Berlin.

Jess here. So since Robyn did Vienna first (yes we're out of order) I suppose I will talk about Berlin. First off, we didn't really plan on going to Berlin- originally it was just a stop over on our way to Auschwitz. Sadly, we were informed that our train had been delayed 2 hours, which meant that we missed the night train to Krakow. And thus, our plan to go to Auschwitz did nor pan out. Instead we got stuck in the beautiful and history-laden city of Berlin. First night we stayed in a beautiful hotel- I was at this point quite pissed off and not the right temperament to run around finding a hostel. So we stayed in a beautiful hotel and watched world news in English (oh how I missed this!). The hotel made me feel very much at home, and a little homesick. The next day we went on an amazing free walking tour and learned so many things about the city. Saw the Reichstag, the Berlin wall, and the car park that was formerly Hitler's underground bunker (where him and Eva Braun committed suicide). Robyn and I were quite at home in a city with so much history, and that which we could follow from previous knowledge. Saw Checkpoint Charlie and attended a Storming of the Bastille commemoration day in Paris Square. Also walked through the Holocaust memorial, which was a field of concrete blocks of different heights. Very effective, the blocks seemed to go on for miles, and to me looked like a field of caskets. There were people, however, that were climbing all over them, which was so incredibly disrespectful. Also saw the university square where the book burning took place under Hitler's rule, of all Jewish authors. There was a memorial representing a mourning woman holding her dead grandson lost in WWII- she had, as the story goes, lost her husband previously in WWI. The roof in the memorial was open, so that when the weather changed, the condition of the statue changed with it- the snow, the rain, the sun. Walked by the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his child out the window- €1,000-18,000 per night, by the way. Berlin was a wonderful experience, a wonderful accident. The train ride to Vienna was beautiful as well. They grow a lot of sunflowers here and the fields are amazing! There are so many trees and tiny little plots of land. This place is so very dear to me.

-Jess