Hamburger in Hamburg!

This last week was pretty cool and fun.  As a group from school, we went to the Jewish Museum here in Berlin.  The architect designed it in a special way so that the architecture represents history and the sad events that took place.  The building is very jagged and has a zig-zag pattern throughout the museum.  I took a few pictures which will be loaded onto Facebook at some point along with others.  Once again, I'll have to mooch off free internet somewhere to do that so I'm not using up a lot of data on my internet stick.

On Friday, Kelleen, Olivia, and I went to Hamburg to visit the friends I have there.  It was great!  We were invited to stay at my friend Tim's house where his parents live.  I've stayed there before when I was in Germany previously.  Jan, Tim's dad, picked us up in Berlin.  He was on his way home to Hamburg, so that worked out perfectly for us.  The drive was only 2 hours or a little more.  They live in a village 30 minutes outside of Hamburg, so it's pretty convenient to travel into the city.  Our little group for the weekend consisted of Tim, Birte, Max, Kelleen, Olivia, and I.  

Friday night we had a big family dinner.  Anja loves to cook and was cooking away when we got to the house.  Jan demonstrated the little robot they have that cleans the kitchen.  It was entertaining to see it maneuver around the kitchen and then go back to its charging station.  Jan asked if we wanted to play the German version of Sorry, so we did!  It's a fun game to play, and took a while to finish our game.  After dinner we socialized for a bit before heading to bed.  Olivia and Kelleen were amazed with the heated floors that the Schlotawa's have in the house.  The next morning we ate a huge typical breakfast before heading to Hamburg.  

My friend Max, who is how Michael and I met, came along with us.  It was great to see him here in Germany!  We walked around the city and ate lunch at Jim Block, which is a burger place.  We had a hamburger in Hamburg!  It was delicious!  We saw the harbor where Max told us interesting historical facts about the harbor and a ship that was nearby.   After seeing the harbor briefly, we stumbled upon the City Bikes.  Max rented two and Birte rented one.  There was a total of 6 of us and only 3 bikes.  I rode one of the bikes in a few circles and was told I passed the test.  I then said I have no balance and would walk to St. Michael's and someone else could ride the bike.  I took photos of people on the bikes and also a video.  Birte, Olivia, and I walked while the other three rode the bikes to St. Michael's.    We saw a few churches and climbed the 453 stairs to the viewing point at St. Michael's.  Tim, Olivia, and I threw paper planes off the platform, but theirs didn't fly that well.  Mine flew for a pretty good distance and then crashed into a chimney.  Everyone decided unanimously to take the elevator back down and then continue our site seeing of Hamburg.  We continued walking around to see the different things in the city.  It was a pretty productive day and it wasn't even over yet.  So far, we had seen the Rathaus (town hall), St. Petri, St. Michael's, and the harbor.  Later that night we would do Dialog in Dunkeln (Dialog in the Dark).  My host mom had asked me to bring back some special tea that Hamburg is known for, so we got that, which is a whole other story!

Olivia and I had been a little skeptical about Dialog in the Dark.  We weren't sure exactly what it was other than the fact that we would be in complete darkness and have to use our other senses, such as a blind person does.  It was entirely in German, but it wasn't too difficult to understand!  It was our group and then a couple in our group for the "tour".  It was 90 minutes long and there were different situations throughout the exhibit.  We had our blind man's stick and visited a market, crossed the street, visited the harbor and went on a boat tour, a music room, and finally a bar.  These were all inside the building.  Everyone had to lay down in the music room.  You felt the music along with hearing it.  That was probably my favorite room and part of it all!  The bar was difficult because you can't see our money at all.  Before we started the tour, I put 2 euro coins and some smaller change in my pocket so I knew exactly what coins I had with me.  I had to memorize the size and feel of each so that I could pay later at the bar.  Dialog in Dunkeln was really cool and everyone enjoyed it!  Afterwards, we went to the Reeperbahn so that Olivia and Kelleen could see what it is like.  We weren't there late enough at night to really see the nightlife there, so not a lot was going on.  A friend of Kelleen's sister met up with us and joined us at a bar for a drink or two.  Max called Michael over Skype on his phone, so I was able to talk to him for a bit while we hung out at the bar.

