Burlin' round Berlin

With Prague at our backs we caught the train to Berlin. The scenery was varied enough, with grassy plains, quaint mountain villages and abandoned snowy ghost towns. We thought to defer to the professionals to see the sights of Berlin. For a city 9 times the size of Paris we had good reason. Turns out the tour guide was a good-hearted Australian (complete with 'thick, twangy, plebian accent' much to Alyssa’s bemusement, something Stu would deny in the coming days in his best attempt at a 'finely rounded, classy English accent', failing stupendously).

The greatest challenge of the tour would be the biting cold, which turned to snow as we hit upon the famous Checkpoint Charlie and Berlin Wall. To be honest they were fairly overrated. I thought the wall would be this huge grey structure with lasers and missiles and the bones of the brave and stupid piling up below. Instead it just looked like something from a Melbourne Sports complex. If you didnt have a tour guide you'd never even realise it was TEH WALL OF DOOM!!11. So, yeah.


The city can feel a bit grey and grim at times, with bullet-holes scarring many buildings. One thing that cheers everyone up is Berlins take on the 'Green Man' traffic light. ‘Ampelman’ is a happy, forward moving, good communist worker who is striding to work and symbolising everything the government wanted you to be. A little piece of propaganda and brain-washing goes a long way.

After the tour we visited the Jewish Holocaust Memorial - a sobering exhibition of the stories of many victims. It does have a cool kind of memorial/artworky/maze thing on top of it, which is kind of fun to play in. What is this memorial for again? Dunno, keep running between the blocks - wiii!!

Movie time! Get your servings of lame here and here.

We visited the town of Orainenburg (Onionburger to Stu) for more horrific crimes against humanity. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp, supposedly the first designed by an architect in an attractive geometric pattern (a marvel of art which unfortunately escaped the attention of its inhabitants). We got a handheld device meant to give us an audio tour ("Just like having a real tour guide, right? - Stu, who was very wrong) and wandered into the foggy grounds. A highlight (lowlight?) was seeing the site of what used to be the ovens, which could each incinerate 6 corpses at a time. It was hard to grasp that the disposal of human bodies had been turned into such a soulless, industrial process. Dusk fell more quickly than we expected and we were glad to walk out of the gate to return the useless audio device (which was still muttering pointless facts in a monotone voice like the titles of movies officers at the camp watched).

Frrrrom Praha to Berlin, we never made it to any discos unfortunately. While keen to party, the tours had taken their toll, and we were content to cosy up with a book or in Alyssa's case: Stu's DS Lite (warning: Sudoku ADDICT). Training home we reflected on the sights and sounds of Central Europe and frankly were glad to be back in good old Holland - the land of too much cheese.