A city that is allowed to have scaffholding throughout!!

- Matt typing -

Thursday the 9th of October

After a couple of busy days in Krakow we boarded a night train to Berlin. The previous night we booked our tickets and were shocked at the actual price of these things! we had originally wanted to get a twin sleeper for just Krystal and I but when we were quoted the price we had to change tactics and take the 6 person sleeper! Turned out we got lucky and our 6 sleeper onl had 2 people, Krystal and I.

Got some good sleep (more than expected) and arrived into Berlin about 7;30 that morning. We headed to our hostel and to our luck we managed to get into our room early so we could freshen up before heading into town. Due to the miserable day we thought something indoors would be in order so we headed to the Topographie des Terrors exhibit that was all about the crimes that were comitted by the Nazi's. Upon arrival we found out that the musuem was currently being reconstructed and it was temerarily outside exhibition! Handy considering it was raining! So we stood in the rain for a while before deciding today might be a good day to get up to date with everything else, ie washing and planning our next few days here. Once back on track we went into town for dinner and the 2 of us shared a meal (well a platter see below) which I was rather impressive with especially Krystal as she managed to eat her half of the plate!!!

Friday the 10th of October.

We headed into town nice and early and arranged to do a walking tour around Berlin. This had been suggested to us by many people as its a great way to see alot of historical sites and get an idea of the city and so forth. This tour went for just over 4 hours and it was worth every cent. Throughout the tour we visited numerous sites ( I won't bore you with them all) and our guide who was very informative talked us through the troubled past the Berlin has encountered, both pre and post WW2. The main sites that we enjoyed was the Brandenburger Tor, the Bebel Platz (place where the first book burning by the Nazi's took place), and the Holocaust Denkmal (memorial for the European Jews that lost their lives during the WWII). This place was a very contrversial memorial due to its nature (only directed at the Jews of Europe that were killed and not others like Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc) but also because the company that was given the contract to paint the site with anti graffitti paint was also the same company that suplied the poisenous gas Zyklon-B that the Nazi's used to exterminate the Jews at Auschwitz. We also went to the site of Hitler's bunker where he was married and committed suicide.

Once we completed our walking tour we headed back to the Berliner Dom and took some photo's then went for a drink and some dinner before calling it a night after a big day on our feet.

Saturday the 11th of October.

- Krystal typing -

Today we decided to have a little bit of a sleep in and actually stay out at night rather than feeling buggered from our big days on our feet. We were out the door at about 10 and were greeted by the best day of a trip so far, blue skies 20 degrees - actually didnt have to wear two jumpers! We headed straight to the berlin wall to get some happy snaps and then headed towards check point charlie (the USA and Russian crossing point within the berlin wall) to the check point charlie muesum, however there were boards up everywhere around the check point with berlin wall information. Pretty much a muesum on the foot path that was free. So we decided to give the muesum a miss as it looked very gimicky. We stood around for an hour or two having a read and were both very glad we did, as all the pieces started to fell into place we had a much better understanding of the whole history of the wall - it all began to make sense. For those of you who dont know, as we didnt either, in a VERY small nutshell the wall itselft was originaly a 160km long circle enclosing the allied countries occuping the west side of Berlin from the Soivet Union occupied region of east Germany.

We wandered around for a little bit, and noticed that where the berlin wall has been pulled down (very little of it still stands) a coble stone path has been paved to show everyone where the wall once was. The coble stones were in the strangest locations, sometimes running in the middle of the road and even through the middle of new buildings.

After so much reading Matt was eager to get his bratwurst (german sausgae) fix while he still could so we headed for some lunch and then decided to go for a wander in the park since the day was so good. Had a little lay and enjoyed the sun and the German parilament view while smashing Matt in our continually running game of rummy!

We then headed into the restaurant district of town and has some din dins and maybe a few drinks, and possibly a shi sha as well!

Sunday the 12th of October.

Here we are today, both just made a quick couple of phone calls back home. Travel blog is now up todate and all photos are backed up! Berlin has been awesome, we both agree it is one of our fav cities (I think not only because it's really beautiful but also because the history of the city is far more recent then the rest of europe that we are much more interested and can relate much easier).

Anyway hope all is well!

Love Matt and Krystal