Day 4 part 2

(Writing this from Prague. I LOVE it here. It's the most perfect place! But anyways, back to day 4...)

Here are some more sights from the walking tour:

The Brandenburg Gate. This gate survived WW2. It's Berlin's most beloved structure. It's super old (built in the 1730s).



Here's a rare picture of me. It's rare because if I want a picture of myself, I have to ask someone else to take it of me which can be a bit embarassing. So, I can't be picky about the way I look in pictures.




We stood by the Adlon Hotel where I got a better picture of it. If you haven't already guessed, this is the answer to the Pop Quiz from a couple days ago. The Hotel Adlon is where Michael Jackson dangled his baby over the belcony. Supposedly it was from a room on side of the hotel.



Then we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I thought this memorial was super interesting. The architect, Peter Eisenman didn't give us much clues as to the meaning of this memorial. We are able to interpret it however we want. On the outside, the blocks are short and scattared. As we walk down the rows, the blocks grow taller and more structured. It creates a sense of isolation because, even though I was in the heart of the monument with over 30 other tour members, I could only see quick glimpses of them as they too made their way across.





From there, we visited the site of Hitler's Bunker, which is now just a parking lot for some apartments.



Then, we saw the last (or one of the last) Nazi building's still standing. Today, it's used as some office building, but it is often used in Nazi movies like Valkyrie. Our tour guide told a funny story. I guess a few years ago, he was leading a tour on filming day for the movie Valkryie. For the movie, they had to transform the building to make it look the way it did during the Third Reich. They hung huge red flags with swastika's on them. He said he was leading the tour, turned the corner, saw all the flags, then saw the mouths drop and eyes widen on the faces of all the tour members. They thought it was real, but of course, it was just Hollywood.



After that, we were free to do our own thing. I was happy to break away from the group and do some exploring on my own. I walked down a street that had malls and lots of shopping. I didn't buy anything.

I eventually made my way back to Museum Island. I decided to give another museum a try. I usually love museums, so it was weird that I didn't like the one I went to the day before. This time, I had an audioguide so I was able to learn something and understand exactly what it was I was looking at.

The Alte Museum (Old Museum) had lots of Greek, Rome and Etruscan stuff.







A hermaphrodite... Where I finally realized why the word is "hermaphrodite" (Hermes+Aphrodite).


I saw two statues with dogs, but I think this one looks like Roxie.


Juilius Caesar and Cleopatra




After the museum, I bought a sandwich. It was pretty good, except the bread here is super tough! But I liked the sandwich because it had butter and cheese inside! I don't know why I've never thought of doing that! Yummm calories!



I ate my sandwich on the way home. Surprisingly, I found my way home using the U-bahn fairly quickly.

I'm getting more comfortable speaking German words to get help (hello, good morning, please, thank you, and water no gas). One thing is, many German's speak some English but if you don't approach them using German, they generally won't be very helpful. They'll just start speaking to you in German and act all annoyed. So basically, all I have to do is say hello and please in German and they'll feel more comfortable speaking to me in English. Realizing this has helped so much.

Before I went home, I bought some candies from a grocery store. I went back to my hotel, dropped off my stuff and then went back out to do more shopping. It was my last opportunity to shop before leaving in the morning and I wanted to pick up a few things to remember my trip.

When I got home, my roomie was about to leave to view the Brandenburg Gate at night. I decided to call it a night. I skyped with JR for a bit then went to bed around 11pm. Ahhhh sleep :)

(oh yeah... same thing about spelling and grammar... i don't care if it's wrong. Oh and some of my facts might be wrong too. Haha. And leave me some comments, I want to know who is reading this!)

Day 4

Oh yeah, excuse my spelling and grammar errors. When I ask blogger to do my ABC check, they highlight EVERY word because they're thinking I'm trying to write in German. I don't feel like figuring out why this is happening, so just excuse my poor spelling.

After only about 4.5 hours of sleep, my annoying alarm clock went off. Ugh. I took a shower and went to breakfast (late again). I quickly ate my breakfast and got on the bus.

My only planned activity for the day was the Historical Walking Tour. This was the BEST tour. Our tour guide was Amercan but he's been living in Berlin for like 6 years. He was extremely knowledgeable and he communicated his knowledge to us so clearly! I learned so much from this walking tour. I wish that this was the first thing we did in Berlin, it would have been a perfect orientation to the city! But better late than never.


One of our first stops on the tour was on museum island. This is a picture of the Alte Museum. It probably looks familiar to you because Hitler used this area to lead huge Nazi rallies!





One interesting thing about many of the the buildings we saw today is that you can see lighter colored patches all over their facade. These buildings were heavily damaged during WW2. The light color patches on the facade are actually covered up bullet holes! It's taken decades and a lot of money to restore these buildings to their pre-war quality.

We continued down the road to this memorial. I can't remember what it's called, but it's a memorial for fallen soldiers. It depicts a grieving mother holding a fallen soldier, her son. Directly above the memorial, a circle was carved out of the ceiling exposing the mother and son to the elements 365 days of the year just as the soldiers were exposed to harsh conditions during the war.




Across the street, we stood at the sight of a Nazi book burning. Super sad. Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 or, more recently, the Koran-burning preacher guy. But I loooooooved the memorial there. It was impossible to get a decent picture of it, but I'll describe it. On the ground in the center of the courtyard area, there is a slab of glass. You can look down into the ground (through the glass) and see tall rows of empty white bookshelves. And apparently (I couldn't see it at the time) in the middle, there is a light bulb, always lit to symbolize that it is possible to destroy the book, but you can't destroy the idea <3

Next to the memorial is a plaque which translates to "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn." Which was a quote from Heinrich Heine who lived long before the third reich. That quote is so true that it totally creeps me out!





From where we were standing, we could look across the street and see Humboldt University. Many famous scholars have been associated with this university. Einstein, the brothers Grimm, Marx, and Engels to name a few! Anyways, I can't find the picture that I took of the Humboldt, but here's a picture of a nearby building... I think a faculty building for Humboldt (?).



Then we made our way down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's most famous structure which miraculously survived WW2.





We took a quick bathroom break. Here, you have to pay to use public restrooms. Also, if there is a restroom attendant, you have to tip them like 50 euro.




...I'm going to stop here.... I'm tired! I'll blog more tomorrow on my way to Prague.