We discovered Maccas in Deutschland sells vegie burgers - I know right! - so Aisling and I decided we just had to get one, and its fatty goodness was very much enjoyed. We also walked past a shop dedicated to just the Ampelmann (click to see) - the east German traffic light man - which sold everything from bags to notebooks to pasta in the shape of the little guy. There are also these huge bears everywhere, the symbol of Berlin, in all kinds of colours and poses. We took a train back to the hostel where we met Janet and Caitlin, just arrived from Stuttgart. Georgie and Greer took Caitlin to the holocaust memorial to check out the info centre. We got felafel again that night, although I got a 'mini' pizza from the same place. Then we went up to the bar, met some Argentinians and a Brazilian. The drinks up there were definitely more alcoholic than usual, seeing as I only had 2 and definitely felt something. We left about 1:30am, I washed my hair and was in bed by 2am.

On Wednesday we got up our usual time of 9am for a 9:30am breakfast, to do a tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp, which George had mentioned he was taking the day before. We left for the meeting point a bit late and ended up running from the station but we got there in time to stand in the queue. We left about 11:30am and the trip to Oranienburg was about 45 minutes. We walked the same path from the station to the camp which the prisoners would have taken way back in the 30s/40s. Once there, George showed us on a 3D horizontal map where the tour would be taking us exactly. First we heard about the dehumanisation of all the prisoners, where their heads are shaved, all the belongings including clothes taken away from them, and they receive their prison clothes and a number. We also stood in front of the main tower where the watchers could see over the whole camp. They would take roll call every morning and this could take hours to get through the thousands of prisoners, and often they died standing there in the freezing cold or blazing heat. We also went into a couple of the houses where the prisoners slept, washed and went to the toilet and where there was now an exhibition. Then there was the extermination chamber which was horrible to hear about and the trench where they buried the prisoners' ashes. If their relatives wanted to pay a small fee for their loved one's ashes, the soldiers would go out and fill a box with any number of peoples' ashes - they were all just chucked in there together. We saw the sites where medical experiments took place, often making the prisoners deathly sick so they could study them. All up, it was a very horrible place but one we're all glad we saw.

We had to run back to the station so that we wouldn't have to wait 20 minutes for a train, and met a couple of girls from Melbourne on the train. Greer, Georgie, Janet and Caitlin went back to Wombat's, while Rose, Aisling and I finally got to the info centre at the Holocaust memorial. There was so much in there, and it was sort of hard to take it all in. First there was a strip with general info about Jews being deported and/or murdered and the time line to do with different countries. I was glad we had been to Sachsenhausen before this, as I could now picture the stories about the concentration camps much better. There were excerpts from letters to family members from those about to be murdered, as well as stories about specific Jewish families, some who survived and some who didn't. We then headed back to Wombat's and walked up Torstraße to a big intersection of restaurants. We ended up in a Chinese place which shared the inside with yet another felafel place. I got a yummy fried rice, but nearing the end I got horrible pains in my stomach. I don't think it could have been the food though because it came on too quickly but I still have no idea what caused it. Walking back was quite painful but then I rested and slept and felt better. The girls woke me at 11pm when they were going up to the bar but I stayed sleeping, and got up again at 2am to get into my PJs and fall asleep properly.

By the time I woke up on Thursday, I had had a 12 hour sleep - that is definitely not meant to happen on holiday in Berlin! Rose, Greer and I had a slow and relaxing breakfast at 9:30am. Janet and Caitlin were just finishing up when we got down there as they were doing the walking tour that morning and Aisling and Georgie came down just as we were finishing up. We walked to the Fernsehturm (TV tower) and didn't have to wait too long in the queue to buy tickets to go up for the panoramic view of Berlin from above. Unfortunately we did have to throw out our full water bottles which was annoying, as I'd gotten really used to always having water on me. The guy who took us up in the lift spoke German to me and I embarrassingly just smiled and nodded. We spent an hour or so up there, taking millions of photos which I still need to sort through. Unfortunately it was quite foggy, whereas the rest of the week had been very clear. It was still good though, seeing just how far Berlin stretches in all directions is crazy. They had little bits of information all around as well, although it was impossible to read it all as there are people everywhere, kids crawling around and everything. We had the same guy in the lift again going down. This time I impressed him with my 'tscüß' (goodbye). We had a look around Alexanderplatz and saw the Welt-Zeit-Uhr (world time clock) and took photos under 'Melbourne'. We looked in a German clothes shop, and I couldn't understand how they could ever wear the spring collection which filled the shop - it was too cold to imagine! We then took the train to Friedrichstraße and found our way to Bunte Schokowelt, a chocolate 'museum'. There was literally a tiny little exhibition upstairs about making and packaging chocolate and then you just go and buy Ritter chocolate. Which we did. We stocked up on 0,79€ 100g blocks and some bigger ones. There was a 'make your own' section too but it was expensive and took half an hour so we skipped it. We walked to the Tiergarten and had a bit of a wander along the paths. We came to a statue of Mozart/Beethoven/Haydn and a little frozen river behind it, which freakily had a pair of gloves on the surface. We saw a horse and rider statue too but decided it was too big to try and climb. We walked back out into Potsdamerplatz, where we saw an Aussie restaurant and the Sony Centre, whose wifi didn't work :( We took the train back to Wombat's, dropped off our chocolate and went for a walk through the streets we'd walked the other night. It was confusing to try and work out how we actually got there... There were so many shoe shops, mostly just expensive ones, but also one second-hand type store with thousands of shoes (with no prices). It looked like they should have been op shop prices but I highly doubt it. It was almost like a gallery, shoes filled shelves along complete walls all the way to the ceilings and then more in the middle of the room. It would have been heaven if we'd had time to actually look at them all and think that we actually could have afforded a few pairs. I bought a pink rock thing form a bead shop for 7€ but I'm yet to find a chain thin enough for it. We also came across a little market, one nice jewellery store, although when I took a photo the woman said something I couldn't hear/understand. We went back just before 6; we were going to take advantage of the free 4 hours before closing on Thursdays for most of the museums but we were just too tired to. My feet had survived the day okay with 3 pairs of socks but were still sore from so much constant uncomfort. We went and got dinner at 7pm with a couple of Melbourne High guys who the others had come across last night at the bar, at the same place as the night before but this time we mostly bought from the Turkish half of the restaurant. I got a cheese pide.

We walked back to the hostel and waited till 10pm to go to the bar, taking so many random photos beforehand. I also managed to drop my camera very slightly and now the flash won't stay closed which wrecked a good feeling. Still, Caitlin, Rose and I went up and met a couple of Argentinian guys (although their passports were Canadian and Italian?) and had lots of fun and laughs, and only 3 drinks although it felt like so much more. The other girls headed out about 1am to go to a club, while we stayed at the bar till (after) closing time at 2am. We were the last ones there when we left at 2:30am. Eeek. We went down the 7 flights of stairs instead of taking the lift for some reason and then chilled in the lobby for a bit before going for felafel again (not me). That was an interesting half and hour or so. Then Rose and I (Caitlin had gone already) headed up to bed about 3:30am.

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Friday and Saturday will come very soon, I promise!