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| Siegessäule |
We then we to the Jewish Museum were we received an interesting from an enthusiastic tour guide. However, he did know what he was talking about and gave us a lot of history on even the most minor things. That night Marcus and I went our exploring and ran across the Fernsehturm (TV tower) and Brandenburger Tor.
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| Fernsehturm lite up in green. |
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| Brandenburger Tor all lite up at night |
The next morning we got a walking tour from a Berlinerin. She did a wonderful job. There was lots of interesting facts and she spoke slowly and with simple words so that we could all easily understand here. Our tour lead from Alexanderplatz to Brandenburger tour.
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| Standing in front of the Tor after our tour. |
On Monday we went to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. I really don't know how to describe it. There wasn't much there in way of the barracks, but they did still have a the machine gun trench that was used to murder the prisoners. Standing in that trench, where one would have stood just before being shot dead, was sad, erie, scary, and a million other emotions I can't even begin to describe all mixed into one.
That Afternoon I decided to brighten up the afternoon by going to the Berliner Mauer memorial on the north side of Berlin. Oh, and Marcus came along too but I got the feeling he was only there for the currywurst we would be getting later. ;-) At the memorial, they had a display of sorts that showed what the wall would have look like when it was intact. It was interesting standing on either side (West, East) of the wall and getting a feeling of what it was like for the citizens.
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| Looking through the crack on the east side of the wall into no-man's-land |
After the memorial we went and had the "Best Currywurst in Berlin" as advertised by the Berlinerin who gave us the tour a few days ago.
Tuesday morning was Museum day. That is we get to pick a museum of our choice to go to. Since I was still craving information I decided to go to Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. The Museum had a lot of information about the events leading up the the Berliner Mauer. However the exhibits slowly turned into a big collection of escape stories. One has to search around a bit to find further information on the wall...until they reach the 1980's of course. Then the exhibits shift to the tearing down of the wall, as expected (They also had a complete exhibit on Ronald Reagan including personal life, domestic policy, etc). Overall the Museum was good, but it wasn't good as I was hoping it was going to be.
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| Checkpoint Charlie |
For our last day in Berlin we toured Hochschönhausen, a political prisoner camp run by the Stasi. Our tour covered a lot over the Stasi, their interrogation methods, among other things. However, seeing this makes me feel a little worse for the citizens of the DDR who constantly have the Stasi looking over their shoulders.
The last three days of our trip we spent in Wittenberg. It is a nice little town but I am definitely preferable to Berlin. During our three days we saw the Lutherhaus, the door Luther nailed his 95 theses to, a DDR museum which highlighted home life in the DDR, Hundretwasserschule, and the Elbe (We actually walked over it). The last day we were there, we participated in a service project. I helped out in the Luthergarten repairing tree supports and doing some weeding.
Well that covers most of what we did. Now we are off on Spring Break. First Paris, Normandy, Salzburg, Munich, Bacharach, then Münster. Should be loads of fun.
Until next time,
Jake
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