Everyone got pretty hungry after that and we got some food at the Hauptbahnhof and then got on the train to head back to the car.  It was a late night and we had plans to go to Luebeck and also see the Baltic Sea the next day before heading back to Berlin.  Luebeck was great and interesting.  We visited a few churches and saw some historical parts of it.  Once again, Max told us historical facts throughout the day.  We visited the Baltic Sea where Olivia and Kelleen put their hands in the water.  It was a little too chilly to go swimming!  Max and Tim were determined to have us try Fischbroetchen (Fish rolls).  We found a place and everyone, except for me, got one.  Well, Kelleen and Olivia shared one and didn't really like it.  I absolutely do not like fish, so I didn't partake in that task of the day.  We had to be home for lunch since Anja was making typical goulash for us.  She also made homemade ice cream!  There was raspberry and blueberry ice cream for dessert.  Delicious!  We had to get our stuff ready for Tim to take us into the city to the bus we would take back to Berlin.  We said our goodbyes and Anja gave Kelleen, Olivia, and I our own bottle of shampoo to take home.  She's a hairdresser and cut all of our hair while we were there.  I gave her a cookbook and she and I both began to tear up a bit.  It had been 3 years since I had last seen her and the rest of the family.  Anja hugged me repeatedly and we walked outside to the car where Anja came up to me again and hugged me.  She said I was welcome back anytime I want and that I could come back before I head home to the states.  Anja and I hugged again and got in the car.  

We weren't really sure where to get our tickets for the bus that we had reserved, so Tim helped us.  We got our tickets, said goodbye to Tim, and got on the bus.  After a 3 hour bus ride, we were back in Berlin!

We got back to Berlin after 9pm and all went our separate ways to where we live in Berlin.  The weekend was great and I'm missing Hamburg and the people there already!

Free Wifi doesn't exist

The start of week 8 starts tomorrow.  Holy cow!  I can't believe it's been 7 weeks already!  This is crazy.  I almost feel like a true Berliner.


This past week was pretty good.  On Tuesday, a group from school went to Berlinale.  We only went to look, but could buy tickets for films if we wanted.  Unfortunately, there weren't any stars around when we were.  I guess that isn't exactly true.  The cast from one of the german films for Berlinale arrived as we were there.  They were all brought to the red carpet my a BMW.  The germans around me seemed to love the cast, but I had no idea who they were.  I took pictures anyways.  I got a tickets to a couple of films for the festival.  I went to one last night with my friend Olivia.


During class, vertigo struck again.  I was feeling pretty well so far throughout the day.  I blew my nose and all of a sudden things started spinning.  I immediately grabbed my purse to take my medicine and shut my eyes.  The spinning stopped shortly after and I slouched in my chair.  I rubbed my head for a good portion of class and wished I could take a nap.  I'm done with my antibiotics for my sinus infection, but my ear is still plugged.  Hopefully this time my ear won't remain plugged for 4 months.  That was no fun and I absolutely hated getting vertigo often.


On a better note, Olivia and I saw En kongelig Affaere (A Roy Affair).  It was a danish film with english subtitles.  Thank goodness!  The movie was a lot longer than I had expected.  It lasted 2 1/2 hours total.  I really enjoyed it.  It was a period piece and the costuming was amazing.  I loved the clothing a lot.  It had comedy, love, and of course tragedy.  I was completely exhausted after the film and headed home.  I immediately fell asleep and that was how my day ended!


I'm currently at Starbucks, probably the ONLY place in Germany that offers free wifi, updating my blog and being a good little student.  My next test is in 4 weeks, but I'm going to start preparing for it early, hoping it will help with my inability to take tests.  I'm perfectly fine when it's a regular test in a class, but when it's a standardized test or something close to that, I'm horrible.


The weather has gotten warmer and the sun decides to peek out every now and then.  Next weekend I'll head to Hamburg with Kelleen and Olivia to visit friends Anja and Jan have offered for us to stay at the house with them, which was great and helps us save money!  My friends are helping plan what we should do, which will be fun.  I can't wait to see my friends, who I haven't seen in 3 years or so!  Once again, it's just crazy how time flies by so fast!  


I'm going to continue sipping my chai latte and get started on homework.  Tschuess!

Berlinale!!

