bye bye Berlin

So it's my last day in Berlin today and tomorrow I shall be off to Warsaw.
I've had a lovely few days here but, as with almost every journey, it seems to end too soon. I had just got into using the trains here, the way the Germans do things and have only today discovered the more alternative parts of Berlin, complete with street art, some pretty quirky places and some delicious smelling food.

So today, I started with a rather sombre visit to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe. Its basically 2,711 concrete blocks, lined up in various sizes. I was surprised to see that it was surrounded by a fairly busy road and large buildings, rather than nestled in a park, but on entering into the memorial itself, the sound of the traffic cannot be heard. The memorial was designed to make you feel claustrophobic and it's safe to say that, although the memorial looks small from the outside, whilst in between the blocks you feel lost. I was saddened to see that people were playing hide and seek inside. Despite being a lover of this game, even I think that this is more than somewhat disrespectful. Another thing that sickened me was something which I got used to on a few trips to Paris: groups of people pretending to be deaf and dumb, miming at you to sign a petition. Whilst in any normal situation, this is nothing more than a mere annoyance, I felt that inside the memorial was an awful place to try and scam people. And I stand down from my soap box.

Following the memorial, I went into the museum underneath it, which showed final letters from victims of the Holocaust, photos and explained the history.


After a melancholic and reflective morning, I headed down to Checkpoint Charlie in the blazing sunshine and stopped there for my first ever curry wurst. Following this, I decided to walk in completely the wrong direction on my way to the city centre and ended up in a pretty dodgy part of Berlin, where a drunk homeless guy was claiming to be Hitler's cousin and proudly exclaiming he was a Nazi. Perfect. U-Bahn found and quickly taken, I made my way to the East side gallery of the Berlin wall and walked all the way along it. It's covered in some really great graffiti and runs alongside the river so it made for a pleasant walk.

Feet tired and slightly sunburnt, I headed back to the hostel where I am sipping my gin and tonic and writing this blog. How cosmopolitan.

Anyway, with sore fingers I bid adieu from Berlin and I'll write again in Warsaw!

Tschuss!!