October 6th, 2006 Berlin, Germany

October 6, 2006
Berlin, Germany

Well, last night we didn’t make it to the movie. We were too tired to do anything. Instead we chilled out and played on our computers.

This morning we rolled out of bed round 10:00 and jumped on the internet. I spent the next hour and a half chatting it up with my dearest Jackie (keeping her up until almost 3:00 am!). B and I then got some breakfast.

We finished just in time to go on another walking tour of Berlin at 12:30. This tour was entitled “Off the Beaten Path” because it takes tourists to places tourists don’t usually go. Although this was a free tour, our group was much smaller (only 6 people).

Most of the tour was consisted of walking through some of the cool neighborhoods in Berlin. It was fun and interesting but it doesn’t leave me with a whole lot to write about. We were shown many cool café’s and bars. We also saw a district that has been inhabited by squatters since the end of the cold war.

We then visited an incredibly long stretch of the Berlin wall. Some of the graffiti art was incredible! We followed the wall for a while and then crossed one of the many cool bridges in the city. This led us to the Turkish district. It is the largest collection of Turkish people outside of Turkey. The area was full of tasty kebab stands (though I ate the sandwich I made during breakfast)!

We took a quick rest in the area and then continued on our way. We stopped at a park that used to be part of the death zone of the Berlin wall. It was home to one of the 4 remaining guard towers left in Berlin.

We then walked along the river to our last stop of the day, the soviet war memorial. I thought it was the coolest stop of the day. The park was full of trees that suddenly open up to an incredibly large monument (for the almost 30 million Soviets killed in WW2). There were large slabs with cool pictures and famous quotes of Joseph Stalin.

The tour concluded just after we left the monument. We made the long trek back to our hostel. By the time we got back our legs were tired and our stomachs empty.

We are planning to get some food and then pack up our stuff. After, we may go and see the movie that we did not get to see last night.