So I'm on the train to Prague,or Praha as the Czechs call it. Berlin was very cool, but definitely not aswarm and welcoming as most of the places I've been. I suppse I knew that from the begining. Even getting on the underground after the train, it was like everyone had dark gloomy expressions. The minute you made eye contact they immediately look away, or if you hold it for a second and give a smile they stare harder haha. Tourism isn't warmly welcomed to the city. Once you are in the tourist center everything is comfortable, and all of those making there money off you are pleasant. Fruezberg, the tour I did the first day however, you try to refrain from talki g out the camera. When in Berlin do as the Berliners. Just walk, don't smile, act rude and impatient, and you'll fit right in, as long as you don't open your mouth.
Thursdayi did the typical tourist thing. Saw the main sights, like das museum, where Berlin s bowl is, and where hitler used to stand, and other politicians to give there speeches. The Greek and roman pillar architecture was very cleverly added to a lot of the architecture of that time. Placing themselves in the setting that those of the roman and Greek emperors of great empires would of. While also, still resorting the the barbaric nature of those from which the Germans descend. The book burning that accured at Hum bolt university, after firing all liberal, communist, and especially jewish staff, like Albert Einstein. Books that were seen unsuitable to the Nazi party, that had by this point dominated Berlin, like those written by Karl Marx, who himself had studied there, Einstein, because he was Jewish, and so many other, were burned in the open squares of the campus ground. The memorial to this is a large hole where a bomb had landed in the square. They put empty book shelfs inside and covered it with plexiglas glass. The presence of absence......uuwww. The schools way of redeeming themselves from this is allowing any book vendor to set up free along the front sidewalk. We off course got an elaborate explanation, which the hilarious little history dork tour guide explained to us. She drew it all out in the sand. I'll spare you. Of course saw a remaining part of the Berlin wall. Saw the gates of Berlin, can't remember the name exactly. Pretty picturesque buildings, many of which really hadn't served a purpose at the time they we're built. Just germanys obsession with what other cities of Europe had. Museum after museum, to finally fill these building haha. The pope was in town. Interesting protest rallies, with quite provocative and creative signs and statements. We couldn't actually walk around the way that we would usually end the tour around this part of town because the street was lined with police and the gate from which the pope was to enter Berlin. We saw the German memorial commemorating the murdered Jews of the Holocaust. There were little plaquerts on the ground along the streets along the whole walk as well, that have the names of the Jewish people who had stood at these residence before being taken away to the death camps. Berlin had a population of over 160,000 Jewish people before the war and by the end I think it was something like only 6,000 had escaped with there lives. The golden bricks with there date of birth and death and names on them, stick up a little higher than the other bricks. This was an intentional design, so that you trip on them and look. There is a lot of controversy about memorials and things that like within Germany and other parts of eastern Europe. It is important to remember, but the concern is how this past will effect the up coming generation. How much do you need to be reminded to not forget, but still get to move on? A matter of atrician I suppose. When the older generations of both perpetrators and victims are gone, and the decendents of them are all that is left to grapple with this dark past, the question may be answered a bit clearer. Also, millions of Jewish people were killed in the holocaust, but countless other minority groups, reaching in the hundred thousands, were all prosecuted, and there seems to be a lack in acknowledgement for them. There is however, a memorial for homosexuals persecuted in the holocaust, and the Roma people, or gypsys, but I did not see or hear about one for the black people taken to concentration camps and murdered by the nazis.
The Jewish memorial was very abstract. They weren't going for aesthetically pleasing I suppose, because I could that possibly represent something so horrible. It is made up of random, almost coffin shaped cement blocks. From the outside They are low and different Hieghts, some even missing. As you move towards the center they get higher and higher and are all in rows luring over you. To me it seemed like it represented the situation that occurred for the Jewish citizens of Europe. From the outside things could still be seen, but there were abstractions from time to time in you way and as you move toward the middle you start to feel closed in, and filed. The ground was all uneven, and there was no weaving. Just around one block or down the row back to the outside. It was designed to be left for personal interpretation. After meeting back up with the group, this was something you would not want to walk through with others, the girl we were with explained what some of the things the architect himself thought about going into it's design, again leaving much for interpretation. First the symmetry. Everything is in straight rows, so you cannot get lost. This is unlike the maze and trap the victims of the holocaust were in within the concentration camp. Also from each point you stand in it you can see down a row, an evaluate the time it would take you to get out. This was important to the design of what it represented, because the Jews during the war could not determine how long they would be in the concentration camps. They couldn't predict when the torture would be over, or if it ever would. This was an important feature to the designer for those who came to walk around it, that they could know they could get out. The interpretation I suppose depends on the person visiting and there experiences.
On a lighter note, I got of the train in the middle of that. Today it only took me two hours to find my hostel that was about a ten minute subway ride, on probably the simplest subway line ever created. Was completely clueless as to where I wS getting out though. The streets again aren't labeled, and when you arrive in a new city you do not want to lose you last known point on the directions. After you do finally venture of and orientate yourself you feel like a complete fool. Notice how I did not refer to myself in the first person there. Had to take 1000 Czech crowns out. Didn't know what that meant at the ATM, but it sounded like a good number. It was the second one down. Things are suppose to be very inexpensive her, but it is next to impossible to tell when under a bottle of water it says 22 or a meal is 189 . I'm pretty sure where I got take out though, I could determine it was a rip off, first because it sucked, and secondly, because I got my whole weekends worth of groceries for only 20 less. Yea, ok then. Convert to euro, then round to imaginarily money symbol of so e sort, add 1000 and that's the price. I'm just going to not buy anything here I've decided.
My hostel is very central, literally right on the water. I have no I dea why it was the cheapest one I found. It's quite, clean and a kitchen. A neat old building. All the buildings here are neat, and there is remarkably impressive architecture, a lot dating back to the golden medieval era. The key is like the old skull keys for the door. The hostel I walked into first because I couldn't find the place wS like a hostel gone night club, and absolutely packed. I'm not feeling that in the least right now. A lot of the younger groups of people I've come across so far, and I hate to sound this way, come off very obnoxious, and ignorant. I had to go to another hostel, where they call a guy to come walk you to the one on the river, check you in, get paid, then they leave you to your own demise. Alright, gorgeous old building, right on the river, six person room to myself, all the other rooms are full, so he says, definitely haunted. It's cool, if it is it's not dark creepy haunted.
People drink beer in public everywhere here too. On the subway in Berlin people were just slugging away, and people here just post up in the part, or anywhere. The club scene here is suppose to be massive. A crew of like ten, had to not been a day over fourteen, boys kept me company along part of my walk politely offering me a swig from there orange two liter soda bottle, asking me with crossed eyes I'd I'd like to go to party with them. Hey girl, as they kept referring to me, come to club with us. Haha. I don't think they have a drinking age here. Also, hardly anyone from here speaks English,Making it even more difficult to find your way when you first arrive. Every time I feel helpless, or bad for myself, I just have to tell myself, don't even go there, you asked for it. Unless Czechs have to deal with English speaking people, like in hostel and such, they really don't speak any. Makes sense, but iwas so used to being the spoiled ignorant America haha.
Strolling through Berlin in the morning, and walking down the river in Prague by night. Cant really complain What a glorious Friday.
Of to sleep a little earlier than I have been to get my sight seeing in. Take care, and love you all. Chou
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