Day 75

Hallo! That is German not a spelling mistake.
Made it to Berlin in one piece. Very hard for me to say bye to Amsterdam but we had to get the trip started.

Berlin is one interesting city with tons of historic stories and memories of the wars. We took a tour of the city this morning which was nearly 4 hours of walking in 36 degree weather! Very hot day, but well worth it. Unfortunately a lot of the old buildings were ruined during the bombings of the city at the end of the second world war so it was a lot of "this is where this happened" instead of actually pointing to the building we were discussing. We went through the headquarters of the Nazis, where Hitler lived, where Hitler killed himself, the Berlin wall, the holocaust memorial, the famous spot where university students burned tons of Jewish books, and others.

I found the spot where Hitler killed himself to be interesting, and even in the heat got the chills just thinking about it. He was underground in his bunker with his newly wed wife when he finally realised the Russians were close and he would NOT win the war. After him and his wife committed suicide they ordered their bodies to be burned. Today the spot of his bunker is an old parking lot, and where the bodies were burned are now beside a big garbage bin. Personally I think that is the best memorial for him.

After the city tour we ventured to another part of the Berlin wall called the East Side Gallery. The U-ban (metro) ride was fun, I made a friend with a little boy on the trip. He was sitting straight across from me looking completely bored, so I started to make faces at him. At first he was hesitant to make one back but he looked at his dad who wasn´t paying attention and then happily flashed his tongue at me! We went back and forth for a little bit until a German lad joined in with these crazy eye tricks. Jessica joined in shortly after then the little boys dad popped his head up smiling. Haha these little moments on the trip seem to entertain me the most. The little boy kept waving at me as I got off at our stop, he is probably thinking ´Oh those crazy Americans!´

Anyways we finally got to the Berlin wall, which is protected by law because to artists have graffiti all over it. It was really neat to see all different parts of the wall with all these amazing designs and strong messages of peace. After 10 min of walking the wall we saw about 10 police trucks rushing to the end of the street we were headed. So naturally we questioned if continuing would be smart. We noticed enough people walking from that direction calm and unpaniced so we continued, and within minutes this giant group of people were marching on the street. They had a few different cars blasting music and people were dancing and drinking beer as they marched through with police escort. We got handed a paper but German is not my thing. Jessica took some German in high school and read something about standing up for your right, and then some stuff about pop music? So whatever that march was about it was a pleasant surprise.

Tonight is our last night in Berlin, tomorrow we check out and then take an overnight bus to Czech Republic! I have heard Prague is beautiful so with that said I will let you all know how it goes in a few days time!

Auf wiederson!!