Mother I'm a wall away now.

Day 55. Today I slept in again, but not so late that I lost a day (Although, I do love being able to sleep in for a change ad not feeling bad about it) and then packed my things to catch the train to Berlin! I am excited for a new city and for new experiences, but I easily could have spent weeks in Prague it was so great with such fantastic people. If you ever go there, you HAVE to stay at THE MADHOUSE. I have seriously lucked out with my hostel choices the last few cities and it makes a world of difference. This has been one of the best hostels so far and when I come back I will be staying here for sure! The staff is amazing, the atmosphere is fantastic, the beds are very comfortable, the rooms are so nice, it is very clean, a full kitchen with everything you need, nice showers, good internet, super fun nightly activities and it is small enough that you get to know everyone and really feel welcome and enjoy every minute of your stay. I cannot recommend this hostel enough! If you are going to Prague, this is the hostel to be at! (Thank you for an amazing time Rod, Kraig, and Chris!!) I left with Andy and Mike and we didn’t realize that it was a Sunday…. So the tram was ridiculously late. We missed our trains and had to wait at the station together for the next batch to come around. Not after too long we said goodbye and I was off to Berlin! I worked on my blog at the station and then finished catching up on the train, watched a movie, and then dozed off for a bit before we arrived in Berlin. I was a little nervous about arriving at night, Berlin being a big, legit city and all, but pat me on the back I found my hostel without any problems (And had to take the S-bahn AND subway to do it. I know, I know, I’m cool). Today is MOTHER’S DAY!! I am so incredibly grateful for my mother and all the love and support she gives to me. I would be incredible lost without her and love her more than any amount of words could possibly express (Seriously Mom, you are amazing and I love you to the stars and back again). Thank you for being my mom and thank you for always loving me no matter what (I know it’s not easy and I am sure there were times you wanted to strangle me, but I am sure glad that you didn’t)! I was so lucky and got to Skype my mom and my family tonight. I waited until they got home from church (About 11:15 pm my time – 9 hours ahead) and then got to see all their lovely smiles and faces. Jayna was beautiful in her prom dress and my grandparents surprised my family with a visit. It was fun seeing all of them and I was glad I got to see my Mom on Mother’s day. I was exhausted from travelling as I usually am and went right to bed after skyping, when I wake it’s will be to German adventures, yippee!

Day 56. Today I got up early and sat outside in the sun to read my book for a bit while I waited for the free walking tour to start. I made myself a jelly and nutella sandwich for breakfast and enjoyed the sun.  I love free walking tours! Brewer’s Berlin Free walking tour (Go on this one, trust me) was so excellent, and it made me realized how much I love history. I got super jipped in high school and at community college in my history classes (If Mrs. James still works at Central Valley, she should be fired, just saying) and it made me grow to hate history. I have always not liked history and for the life of me I can’t think of why, it is so interesting!! (Maybe it’s all the names and dates that can be monotonous, but I seriously just despised all of my history classes and would always fall asleep.) Being here in Europe and learning so much about a countries history has been so incredibly amazing. I literally get to see the history unfold in front of me and I love it, this is such an amazing experience! Berlin has so much history that today was no different. I learned all about the Berlin Wall, the West and East Germany dilemmas after the wars, the rise and fall of the soviets, so much more, and then got to see all of it right in front of me. Talk about an interactive crash course in history, it was so cool! We started our tour on Museum Island and got to see some of the oldest museums in Berlin (It was Monday so they were all closed… but still cool to see the impressive architecture), and apparently Berlin has more Museums/exhibits than London and Paris put together, wow! We saw a really cool monument dedicated to the women of the war inside of a building with a single hole in the ceiling to let in light. There is only the one statue in the entire building, which adds to the already very somber effect of the statue. Next we walked to the spot where they had the burning of the so called “politically undesirable” books according to the Nazis. This was a hole in the ground looking into all white room and empty bookshelves. As I love to read this was a cool monument to the thousands of books thrown into the fire. Also in memory of the book burning, across the street from the square is an outdoor bookstore open every day all year round save for Christmas. Other cool sites were Checkpoint Charlie (One of the main access points through the wall for political leaders. They had a tank standoff at one point during the Cold war at this checkpoint) and the spot over Hitler’s bunker where he shot himself, which you will be happy to note there is now a playground and residential apartments (and there was black children playing when we went there). Win. We also got to see an original section of the berlin wall and learned all about how it was set up and guarded. There wasn’t just one wall, but two and a “death strip”. The entire West Berlin was literally walled off so that people from East Berlin could no longer get into West Berlin. I guess I always assumed it was just a wall splitting the city in half where people could just drive around the wall, not completely caging off the entire West side (Shows how good my history lessons have been). I just don’t understand why they had to go to such extremes to stop the flow of refugees. Another very cool thing to see was the Jewish monument. It takes up an entire block of the city and is quite literally a maze of tombstone-like big grey rectangles of varying height. The ground is also in waves so that the “tombstones” literally feel like they are burying you as they get larger and larger towards the center. It reminded me very much of the Jewish cemetery in Prague. Some stupid kids were running around and playing tag/hide and go seek so I yelled at them to be respectful as I was lost in thought staring at these completely unmarked “graves” (no one is buried there, I asked). It was another very somber experience and very interesting memorial. The Reichstag and Brandonburg’s gate were right around the corner, both very impressive and it’s there that we ended our tour. The tour guide was amazing and I tipped him well. After the tour I made some friends, Sofia from New York and Rachel from Michigan, Macca from Argentina, and Taryn and Joyce from Canada. Together we walked through Teir Garten Park and saw the monument for the homosexuals in the concentration camps. It was very similar to the Jewish one as it was a very large unmarked tombstone-like grey rectangle with a screen on one side showing clips of what I deemed to mean perseverance. Other monuments for those in the concentration camps other than the Jewish are also being constructed. We also saw the Global Stone Project that I thought was super awesome in the Tier Garten. Each of the five rocks came from a different continent leaving a “sister” stone in its original origin. The stones all have a different meaning and they are aligned in a circle and polished so that on June 21^st at high noon the reflected light of the sister stones connects with the stones in Berlin and draws five invisible straight lines. The viewer then connects those lines to form a circle of light connecting all of the stones in the circle. Way cool. We walked back to the hostel and regrouped, and I finally had to buy new chapstick. I used mine to the very complete end. I could literally get nothing else out of the tube (a sad day indeed). Oh well, the German chapstick isn’t bad, it just wears off to quick and I have a chapstick addiction (Lucky for me Anthony is bringing me some chapstick, yippee!). We were going to go to a beer garden but were far too hungry for the food served there and decided to make our own beer garden by eating outside in the nice weather at a cheaper restaurant. Dinner was excellent and we all talked for hours. It actually got pretty cold in the evening so we wrapped ourselves in blankets that were provided on the backs of our chairs until we decided to go elsewhere. We looked for a club to go dancing, but it was still far too early in the evening for anywhere to be good (its Berlin, the party doesn’t start until at least 2 or 3 am), so we found a billiards bar and played a fun game of pool instead. I was so tired from walking for 7 plus hours that after one game I was definitely ready for bed. We exchanged information to keep in contact and called it a night, walking back to our respective hostel’s where I was quick to fall sleep.