Day 45 - HALF WAY!!!

So today marks the halfway point in my trip, YAY!

I got up pretty early this morning and met the girls from yesterday (4 girls from Perth) and we decided to go on the walking, but as it turns out, it started at 10am, not 10.30 like we all thought... so we all took our umbrellas (as it was SOOOOO rainy) and decided to go to checkpoint charlie.

Well, that didn't work either because there was some political rally, and they blocked all the streets off... Sooooo we went to the Jewish memorial.

This WAS open! So we went under the memorial, and read all about the history of the Holocaust. There was a lot of information just on people who both survived and died, and families that were wiped out. It was pretty intense I have to say, but it is meant as a memorial, not exactly a museum, so you can search a database for names and things like that, and there are stories just on average people to attempt to create a memorial to every person. It's really quite moving to see such a big memorial to just average people and families.

After this we DID make it back to the hostel in time for the later walking tour (I got currywurst on the way, google it, it's amazing!) And then we started the walking tour.

It was REALLY informative, I highly recommend the Berlin walking tour. The guy we had was English, but had lived here for 7 and a half years, and he knew his stuff. He took us to heaps of amazing places, told us about a LOT of history, I feel FAR more knowledgeable about German history than ever before. He even took us to the area (now a car park) above the former bunker of where Hitler died and was buried, and the remains of the Berlin wall. The whole tour was a bit... Sombre I guess you could say? It was very informative about the history but at the same time, it kind of made me feel really bad about humanity in general.

I have to explain myself a bit futher, I really do like Berlin, it's a really pretty big open city, but... It's not a place where I feel comfortable being happy and having a good time. There's so much history and reminders of what has previously happened here, in terms of the second world war and the cold war the holocaust... It's not a place where I feel like I want to go out and have a good time, I feel more like I should respect the history this place has, and think a lot about that instead... It's very hard to explain, but I hope I made some sense there. I am glad I've made the decision to not go to a concentration camp... I'm not quite sure how I would handle it.

Anyway, on the way home from the 4 and a half hour walking tour, I got some fish and chips, was really good, but you know, just fish and chips. And then I came back to my room because I'm exhausted and cold!

All in all, I can't say it was a 'good' day, but it was a VERY interesting, informative and thought provoking day.

I'm not going to sum up with things that made me happy or sad... It doesn't seem very appropriate here. This isn't really a place I want to make jokes about.