The first words out of my host mom's mouth this morning while at breakfast, "Whitney Houston ist tot."  WHAT?!  I asked her to repeat what she said, thinking that I had misunderstood her.  She repeated it, "Whitney Houston ist tot."  I said, "Nein... echt?"  She then told me that she had been found in her hotel room.  The rest of breakfast was pretty quiet.  We usually have a huge breakfast on Sundays and no lunch really.  Tonight we had chicken with cooked potatoes and carrots.  Delicious.  My host mom even took out the Dorothy Lynch and set it next to me.  "I know how much you love your dressing when we have chicken!"  She's exactly right.  It's delicious!


It's Berlinale!  It's also very cold and not fun to stand outside at all.  I'm going to tough it out and wait in line for tickets for some films tomorrow and also hope to see some celebrities that I know are in town.


Well the highlight of this last week was probably getting vertigo for the first time while here.  I thought I had been doing a good job to avoid it, but apparently not.  The weather here hasn't helped my health at all, so I ended up getting a sinus infection.  Whenever I get a sinus infection, it causes my left ear to plug horribly.  My left ear is always the one that gets plugged, never my right one.  Odd.  Anyway, during class on Wednesday I got dizzy all of a sudden and froze. I mumbled medicine and immediately grabbed my purse.  Emily who sits next to me in class looked at me strange for a minute.  I told her I needed medicine and that I'd be fine.  I took my meds for vertigo and thought "yes! Crisis averted!"  Little did I know that vertigo would come back to haunt me later that night.


Our UNL class went to the dome like I mentioned in my previous post.  Before we went, I went into another classroom with Kelleen and Emily.  Kelleen knows about my vertigo since we had two classes together last semester and would be absent due to vertigo.  She gives wonderful massages and was nice enough to give me one before we went to the dome.  She also bought be gummy bears.  Thank you Kelleen! =)  The dome was cool and incredibly beautiful.  Afterwards Kelleen and I needed to meet with Olivia about our upcoming trip to Hamburg.  Olivia had plans after the trip to the dome, so we had to wait until later to meet up with her.  Kelleen and I wandered around and stumbled upon one of my favorite places... the Ampelmann store!!  Oh how I love the Ampelmann.  The little green and red man on the street lights that tells you when you can and cannot cross the street.  He's all over Berlin, but not every crosswalk has him.  It varies, especially with where you're at in Berlin.  We then went to Dunkin Donuts and hung out until Olivia could meet up with us.  We met, chatted, came up with a rough plan for a plan and all headed home.


I had dinner like usual, did some facebook creeping (creeping is caring!), and homework.  I went to bed at a decent hour.  The next thing I knew I was waking up really confused where I was and everything was spinning.  Crap.  Vertigo was back.  I immediately shut my eyes and forced myself back to sleep. I told myself not to look at the clock and just sleep.  I woke up again, but this time nauseas.  Great.  I waited and stayed very still in bed hoping I wouldn't have to run to the bathroom.  I forced myself back to sleep.  This happened about 3 more times.  The next morning I woke up to every single one of my alarms and fell directly back asleep.  I hadn't gotten much sleep and had already decided I wasn't going to school.  Birgit (my host mom) came knocking on my door to wake me up for breakfast.  Ah, I was late to breakfast too?!  I stumbled out of my room and into the kitchen.  I sat down and she immediately asked me "Alles gut? ohh nein.  Alles ist nicht gut... was ist los?"  (Everything good?  Oh no, everything is not good... what's wrong?"  I told her I had woken up multiple times with vertigo and didn't sleep well at all.  She asked me what happened and told me that I should've woken her up.  Any time I don't feel well, I'm supposed to wake her up, no matter what time it is. She wanted to know what had happened exactly during the night and I apologized and told her it would be "auf englisch".  She told me that was fine and I then began to explain what vertigo is exactly and why I get it.  She had been notified by school saying that I had an "illness" to be aware of.  After I was done explaining, she told me she had a doctor appointment for her eye later that morning and that I would go along and see the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist.  Birgit asked for my teacher's number, who is here with our UNL group, so she could call her.  She called her and explained that I had woken up with vertigo and wanted me to see a doctor before the weekend.  Priscilla handed me the phone and we spoke English.  She told me she wouldn't be able to make it to the doctor with me in time and asked if I'd be ok with going and able to handle the situation.  I told her I felt I was capable to do so.  She asked if my hostmom spoke some English and I told her she did.  "Oh good!  That pleases me!"  I told Professor Hayden-Roy I would keep her updated on how I was doing.


