At the beginning of June I went to Berlin. My hostel was on a street which was the sight of a famous protest during WWII which I learned about in one of my Smith classes. The protest was by a bunch of Aryan women whose Jewish husbands had been arrested, some even deported to Auschwitz already, and the rest were being held in a building on my street which no longer exists. The women protested outside the building to get their husbands back, and they made such a fuss that the men were brought back, even those already sent off to concentration camps, and there was no retribution on the women or their husbands. How awesome!
To be perfectly honest, while the sights in Berlin were great, I didn't have that great of a time until the last night. I got lost countless times- while first trying to get into the city from the airport, I took the right train in the wrong direction and ended up in Rangsdorf, aka middle of nowhere. I was later told that it's a good thing I'm blonde and that I didn't make it known that I don't speak German, because it's not safe there. Great. Anyway, I learned that day that I'm a true traveler: I was able to get myself back into the city and to my hostel without simply taking the same train back in the other direction and then figuring out how to get to my hostel from there, as the directions I was given were no longer useful.
Once I finally arrived in Berlin, I had a hard time finding my hostel despite the fact that I was in reality quite close to it, simply because it's a small street and the map was weird. Some people were really nice and spoke English with me, but there was a salesgirl who yelled at me.
At that point I was tired and hungry and not having it, so I rested in the hostel for a bit and then went to find schnitzel, which, for those of you who have never had it, is essentially a giant chicken finger (assuming you get chicken and not veal). I ran around a little bit to see Museum Island and get lost a bit more, and then, honestly, I just went to bed, because as I said before, I just wasn't having it.
The next day was a bit better: I went to a museum I've forgotten the name of but it was essentially about daily life under a socialist regime. They even had an old car which had been made especially for East Germany, because steel wasn't available so it was some other material. Anyway, here's me in it:
Then I headed off to a concentration camp! I should specify that that explanation point isn't a "Aren't concentration camps cool?!" It's a, "This is something I really wanted to see and didn't think I'd be able to so I'm glad I did!" I saw Sachsenhausen up in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. There are tons of pictures with explanations on my facebook, so please go there to look at them. But I will tell you a bit about the history of the concentration camp that I didn't put with those pictures:
Originally the SA took over an old brewery in Oranienburg to turn into a camp for political prisoners. When the SS took over, they also took over the camp, and they used labor from the prisoners there to build the Sachsenhausen camp nearby. It was planned by an architect and everything, and the guide said the only "bad" thing about it was that the design made it impossible to expand the camp, as it as in a triangular shape with walls. They did eventually expand the camp, but it was outside the walls. They had a shooting...ditch? I don't know what the term is. And they also had gas chambers and ovens, though those were built later and destroyed by the Nazis before abandoning the camp. They conducted medical experiments and killed patients in the infirmary, and there are mass graves that were discovered by the Soviets later on. After WWII ended, the camp was taken over by the Soviets who used it for political prisoners again.
The majority of the buildings aren't there anymore, or have been heavily renovated. To give visitors an idea of what it used to look like, they have building outlines filled in with rocks to show where buildings used to stand.
That took me about all afternoon. After getting back to Berlin, I grabbed dinner and then headed back to the hostel to sleep.
The next day I went to Checkpoint Charlie, which was the American checkpoint near the Berlin Wall and across from the Soviet one.
(Checkpoint Charlie above, and what's left of the Berlin Wall below).
After that I did a small walking tour past a bunch of buildings which were important in the Third Reich, like Hitler's bunker and such. Most of them are no longer standing, though a few remain and have been converted into other uses. Then I headed over to the Brandenburg Gate:
My dad specifically requested a picture of me in front of it, so here you go, Dad! Sorry for the awkward fence, not much I could do about that.
Would you all like to know where the American embassy is in Berlin? Why, it's right next to the Brandenburg Gate! So if you lose your passport or something, you can kill two birds with one stone haha.
Finally, I met G's friend S for dinner, along with my professor for the aforementioned Smith class, DB. I had Vietnamese food for the first time! It was great and I had fun. They got me on the train for the airport after (no getting lost!) and I headed home.
So that's Berlin. I know I didn't have as great a time there because I only had 118 photos from the trip- normally I have at least 150, if not 200 or more. Oh well, I'm glad I at least saw it, and I had fun with all the WWII-related stuff.
On to what's been going on in Paris: I've been working from this week, which basically means goofing off and not getting enough work done. Oh well. Why work when you're in Paris?!
M came to visit with her family from the states, and it was great to see her. C took us all to a cute little restaurant near the Eiffel Tower with delicious food, and we caught up for a bit. I also went to the Louvre with them on Wednesday night and discovered that some ticket checkers will accept my Swiss residency (if you're under 26 and in the EU you can get in for free at night) and others won't, because technically Switzerland isn't in the EU, it just has accords with them. I had a great time, despite getting super lost because I didn't have a map. I will definitely be going back because there's no way I could see everything in one night. Anyway, here's some pics of me:
The first is me with winged victory (also creating another video from 2009) and the second of me with the Mona Lisa (I got all the way to the front of the crowd!).
I also recently took a walk up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, and I saw the Invalides as well. On Friday A, F, and I went to Disney Paris for the day! There are pictures on Facebook, but it was fun, though a bit cold.
Today I went for a short walk to Notre Dame and did some touristy shopping. I was going to go inside Notre Dame finally but there was a HUGE line, probably because it was raining, so I said to myself, "I live 5 minutes from here. I am not waiting a half hour to get into this church. I will come back later!" and I did.
Random things about Paris:
- Some people are really weird. There was some man randomly jumping and talking to me outside a pharmacy the other day, and I had two guys say stuff to me as I walked by- not harassing me or anything, just asking weird questions.
- YouTube has so many more ads here! It drives me insane.
- Metro tickets are the bane of my existence. I have so many of them, they accumulate in my pockets, I'm never sure which ones I've used and which I haven't. Sigh.
