Berlivin' it up! 7/14/2008

Wallet: Day 8
NO Jeans OR Sweatshirt today!!!

Laundry Day! Wow, I have never been this excited to was my clothes as I was this morning when I woke up. On our way to the Hostel last night Loyd spotted a laundromat 2 blocks away. Today we are going to wash pretty much everything we brought, especially those jeans and sweatshirts that have been getting abused by daily wearing. What that also means is that now I am forced to wear something other than that awful outfit. So.pumped.

We washed our clothes and even that was an adventure for us. Between a German lady claiming that I used up her credits, to figuring out how use a machine that is completely in German (including what temperature and spin cycle we need to use, don't they just have Permanent Press and Cottons settings here?!) to understanding which of the 4 holes to put our detergent in, it was hilarious.

After we loaded the machines and got them started we headed back to the Transit Hostel to have breakfast. Half an hour later, filled with Brie cheese and yogurt, we headed back to the laundromat to switch our clothes into the driers. Once we stuck our clothes in these MASSIVE driers were about 10 loads of laundry could fit, we found a Internet cafe so we could post some blogs. I managed to pump out 3 blog entries. I was in the zone, chief (shout out to my new haircut). An hour absolute flew by and we headed back to fold our clothes.

The smell of clean laundry has never felt more like heaven. Everything we had was spotless, especially our socks which have taken an especially hard beating so far. Every time I looked over at Loyd folding his clothes he had a huge smile on his face. In a word, FREEESHHH!

We dropped our clothes off at the hostel and headed to the nearby Jewish Museum. What a place that was, the architecture was stunning and the effects it put on the visitor were astounding. We spent the 2.5 hours there and still felt rushed. The z had a tremendous collection of personal items from people who had perished in the Holocaust. Every piece gave its explanation and background info. The halls were mostly blank and somewhat disorienting. There was a space, one of many they call Holocaust tower. Here is a link to the museum at some of the pictures of it's architecture (http://www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de/site/EN/05-About-The-Museum/04-Photos/Libeskind-Building-inside/libeskind-building-inside.php). Zou walk in a room which is completely made of concrete. The only light or sound in the room comes for a skylight that is in the corner of the room, it is incredibly powerful. We stayed in there for a few minutes and soaked it all in Claustrophobia starts to creep in after that amount of time.

We continued on the Garden of Exile, around the corner. The iPod we had around our necks for the audio guide told us that the floor in the garden was at a 20 degree angle, which gives visitors a sense of vertigo and can cause nausea. It definitely worked on me. The affect of standing underneath the 49 pillars that line the garden is something like claustrophobia and being overwhelmed by the openness yet closed feeling the area gives. It is really hard to describe.

After that we headed to the last space or void in the museum called Fallen Leaves. This time as we approached it I got a feeling like we were getting close to a kitchen since there was a lot of clanking noises coming from it. When we turned the corner my jaw dropped. The void is a 3 story room with metal round faces all over the floor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sahlechet_P7160078.JPG). The design of the exhibit is to have people walk across it and make noise with each step. Again, it is so hard to describe what this space does to you but it definitely gave me a feeling of the sheer number of people who were buried in the mass graves in the concentration camps. The iPod recording explained that each of the faces were hand made out of iron and there around 10,000 on the floor. The pictures I captured will hopefully do some justice to this exhibit.

We had to run through the other two exhibits because the bike tour began at 4 and we were an easy half hour away from the TV tower, at least by foot. One of the exhibits we was on the 2,000+ year history of Jews in Germany and other parts of Europe. The other was all about stereotypes, both about Jews and other people. The one piece that really stood out to me was a Barbie doll wearing Tefillin and a Talit, talk about breaking the mold.

We rushed and ran to the TV tower. We made it...barely. The tour was run by a Texan named Wolf who we later found out owns the company, Fat Tire Bike Tours. Their motto is printed on all the workers shirts: 'Walking sucks!'. If anyone visits Berlin in the future I HIGHLY recommend this company, our tour was amazing. Bike tours allow for so much more to be seen in less time as well. We're hooked, without a doubt. So now to what we actually saw and did.

We weaved in and out of the Berlin streets from the old East, Communist/Social st area to the old West and Democratic/Capitalist area. We stopped by a few WWII important spots like Hitlers bunker. Wolf talked about how the area was now part of a Condominium complex as the Government is not trying to commemorate anything about his existence. Wolf lead the tour to the next stop but I felt I had to do something before I left that spot so I got of my bike and walked to the spot where he said Hitler was burned after killing himself and I spat. I said out loud 'You tried to kill us, but we're still here'. It gave me a little relief but still was a tough thing to place to see.

The tour also stopped at the Berlin Holocaust memorial which had great similarities with the one at the Jewish Museum. We stopped in a few other very important historical areas and I snapped away pictures vigorously. Berlin had so much to take in, I wanted to capture it all. We stopped by a local beer garden and caught an amazing sunset by the German Parliament.

The tour ended up taking about 5 hours to complete, ending around 9:30 PM) was worth every penny of the 18 € it costs (paid AFTER the tour was over, again with the trusting everyone). By the end of the tour I had pretty much maxed out my first 2GB memory stick, it was that good!

We met a few Aussie blokes on the trip and Wolf told us about a pub crawl his company works with so we decided to head over there right after we got back. Mind you, I was still in the shorts and t-shirt I put on at 9 am that morning. Our first stop was a ping-pong bar where everyone stands around the table and plays one game, sort like musical chairs. There is a first time for everything, I guess. We swung by few other bars and finally made it to a club as our last stop. We had an absolutely amazing evening as evidenced by us arriving home around 6:30 AM. So to sum it up, we Berlived it up to the maximum!