German doctor offices are one of the scariest places I have ever been to.  Metal instruments everywhere!  The doctor was nice and spoke English.  Thank goodness.  She took a sonogram of my sinuses to prove I had an infection and used about 4 different tools to look at my throat, nose, and ears.  It was by far the most expensive doctor visit of my life.  I knew I had a sinus infection and only needed the medicine to clear it up.  I'm not taking antibiotics and an allergy spray to help keep my sinuses clear.  Hopefully I'll be feeling healthy again soon!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Hey there!  Sorry it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since the last update. Nothing much exciting has really happened since the last update.   We went to the Stasi-Gefängnis a couple weeks ago. It was really interesting because our tour guide was a former prisoner. He told us his story and it was unbelievable.  I didn't take a lot of pictures while we were there.  Once again, it was a pretty depressing experience.


I can't believe it's already February 8th!  Man, time is just flying by here.  We all feel like we're in high school again with our schedule and such.  I'm not loving it, but it makes time go by faster at least!

My new class started last week!  It's more challenging, but not too bad.  I found out that if I were to pass the highest class, which is called C2, I would be a certified translator.  Unfortunately, I won't be here long enough to get through the course.  I'll get through about 4 weeks of C1.


Last night, a few of us went to see a Russian opera.  It was very... different.  It was all in Russian with German subtitles.  They call them "Übertitel" because they are shown above the stage.  I understood almost everything.  It was very abstract and strange.  Oh, it was also really long.  


Today as a class from our UNL group, we went to see the Berliner Dom (Berlin Dome).  It's absolutely incredible!!  The church is beautiful and huge!  We had a personal tour led by one of the members of the church that does the tours for fun.  His name was Andre.  He was really nice, funny, and made sure we were understanding as he spoke since the tour was entirely auf Deutsch!  I took a few pictures while we were there, but will mostly be stealing the ones that Kelleen took.


Berlinale starts tomorrow!! That's the Berlin Film Festival.  I'm pumped!  A bunch of celebrities are in town.  I'm going to try and see a couple films at least. Some things were being set up today around the city for the film festival.  I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see just how the city looks!  I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures of it all! 

Busy like a bee!

Time is flying by here!  I haven't had much time for updating this, so I'm sorry about that!  Knowing my memory, I may leave out a few things, but I'll do my best to remember everything since the last blog update!


This last week we had a couple of group trips through DiD.  We have to participate in 14 programs with DiD.  It's required, but I don't think I'll have a problem with getting that done!  It's been 3 weeks and I'm sure I'm close to that requirement.


On Tuesday, we went to KaDeWe.  It's short for Kaufhaus des Westens (Department store of the west).  It has things from around the world.  A couple of people in our UNL group were missing some American items that we haven't had any luck in finding here in Germany.  For example, Melinda loves her Dr. Pepper, but can't find it anywhere.  Who has it? KaDeWe!  I was able to find my white chocolate covered Oreos as well! =)  People stocked up on their soda and other goodies from home.  It's a huge store.  We had to go to the 6th floor for the "grocery" items.  They even sell Duffy beer from the Simpsons!  It's ridiculous what is sold there!  After shopping around there for about 45 minutes, Anja, our tour guide, took us to a church. 


It was the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (the Wilhelm Kaiser Memorial church).  
It had been bombed badly during the bombing raid of 1943.  The remains of the 
church are surrounded by walls made of a concrete honeycomb containing 21,292 stained glass inlays.  It's incredible to see!  We then were set loose by Anja to either continue walking around the famous shopping street Kurfürstendamm or head home.  I needed to get a pair of tights to go with my skirt for a concert our group would be attending on Sunday.  Emily and I headed to H&M and then walked home from where we were.  Kurfürstendamm is the street directly behind the street I live on.  It was only about a 30 minute walk home from there.  


