Weather overcast all day but only small rain showers occasionally.
The two dutch girls are heading home today, but Emily is sataying another night like me. She has just finished a work contract for a blogging dot com type company and she has decided to take a vacation around Europe for a few weeks before trying to get another job.
Decided to do the Sanderman's free walking tour of Berlin as the one in Prague had been so good. Met at Starbucks outside the Brandenburg Gate at 11:00. Our guide was a really cheerful english lad named Mathew from near Liverpool who is studying for a masters degree in politics at Berlin University. We repeated some of the places I had been yesterday but he fleshed out all the detail that you cannot get on your own.
Over four hours we walked around the city and went to the following places:
Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Holocaust memorial.
The Alpan Hotel where Michael Jackson lifted his child over the balcony to show the people !!
Then the place where Hitlers bunker had been and where he had committed suicide
The Ministry of Aviation building in the war where all bombing raids on Britain had been planned. You can still see the bullet marks and shrapnel scars on the building
The East German Parliament building with the mural depicting perfect life under communism and also the photograph in the courtyard showing an actual photograph showing the despair and misery on the peoples faces.
The preserved section of the Berlin Wall that was adjacent to the Topography of Terror exhibition. There was in fact two walls seperated by what was called "death strip" The photo is taken from within tha area of death strip and looking at the section of wall that was nearest to the west
Check Point Charlie, there was agroup of Trabant cars here. This is what some people had tried to escape by creating special compartments underneath, or taking out the insides of seats hiding people inside, resowing up the seats and having people sit on them as they tried to cross.
Babal Platz where the Nazis burned the books that didn't agree with Nazi ideology
Museum Island with it's collection of museums.
Matt was very good at painting a picture to emphasise all the facts. Especially the story of how the borders were opened suddenly and the wall came down immediately after a cock up of communications by a press officer at a public press conference given by the East german Authorities ( DDR). Apparently he misunderstood or hadn't read the brief and instead of saying the borders would be progressivly openned to certain selected individuals he said that the borders would be opened to all immediately. Suddenly the word got out from this press conference and 5000 people went to the border crossing to get into West Berlin. The border guards were told to shoot the people, but they only had seven rounds of ammunition and two rifles, so they let the people through. Once the borders had been breached there was no way back for the DDR and they openned up all the wall crossings. People then just proceeded to pull it down.
Met an actress from Holland who was on the tour. I was telling her about my journey. When I came to the bit about the dorm with 3 girls she said she could not even think of doing that, she needed her privacy. She said she was paying 100 euro a night for a not very good hotel. I told her I was paying 18 Euro a night !!
After tour finished I walked to Alexanderplatz and then to the Hachescher market area, then on the way back to the hostel came across a hippy bohemian weird place called Zapata that looked like a megga squat that artists had occupied. Lots of metal sculptures that reminded me of an exhibition Savi and I saw in India called "Scraptures" where people make sculptures from everyday objects such as nuts and bolts and pieces of bicycles etc. The place was covered in graffiti and stank of urine, so it certainly had an atmosphere !!
Also noticed a beautiful building that used to be the Post Office (Postfurant) and another derelict building opposite that again you could see the bullet and shrapnel marks.
More later
TOR
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