Bears, Beers, and Berlin

Berlin, Germany

Hotel Hamburg

After leaving Ansbach, Germany, I made my way to Berlin. Taking a train at 5 a.m. tired me out but allowed me to enjoy an incredible early morning sunrise as I rode through the German country side towards Berlin. There was a dense fog that carpeted the landscape and draped the castles in mystery and mentally allowed me to see myself in a different time, of war lords and kings and horses and knights and ladys.  Sigh.  If only we had time machines. 

Upon arriving, we made our way to the Gonzaga group. 150 students trudged their way towards our hotel, Hotel Hamburg. The first night, we walked through a park when suddenly one girl in our group spotted a giraffe, also my spirit animal so I assumed it was a sign of epic porportion. Not that hallucinating at this point would have been surprisingly, lack of sleep and intense travel could have that effect, but in all reality we had managed to find ourselves walking through the Berlin Zoo. Berlin had so much more to offer than I had realized, and the zoo was just one of the many surprises that this city had to offer.

This was a block away from our hotel and we used it as our guide when we got lost.  It is an old church that was too damaged to be properly restored but is still kept as a memory.  A huge market surrounds it.

Companies buy these bears and decorate them in with their own advertisements or use them to bring attention to the business or store.  They were everywhere in Berlin and all decorated differently. 

Just an average street in Berlin

Molly and I outside Museum Island 

Museum Island

Caroline and I 

This was the square where the Nazis burnt all the books in the university's library.  We searched for it FOREVER, gave up, and we were walking home when we stumbled upon it. 

We ventured out on our own for a river walk

The next day we had the customary bus tour all around the city to spots like the Berlin Wall, the Jewish Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, and other such historic sights. 

Part of what remains of the Berlin Wall

 That afternoon we went to something that was especially touching, the Jewish Museum. This was significantly different than the other museums we had been to, and one that I think touched many Gonzaga kids. It is the most visited museum by young adults in Europe and after going to it, I completely understand why.

The Holocaust Memorial is a museum that is made to be a slightly interactive experience, the architect, , designed it so that the onserver would feel a sense of diorientation and confusion. He accomplished this by having uneven floors, and a floor design that made no logical sense, and many exhibits that used sight, sound, and feel. There was a Room of Despair in which you walked into and then suddenly you were surrounded by walls that were unpenatrably high with only a few slits to let in light followed by a ladder that was clearly out of reach, yet visible. It gave the observer a chance to feel the desolation that the Jews experienced during the Holocaust. Additionally was the Garden of Exile, in which hundreds of faces were made out of iron. It is nearly impossible to describe the train like sound that echoed throughout the walls as one walked through, but it created an eery sense. The museum redeemed itself in a sense by having a wishing tree as you exited that was covered in wished that had been left by the visitors.

Holocaust Memorial in the middle of the city

Also in Berlin, was the orbe like structure in the middle of their parliament building called Bundestag (Reichstag). A group of us girls walked all the way to the top, and this view was what made me fall in love with Berlin. From this vintage point, all of Berlin was visible, and the interactive tour pointed out what fell where.

Parliament building

The next day we went to a concentration camp,  Sachensausem . . . Naturally this was a somber experience despite the point that the camp we went to was tame in comparison to some of the truly awful ones. Many of the buildings no longer stood, but one that did and was especially haunting was the mortuary. In the basement of it (yes, I went in the basement) there were the original tables that they had used as well as the same cellars that had been used to store the bodies, and that was when it hit me what had gone on there. It was incredibly saddening to imagine the families torn apart and the loss of life that had occurred in the very building that I was standing in. It was absolutely heart wrenching. 

Concentration Camp

Walled in 

400 men would have 30 minutes to use the washroom before role call every morning