Wednesday was a normal day of school.  It was a very long day, but normal.  Thursday was another group trip with DiD.  We went to the Berliner Unterwelten.  The Berliner Unterwelten (Berlin Underground) consists of the bunkers that were created underneath the city for protection.  Pictures weren't allowed, so I was only able to take a few from the inside before our tour began.  It was very interesting, to say the least.  The bunkers were ABC protected.  This meant they were protected from Atomic weapons, Biological weapons, and Chemical weapons.  The structure of the bunkers were very interesting.  The walls go in a zig-zag pattern.  Why?  It was believed that if the city was bombed, the impact of the bomb would spread out over this pattern and decrease it's feeling of impact.  It wouldn't feel as strong as if the walls were built in a normal straight line pattern.  There is a network underground.  We were in the Wedding section.  This was the part of town named Wedding.  There isn't lighting everywhere.  Some of  the rooms have it.  Everywhere else, there is glow paint to light the walls and help guide you along  the way.  We saw the only kitchen that was there, the infirmary, the generator room, and another room where the emergency air supply was.  That room had a tiny square cut out of the wall about 6 feet up from the ground with blocks blocking off the door.  The door behind the blocks is air sealed so that no chemicals can get into the room.  The blocks also help keep any radiation out if the room needed to be used.  The tour took us to one of the U-Bahn stations that was used as well.  Thousands of beds would have lined the station platforms.  We went into a room where the door is pressurized and the room had a microphone, but no window or camera.  This way, the guard of the door could let in the allowed number of people into the bunkers and then shut off the microphone and close the door.  He wouldn't have to hear the people screaming, crying, and begging for their lives.  Our guide told us, "Back then, you had to do your job.  You'd let it the allowed number and then shut the microphone off and close your eyes and ignore what was going to happen next as soon as you push that button."  When the bunkers were redone, they made sure that only curtains were used for bathrooms and not doors.  Pipes that could only hold some much weight were used as well.  There were no knives or anything else sharp in the bunkers.  Why?  Suicide.  All of these things were done to prevent the number of suicides that were committed.  The pipes would break right away if someone tried to hang themselves and curtains replaced doors so people couldn't lock themselves in and commit suicide.  The tour was a great experience even though it did have its sad moments and information.


On Friday night, our UNL group went to a puppet show.  It was definitely... interesting.  It was a parody of Orpheus and the Underworld.  This show was certainly not appropriate for children!  Even though it was entirely in German, most of us understood what was going on due to the actions of the puppets.  It was pretty amusing.  Once again, we weren't allowed to take pictures of anything and I would only butcher the story and the description of the puppets if I tried!


Yesterday, Saturday, was another group trip with DiD.  We went to Wittenberg, also known as Lutherstadt.  It is the city where Martin Luther lived, worked, and preached.  We saw his house where he worked on his theses and other writings.  It was really interesting to see that.  We were in Martin Luther's house seeing the robe he wore, the books he wrote, the people he fought against in the Reformation, and other important artifacts.  I got to see the first cup that was created and used for communion when the Reformation happened and communion started being taken in both forms, the wine and the bread.  I saw the very first Bible that was written by Martin Luther in high German.  That was a really huge deal back  then for it to be brought into the German speaking world.  I saw the first catechism and other documents that played huge rolls.  I saw on Ablass! It was a document sold to people telling  them it would save them and put them in Heaven if they bought it.  It was the selling of indulgences.  


We took the tour of the house, which is a museum now, and then walked to the church where Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses.  The door is now a replica of the one he posted his theses against.  Our group also walked to the church where he preached.  That church was the very first to convert in the entire world because of the Reformation.  The pulpit inside is known as the "reformation pulpit".  I was able to take pictures in there!  I saw Martin Luther's grave inside the church.  He was buried inside the church where he posted his 95 Theses instead of the church where he preached. 


It was so cool seeing history like that.  I absolutely loved it!  It's one of the reasons I love Germany.  There is history everywhere you go.  I go by buildings that were built right after the reunification of Berlin!  I see places that still exist after the war and the wall.  It's so different compared to living in the United States.  I'm constantly learning about something here!  There's never a dull moment.


Today our group is seeing an opera in a palace or castle.  We have to dress up for it.  It'll be another great experience!  I have my test on Wednesday to move onto the next level at school.  It's a huge test and will take place over two days.  Hopefully I can do well enough to pass onto the next level!  We'll see how much my studying pays off!

Learn from history's mistakes

I knew it wasn't going to be an easy day.  I knew that the minute I signed my name on the list to visit Oranienburg.  I tried to mentally prepare myself for what I would be seeing, but it wasn't possible.  It isn't possible to prepare yourself to see where thousands were tortured and killed.


