Berlin (Part 2)

So, after a fun filled day of museums and touring I decided to spend my second day in Berlin at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It is found about 45 minutes (by U-Bahn, aka public transport) north of Berlin. This camp is one of the earliest and served as the SS training camp and model camp that most of the other camp were suppose to look like. I went on a guided tour of the camp with the same company that did the free walking tour of Berlin the day before. The tour was alright and I'm glad I did it considering this was my first trip to a concentration camp, it was helpful to have someone there showing me stuff that I wouldn't have known to look for. However, as I was with a large group, we can only move as fast as the slowest person, and well, there were a lot of people who were dragging their feet through places that I personally wouldn't have spent that much time in. This is the reason why I don't like going to museums and stuff with people. It was a neat experience though and I'm really glad I went. There is Solviet propaganda everywhere since they were the ones to liberate the camp in 1945. It's interesting, but also quite disturbing because most people then don't talk about the fact that the Solviets continued to use these camps much in the same way as they were used by the Nazis well into the 60s. I guess since they were on the "good" side during WWII it makes it ok (?).

I got back from the camp about 5:30ish and met with my Aussi buddy to go see the Holocaust Memorial. (why not do all this depressing stuff all in one day?) It is a very well laid out memorial and looks at the stories of Jewish individuals and families who lived under Nazi control. Very interesting. I had no idea that almost half of the Jews killed came from Poland and that there were very few from Germany itself. Perhaps this is because of the intensive emigration policy the Nazi had during the 30s(?). An interesting day to say the least.

After the memorial, we headed back to the hostel and met up with two americans who were also staying there (they were on vacation from their university in southern Germany where they are studying for the year). We headed off to a place called "White Trash" near our hostel which had been recommended to us by the tour guide. It was originally a Chinese restaurant which had been bought by a guy from France, a Brit and a German. Needless to say, they figured they couldn't cook Chinese food but wanted to keep the amazing decor so, you walk into this crazy oriental place and order burgers and stuff. Very weird. Apparently it is the place where all the young people (university aged) go to hang out and has live bands and such. A live band (playing some kind of english country music) was playing that night and by the time we left it was difficult to get out the door because the place was packed. It was a great way to end my time in Berlin and I got the chance to meet some really cool people. I've decided that I really do enjoy travelling alone. You never know who you are going to meet or what you'll do on a given day. All in all a really fun experience.

Berlin is an interesting city because so much rebuilding is going on right now. There are over 50 museums and since I only made it to 3 I definitely have to go back. Plus it will be really interesting to see how the city changes over the next 10 years. What a great place to start my travels and I think it was a really great city to introduce me to travelling alone. The people were really nice, helpful and enough people spoke English (and along with my very poor German) that I didn't have any problems communicating.