berlin...

I have spent the day touring Berlin, and don't want to forget some of the things I've seen. (Also, typing on a German keyboard seems to only be getting more difficult for me).

Our hostel offers walking tours of the city everyday, so today I was guided around Berlin by Bartleby Pole, someone who should possibly exist in only Harry Potter books. He was funny and informative, and serious when appropriate. And also extremely British, complete with loaded French jokes and all. He took us time travelling basically, and we started with a lot of Prussian buildings. The Catholic and Protestant cathedrals that were built across from each other in a gesture of friendship are my favorite.

We saw the old city library, the Platz that was the cite of major Nazi book burnings. We saw, in fact, a lot of buildings that used to be Third Reich and are now used, obviously, for much different functions. Working in them must be very strange.

Within the Nazi-era part of the tour, we ended up standing on top of the exact spot of Hitler's bunker, the ground of which is still intact a few meters underground. We saw the area where Goebels dragged his body out after he killed himself, where the Soviets found and identified him a few days later. Needless to say, it was one of the more disturbing places I've been, even though it's now just a spot of grass, surrounded by apartments. I cannot imagine living in those apartments, because you'd wake up each day to look out at Hitler's old bunker, and just beyond that, the line where the inner Berlin wall used to stand, right next to what was known as the 'Death Zone'. Back to that in a moment.

We went to the controversial Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, which, even though apparently no one here can agree on whether or not it is an appropriate way to remember, I found incredibly moving and overwhelming. It is just a huge area of gray slabs of rock rising out of the ground, of various different sizes. The ground isn't level, and in the middle it turns into basically a maze. Youcan easily get lost, lose the people you came in with, trip on the uneven ground, and look around to see absolutely no one, since you're in a claustrophic row of rocks. The feeling is so disconcerting and overwhelming, that I found it an entirely appropriate memorial.

I saw the remains of the outer Berlin wall, another incredibly weird experience. It's completely decrepit now, but a line of stone marks where the rest of it would have gone, and our guide had us sit in the 'Death Zone', the area between the inner and outer walls full of landmines, traps that set off machine guns, watch towers manned with armed guards with orders to kill, sand to catch footprints, and various other ways to make sure no one ever got out of East Berlin. The number of people that apparently died trying to cross the wall is much higher than I thought. All we did was stand in the replica of Checkpoint Charlie and pretend to be smugglers.

All of that being said, Berlin is a beautiful city. The Brandenberger Tor alone is worth coming here for. Tomorrow or Wednesday we want to go into the Reichtstag buildings. A river runs straight through it, it's got all the old churches you need in any big European city, and covers what might be considered the most important events of recent history. Tonight we went in a church that was almost entirely destroyed by one of the air raids, but was still gorgeous. And the differences between the eastern and western parts of the city are still amazing. I definitely want to come back here.