Everyone met at McDonald's in the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof to begin our journey. Everyone knew it wasn't going to be a happy day.  We were somewhat prepared, but how were we supposed to be prepared to see such a horrible place?  Everyone was talking about what their previous night was like and what was new with them. We were all in a pretty good mood.  We waited for everyone to arrive before purchasing our train tickets.  Afterwards, we all went to the platform to wait for the subway to arrive.  The subway would take us from the upbeat station at Friedrichstrasse to a dark and depressing place.  Our train ride was 45 minutes or so.  Everyone was talking with one another. I decided to read my book, Verblendung, and enjoy the long ride.  


After the 45 minute ride, we had arrived at our destination, Oranienburg.  There were 24 of us in the group.  We took up a good chunk of the sidewalk as we walked.  Lsya started giving us a brief history of Oranienburg (in German).  She told us "Sachsenhausen exists today because they want people to visit.  They want everyone to see what happened and learn from it.  It is something that should never, never again be repeated."  The group got really quiet for a minute.  Lsya said we had a bit of a walk ahead of us.  We started and talked with one another.  I don't think anyone was ready to see what we were going to see.  After a long walk, we saw the sign for Sachsenhausen.  Everyone stopped to look at it.  


We continued our way into the first building where we would pay for our headsets.  Everyone had to wait because they had to know how many needed an English headset, a Spanish one, a French one, and any other language that was spoken within our group.  We all got our headsets and walked out the doors.  Everyone huddled together to find out what time we had to meet back.  We had 3 1/2 hours or so to walk around and see what we could see.  Lsya recommended that we go to the cinema there and watch the film.  After that, everyone split off and made their way down the long road along the side of the camp.


There was a section along the wall with pictures and testimonies from people who were in the camp.  There were sad pictures, but there were some happy ones.  You could see the pure joy on the faces of the people in the pictures when the US troops came in and helped free the prisoners.


Kelleen, Emily, and I stayed together.  We walked around and headed towards the first building we saw.  It was a museum.  Inside was the uniform of a Nazi soldier along with propaganda that they used.  Horrible.  Glass display cases lined the walls.  They were filled with letters from prisoners, personal items, postcards, and pictures.  It wasn't easy looking at the items, but they were definitely interesting.  It was interesting to read what they wrote to people outside the walls of the camp and to see pictures of people.  Some people had remarkable stories, because they were fortunate enough to survive.  The others who weren't so fortunate pulled at my heart.  We finished walking around the museum and made our way to the memorial site.  We walked past numerous memorials for those who died.  This memorial site and the museum sit outside the gate into the camp.  We walked through the gate which had "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" on it and stopped.  The camp is huge.  It's in the shape of a triangle, but a massive triangle.  I started to walk along the wall the surrounds the camp.  It has multiple sections of barbed wire along it.  There was a sign with a skull painted on it and other reading "Neutral Zone".  The three of us made our way over to a building we saw nearby.  We entered and were welcomed by a room of computers.  You could sit down and learn about the different things that went on in the camp.  I decided to read about criminal medicine and the research that was done.  I read about how the homosexuals had to wear a pink triangle so that everyone knew they were homosexual.  I then read about how they were forced or tricked to sign a consent form to be castrated.  They thought that if the homosexuals were castrated, then this would eliminate their urge and attraction to other men.  They did other experiments of this sort with other groups of people.  The SS would make these people go days without food and make them only work unless they decided to sign the consent form.  The experiments that went on were absolutely ridiculous, horrible, and pointless.  They proved no real scientific evidence for anything!


We walked through the rest of the long building and down the stairs.  We saw multiple rooms.  I can't remember exactly which ones, but I know we saw a washroom, kitchen, and a dissecting room in that building.  I think we may have also seen where bodies were kept before they were dissected.


We walked over to the building beside it.  It was similar to the other building with the rooms. I saw the masks that were made of the gypsies by the researchers.  These were the exact masks from then.  There were so many and all of them were of gypsies.  There was the first mask that was made and then the 2nd which was then painted.  Most of them had the name of person underneath it, but some were unidentified.  There were kits of different colored hair, skin, and eyes.  These were used to determine the eye, hair, and skin color of a person who the researchers were studying.  They would make notes of which color each was and try to find a underlying pattern for each group of people.  Once again, their research was pointless and they didn't come up with any real data. 


