Discovering the beauty of Berlin

As always the morning was spent asleep on the bus after packing up the campsite and saying a teary goodbye to Kiki.. On our way to Berlin we stopped in a city called Dresden that was seriously bombed during the war and had stunning buildings and a really rich history (like literally rich – some of the people who lived there throughout history were seriously loaded). We had a walking tour of the city and we all had lunch there, which was more eventful for some... Amanda took us to a place that was famous for its Currywurst sausages and sauce because they served it at different levels of heat. Level one was really mild, and level 7 which had the same heat as pepper-spray... Quite a few people ordered the level 7 (I wan't one of them) and there were different levels of tears and swearing and red-faces, however Paul didn't seem to mind the fact that he was essentially eating pepper-spray. I tried a tiny bit of the sauce and even the smallest bit on the end of my finger set my mouth on fire, so how Paul ate it all I have no idea..

A bridge that the rich folk made so they wouldn't have to walk on the street with the commoners..

Family tree in the form of a massive mosaic

After Dresden we hopped back on the coach and made our way into Berlin. Now I wasn't sure what to expect from Berlin, having just visited the concentration camp and also knowing that there had been the Berlin wall, but I was surprised! We had the driving tour as usual, and we walked along part of the Wall which was so beautiful with all its different works of art on it. After the driving tour we checked into our HOSTEL!!! It was amazing! We had dinner at the restaurant at the hostel that night and then made the most of our proper beds and good wifi so we all went to bed early.

A memorial of some form...

This was a statue of a guy from world war 2 (?) who saved a little boy (or something like that) but he has a sword and a cape because it makes him look a lot cooler than if he had authentic clothes... 

I think this was my favourite part of the wall

The next day was a fantastic one! We all woke up so refreshed and then got ready and went into the city for our guided walking tour. It was one of the added optionals that you could choose to do, and it was about the Third Reich, so I was super interested to see more of the city and also learn more of it's history. Our guide was incredible as she had grown up in Berlin so she knew all about it and was able to answer all of our questions. I was amazed to see just how open Berlin was about the War, there were memorials everywhere and even things like their government building's architecture was all open and glass to represent the openness of the government. We walked through the Brandenburg gate which I was super excited about because I'd wanted to see it for ages, and we also saw the carpark where Hitlers bunker had been. It made me feel quite good because there was no sign to tell you that where you were standing had once been his bunker, it was just a carpark with weeds growing in it, as it should be. We finished the tour at Checkpoint Charlie, and we were told all about the wall's history, which I had no idea that it was so gruesome and horrible, and how recently the wall had fallen (or the fact that it's falling was due to a bit of miscommunication..).

Government building 

A memorial to the politicians that died. It had their names, date of birth and death, their political parties and the concentration camp that they were in)

A memorial to the Jews

I think this is the silhouette of a guy who tried to bomb the building Hitler would be in. Hitler left like 7 minutes before the bomb detonated...

A museum for the Berlin wall

Tom having a nap because it was just all too much

We went for lunch in a beer hall, and I had a pork knuckle, and god it was incredible! It was covered in crackling and it was just beautiful!

LUNCH 

We then got the train back to the hostel after a mission finding the right platform and then nearly getting separated from the group because when we finally found the right train the doors were nearly shutting, but by some miracle we all made it on!

We then all went to buy I heart Berlin shirts for that night's bar crawl, and on the way we walked along the Wall admiring the beauty of it after so many years of horror.

After a freshen up we all went to the bar at the hostel to start our bar crawl, and as we walked in we were each given a permanent marker. The whole point of the white shirts was that people could write over them, and it was hilarious! By the end of the night our tops were covered in quotes and sayings from the tour, or nicknames or memories. It's such an awesome souvineer and i'm going to keep it forever!!

The bar crawl was so funny! I didn't drink but I didn't have to because I was just buzzing from the atmosphere of it all (and the fact that I didn't drink made everyone else happy because it meant that they could take it in turns having my free drinks that we got at each bar. We ended up at a club just across the road from the hostel which was great because we didn't have to walk far to go to bed. In the club our wake up song played, so up went the duck hands and we all sung along at the top of our voices, as always.

Berlin was such a beautiful city and I fell completely in love with it, and I want to go back and see more of it one day!!

Next stop: Amsterdam!

Sad goodbyes and crazy nights in Prague

And we're back to normal!

Well, almost.

In Prague things changed a little bit, and it left the group devastated. Our amazing guide Kiki had to leave the tour, because he had left his passport back in Croatia and it was meant to be sent to our accommodation in Vienna but it never arrived. So he could keep on travelling with us without his passport, so we were to have a new tour guide. No one was happy about this, and when he told us all that he had to leave everyone was either speechless or in tears (I was the latter...) He was a vital part of La Familia and him not being with us would change the whole tour. Now our replacement Kiki was an amazing tour guide called Amanda, but to start off none of us were all that happy (not because of Amanda, just because she wasn't Kiki) But we knew we had to make the most of Kiki still being with us, and also welcome Amanda into La Familia, so Prague was going to be insane from the second we arrived.

We had our walking tour and saw the John Lennon wall, walked across a bridge and to the main town centre, and then went back to camp for our last supper with Kiki. 

