Deutschland

Well firstly, my last day in Paris I had lunch with Vanessa (another camp friend) - it was really such a lovely way to finish my Parisian time, just having a quiet day, wandering around in the sunshine a little & hanging out in a Paris cafe (thanks Prilly!)

Then in the evening I got on a bus for the overnight trip to Berlin - as always, not a lot of fun, but it gets the job done.  I felt surprisingly okay for the rest of the day, and spent the afternoon on a free walking tour around Berlin - saw lots of the significant sights and certainly learnt a lot about the history of Berlin & things that happened during the war & when the wall was up. 

Yesterday I took a day trip with a Canadian couple I met at the hostel out to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp / Memorial.   It's about 45 mins out of Berlin, and it was just so weird thinking about what had gone on there.  A lot of the original buildings were pulled down, but there's some original stuff & reconstructed buildings, and various monuments.  There was an absolutely overloaded audio tour, so that we ended up spending most of the day there - and felt completely flooded with information. 

In the evening a little group including an Australian couple went out ostensibly to find some music.  We didn't end up finding anywhere satisfying, and instead watched a laser/fireworks show & drank some German beer (yes, even I drank beer!). 

Today I managed to cram in as many depressing info-overload sites as possible: a wall memorial and church, the information centre for the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the Topography of Terrors exhibit.   So basically a whole lot of stuff about segregation, murder, torture, etc.  But all, of course, very worthwhile seeing - I just think it's so important for people to be educated about these things. 

I did break the day in the middle with a stop at the Reichstag - the German parliament building - which you can go up and look out across Berlin from their roof-top terrace (they do have a glass dome you can go up usually, but it was closed for cleaning this week).  And I also took a wander through the Tiergarten - full of lots of beautiful autumn trees above & perfectly crunchy leaves underfoot.