Hey everyone!! Yesterday was quite the day. According to the Apple Health App (something we're a bit obsessed with), we walked 26,663 steps. For a better idea of just how much that is, it equates to 10.5 miles. A long, long way. My muscles ache everywhere. But to be honest, for me it was the best day hands down.
We started relatively late for us, at 9. We took the train to the Brandenburg Gate, where we met our beautiful tour guide, Rob. He seriously blessed us with his presence. Definitely one of the better tour guides we've had, though we've been fighting over whether Michael from Hamburg was better or not. I'm team Rob all the way.
We saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was actually a lot less grandiose than you might expect. That being said, I found it to be really worthwhile. It basically consists of a bunch of concrete blocks of different sizes, getting bigger towards the middle. On the edges of the memorial, the blocks were at ground level, so you don't even notice them, and in the middle they were so big they were all you could see. According to Rob, the artist never specifically stated the meaning behind his work, but leaves it up to the viewer's interpretation.
Next we visited the parking lot that resides over the bunker where Hitler killed himself. There's no memorial or anything for obvious reasons, but there still were quite a few tour groups there with us.
We also got to see pieces of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, and a lot of old buildings (though mostly it was new replicas of old buildings because World War II).
Then after the tour, we got time to see what we wanted to see in Berlin. I went with a group to the Topography of Terror, which Tony astutely described as a walking textbook. That being said, I found it really interesting to read about the Nazi regime and see different photos and documents. After that, we went to the memorial for the homosexuals killed in the Holocaust, which I found to be a lot less deep than the Jewish one. It basically was a big concrete block with a window inside where you could see a screen playing a clip of two men kissing. To me, it was a statement of pride, of openness in a way unheard of in the forties. It seemed to be more prideful than mournful. What I also found very interesting was how it was surrounded by flowers, something nonexistent in the Jewish memorial.
Then we went back to the hotel for a quick break, and came back to see the East Side Gallery, the longest existing strip of the Berlin Wall.
(It is necessary to take down many walls)
Then we grabbed dinner, which for me consisted of a croissant, a banana and fries. For our last activity of the night, we went to a cabaret acrobatic show. It was honestly a surreal experience and kind of hard to describe, so I asked the class what they thought.
"The most Berlin thing that has ever occurred. Like Cirque Du Soleil on steroids with a postmodern twist." -Eden
"The show was really weird and I had no clue what was happening 90% of the time." -Meghan
"Made me wanna quit the potential the Academy has given me to become a cirque performer." -Tony
"It was a trip." -Christina
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