This building had a room with three screens in it.  I tapped the "English" button on the wall and stood back.  Each TV lit up simultaneously.  "From the view of the SS" on one screen, "From the view of the prisoners" on another, and finally "From the view of a visitor" on the third screen.  Kelleen and Emily walked in and sat down in a chair.  I continued standing for a minute and then sat down.  It was incredible how different the views were.  I'd look at the prisoner view screen and see them scrubbing the floors, putting bricks up, digging, starving, and completely exhausted.  Then I'd look at the SS screen and see them standing around smiling and laughing, thinking that they are part of something great.  They showed a picture of one of the guards handing a prisoner a cigarette, making you think things weren't bad at Sachsenhausen.  They were all lies.  Looking at the prisoner screen again, I'd see people digging graves for other prisoners.  Interviews came on with people who survived and told about what happened.  One man told the story of how people from around the world, mostly journalists, would visit the camp.  The guards would warn them a day or two in advance of the important visit.  This meant that the camp had to be spotless with every bed made and everyone looking they're "finest".  If a bed wasn't properly made, the guard would take away food privileges for a week or so.  One prisoner gave another his food in exchange for making his bed for him.  There were some people who made the beds perfectly, but they still weren't perfect of the guards.  It was unbelievable to see all of that.


We weren't able to see all of the camp, because we didn't have a lot of time there.  It was definitely an educational experience that I will never forget.


After the depressing part of the day, we walked to cafe and got some lunch before heading to Schloss Oranienburg.  I got a bratwurst with potatoes.  It was alright... not delicious.


We walked to the palace, which was huge!  We went inside and paid 2 euros each since we had such a large group.  I paid another 3 euros to be able to take pictures of things.  The palace was alright, it wasn't anything super fancy until we went to the basement.  There were rooms of giant beer steins! I'm talking like... 2-3 feet tall ones made from pure silver.

Pergamon Museum

Sorry this is a couple days late!  Time goes by pretty fast over here!


On Tuesday, a trip to the Pergamon Museum was organized by school.  We met at the school with Lsya, who was our group leader for the day.  Things then got a little disorganized and confusing.  She gave us the option of just paying for the day or buying a year pass for the museums on museum island.  There were at least 20 people in the group and everyone except for 5 of us wanted a year pass. The rest of us didn't want to get one and only wanted to pay for the day, so we had to wait.  We gave Lsya our money for her to buy our tickets and waited for the others to rejoin our group.  When most of the group came back from buying their year pass, we went inside the entrance of the museum.  We took our things over to a little coat check in area.  We were given a little "ticket" back and then walked over to get our tour guide headset.  Everyone kind of split up into their own little groups after that.  We did take a few group pictures on the steps of the temple, but that was probably the only time our group was entirely together for the rest of the museum trip!


The Pergamon Museum is incredible.  That's really the only way I can describe it.  It is a huge museum!  The Pergamon has original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus, all consisting of parts transported from Turkey.  The Pergamon is divided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art.  I strongly recommend going!


We pretty much stayed until the museum closed.  I took a ton of pictures, but unfortunately, they are all on my camera, so I can't upload them!  I can steal pictures from other people though that went!  We were the only people left inside the museum, so we kind of hurried to get our things.  Our group then got stuck inside the museum.  Lsya wouldn't listen to me when I told her that a specific door was open and all the others were closed.  She continued to walk around the bottom level of the museum trying to figure out how we would get out.  I then decided to just walk over to the door I had been trying to tell her about and opened it.  Other people in the group saw and followed.  We would have been out of the museum 10 minutes earlier than we were if she had listened to what I had been telling her!


Last night for dinner we had Hackenbraten and Gemuese!  It was delicious.  It was merely meatloaf and vegetables, but amazingly good.  My hmom doesn't follow recipes.  She sort of just throws things together and creates new things on her own.  It's great!  She did it last night with putting different things in the meatloaf and was asking me how many eggs I usually put in when I make it.  I told her that I've never put a cooked egg in the middle of the meatloaf and had never heard of that.  She said her Canadian friend does it and says it's the popular way of making meatloaf.  It must be popular in Canada, because I've never heard of such a thing!


Tonight we had spaghetti!  It was so much food!  We had salad before and then the spaghetti.  I didn't finish my dinner, so sorry if there's bad weather tomorrow guys!  I'll take the blame since I didn't finish my dinner.  My hmom also created her own concoction for dessert!  It was a mixture of coconut creme and bananas!  I really liked it!  With all that being said and what I've said previously about my hmom's cooking, I'm definitely eating well here!


I'm completely stuffed and my throat is a bit sore, so I think it's time to relax and then head to bed a little early tonight!  Have a wonderful day everyone!