Berlin!!!

June 12th I arrived in Berlin, Germany after a very very long bus ride. The ride was only $30 however it was 14 hours long and the company was lacking.  The bus was packed and the people around me did not sleep the entire ride there. Specifically two Spanish talking girls who talked the entire time…14 hours… how can one have that much to say! Then at every boarder we crossed there were boarder patrol who came onto the bus and looked at our passports or identity cards. It felt like I was in an old movie and I had to prove that I wasn't illegal or something. Kinda freaky but I arrived in one piece so it all turned out well.  I got in about 9am and the hostel didn't have my room ready so I went out to explore a bit. Down the block from the hostel was a part of the Berlin Wall that was no longer standing but recreated to show the space between the walls. All around the city though there are markers of where the wall once stood. The hostel was in what was once East Berlin. That side was under Soviet communist control until the wall fell and it was never fully developed. So when the wall came down it held the most potential to rebuilt the city like the Germans wanted to. Therefore now it is the up and coming side where many people want to live and work.

Monument to the old Berlin Wall

What the dead space looked like between the walls that kept East and West Berlin apart.

Remnants of old buildings that were on the East side. From the windows of these buildings people would jump to the West side so that they could be on the side that was growing and with their families. According to what I read, the wall almost came up over night and families were separated without any way of going from one side to another. Many of them resorted to jumping or trying to climb over the wall when it was first built and less heavily guarded. As the years went on, the Soviets blocked windows from the East Berlin buildings so that they could not look out over the Western side and then no one could get ideas of trying to get over. 

The area now where the wall used to stand

Pictures of the changes the wall went through

I read about these plaques. If you had a family member who was taken by the Gestapo to any concentration camp then you could apply to the German government to get a plaque. Each plaque is dedicated to a person who was taken and/or killed in a concentration camp.

I found my cousin, Elizabeth, a new favorite store! Its dedicated to hundreds of nutcrackers. Unfortunately I couldn't take pics of the inside but they were each hand crafted and were exquisite.

Random side street

Lunch! A vietnamese chicken sandwich 

Pieces of the Berlin Wall

The memorial to all the murdered Jews in Europe. It is about a block long and wide and it looks like empty above ground tombs. As you walk through it places are deeper than others and the gray columns get taller, it almost feels like you are getting trapped even though you can still see the edges of the monument from where ever you are on the inside. Its a very sobering experience. 

The USA embassy 

Brandenberg Gate!

French Embassy

German Parliament

German Wiener Schnitzel - it was covered in an almond walnut crust and served with warm potato salad. Not sure which one I like better, the Austrian version or the German. Austrian was traditional and the German was like a new spin on an old favorite. I think I shall return to these two countries to find out!! :)