So on Monday...

I could totally picture myself living in Berlin. There is so much to do and see, and all kinds of people. Our first day, we planned on treating ourselves to some all you can eat sushi at a restaurant recommended by my guide book. We find it, and its completely empty with an open front that allowed construction dust in. The one guy working was anything but helpful and this place was not rubbing me the right way (Strike 2 for the food recommendations by LetsGo. Strike 1 was buckwheat crepes in Paris). So we left and ate "kebaps" instead. I think 4 out of every 5 meals have been kebabs, but they're so cheap and delicious and warm. The book semi redeemed itself by leading us to a fried chicken beer garden. We got berliner pilsners and half a chicken each. Apparently, you don't eat with your hands over here because we got some disgusted looks as we tore into our chicken, but forks and fried chicken is so much less efficient!

Since we hadn't done much that day, we went on a pub crawl that night. There were like 90 people being shuffled from one place to the next, resulting in a huge cluster. There was a big group of study abroad kids from GaTech, small world. And a group of Brazilians who were extremely blunt and upfront about what they were looking for, and who enjoyed artacking girls' faces, aka face raping. That hapoened to me multiple times! First, by one who said he would visit me in the States, then by 4 all at once, then by one who said I was "the chinese that all the guys wanted to kiss." Brazilians are so weird.

I learned that Germany was very ready to forget all the bad things that happened, but would always remember the victims through memorials and exhibits aimed at reminding people what intolerance and hatred will lead to. We visited Sachsenhausen, the model concentration camp which was right outside Berlin. It was in a small town, and you had to walk through residential streets to get to the entrance. The camp was huge and eerily creepy. Almost all of the prisoner barracks were destroyed so replicas were put up. One of the original buildings that was still there was the pathology building. This was the creepiest. The walls and floors were tiled and there were two autopsy platforms still there. The basement was a mortuary and it just looked like a scene from a horror movie. The foundation was all that remained from Station Z, the last stop for prisoners. This is where the crematoriums, gas showers, and "medical exam"/execution rooms were. It took us 6 hours to see everything there. We did an audio guide, and the accounts that it had from some of the witnesses were horrific.

On to happier things... A lot of Berlin was new and modern since 80% had been destroyed during the war. There was only one Nazi building that remained and it was now the tax office. The Berlin wall was a lot smaller than I expected, and was a simple concrete wall 8 ft high with barbed wire on top. There was a gay pride festival going on and free love all over the place. The wursts were cheap and yummy, and came in a bun that was 6 inches too short. Three nights in Berlin just wasn't enough. The public transportation system was vast and extensive, and we definitely pushed our luck by not buying tickets everytime we hopped on a train, because on our way to the train station to leave for Frankfurt, we got caught and had to pay €40 each. And then the transportation gods wanted to punish us more because an hour later, we dscovered that our eurail passes were valid for the train we got caught on and could have easily gotten out of paying the fine and being slightly humiliated.

Frankfurt is one of the few cities in Europe with a skyline, as the center for EU banking.A city arena was set up with food and beer and a huge screen for people to gather and watch the world cup matches. It reminded me of the area outside the Superbowl or outside the FL-GA game, but smaller.

Now were on our way to Stuttgart to meet my my sister and brother in law! It's Patrick's last day before he heads back to Dublin and then home :( and I'll tour southern Germany with my siblings before venturing on my own again to Florence, Rome, London, and Edinburgh.