That night was crazy. We had the loudest train ride ever, with all of us singing and laughing and probably being really annoying to the other people but we didn't really care because we were determined to send Kiki off in style. We stopped off at an absinthe bar on our way to the club, and while I didn't buy anything I tried an absinthe mojito and absinthe beer (the perks of not drinking is that you get to try a bit of everyone elses drinks because they know you wont skull it all..

After the absinthe bar we all walked through the narrow cobbled streets to the 5-storey night club.. Each floor had a different style of music- golden oldie's which was music from the 90's and before, pop, r&b, a live lounge and then an ice bar. I spent most of the night on the oldies floor because the music there was so good! We walked through the different floors and stayed on the live lounge floor for a bit, and all the Aussies showed us their dance to “Nut-bush city limit” which apparently every Australian knows (look it up on youtube and you'll see what i'm on about – although ours wasn't as good because it was hot and everyone was a bit tipsy and that doesn't make learning a dance easy..)

Proof that I was in a five storey club!

The club was so much fun but it was so hot, so me and a few others went home early compared to the others. We had a very interesting taxi ride, where the driver agreed on a price and then about 3 minutes from our campsite he pulled over and refused to take us there unless we gave him more money, so we got out and walked away, and then hid, and then ran. We made it back safely but I was convinced the taxi would find us (but don't worry he didn't!). After all that excitement I went to bed absolutely knackered.

The next morning when I woke up, the campsite was a tip. It looked like a little shanty town, with beds all over the place and sleeping bodies in random places. It was such a funny morning because everyone was hungover or still half asleep. We had a really slow start, and then eventually got dressed and ready to go out (without being stung by one of the 1000's of wasps around the place). The we headed into the city where we did a bit of much needed shopping – I literally had no clean clothes and no more places to wash them so I had to buy new clothes just so I had something to wear... We had lunch in the John Lennon pub (the burger I had was incredible!) and then after a bit of souvenir shopping and another walk through the town square we headed back to the camp to have a much needed nap. When we got there there were still bodies all over the place, so we joined them. That night was a lot more relaxed than the night before, and we went to the restaurant at the campsite for food because we couldn't be bothered going all the way into the city.

John Lennon wall..

The next morning wasn't fun. We had to pack up everything as usual, but we also had to say goodbye to Kiki. He was the most incredible tour leader and he had made us a family within days of meeting each other. When he said goodbye to all of us I don't think there was a dry-eye on the coach. Driving out of the campsite waving to him out the window was devastating and that bus ride to Berlin was abnormally quiet without Kiki at the front playing 'Would you Rather' with Dom, Scotty and Matty. Although Amanda was amazing and although we were all devastated to see Kiki go she didn't try to replace him and she was soon part of La Familia!

I call this game: spot the Angus..

I had to zoom in to make it a bit easier for you.

This was the state of the campsite... Across the other side of the campgrounds were a fresh bunch of topdeckers with their tents in perfect rows with their guy ropes and everything. and then there was us..

Our last photo as La Familia with Kiki... 

Next stop: Berlin!!

Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp.

Our next destination was Prague, but on the way there we stopped off somewhere that changed all of us..

As we drove from Vienna and into Northern Austria, we stopped at Mauthausen-Gusen. Mauthausen-Gusen was a concentration camp used in World War II from 1938 through to May 1945 when the camp was liberated.

We all know about the camps and the horrors that happened there, but walking around it seriously played with your emotions. Kiki, Matty and Scotty all stayed in the bus once they had sorted out our entry into the camp, and once I had walked around the place I completely understood why they wouldn't want to see it more than once.

We had watched a documentary about the camp on the way in, which gave you a horrible feeling when you recognised a building from the film while walking around the place. It make it so much more real.

Before I visited Mauthausen I had always though World War II was so long ago, as I was born 51 years after it finished, and I had grown up on the other side of the world from there it had all taken place. But then you find something that brings it home, the fact that my grandparents were alive during it, makes it so much more real.

In the camp we walked through the bunkers, now just large empty wooden rooms, that in a different setting would seem so plain and innocent. We walked down the stairs of death, that lead down to a small field and a pond with dragonflies and flowers. Even the beauty of that small and silent area couldn't be appreciated, and a countless number of people had been murdered there. Walking the stairs was hard in the heat of summer for us, who were young and healthy with nothing to carry but our small bags. The prisoners had to haul huge rocks from the quarry up those stairs that made us breathless. I couldn't even lift one of the rocks at the bottom for more than a second before dropping it back down because of its weight.

The most shocking place was the crematorium. There were small signs that explained thing, of which I cannot remember, or have just chosen to forget. Everywhere you looked you knew that horrific things had happened there, and there was no way to fully understand just how many lives were taken, as the numbers were so big that you couldn't compare it to anything that you knew.

In the museum there were stories of survivors, people who were there on the day of the camps liberation who were too exhausted and malnourished at the time to celebrate their survival of the most horrifying time in history. There were item that had belonged to prisoners who had died, along with a small paragraph about the person, if anything was known about them. Nearly all of them had no documentation of the date of their death, only a month and the year.

Throughout the grounds there were memorials to different groups, and this is what truly shocked me. I had always only heard about the Jewish people going to the camps, but there were so many other people who were sent there because of their race or religion or profession. The Polish and citizens of the Soviet Union were sent on mass, as were Italians, opposing politicians, Yugoslavians, Austrians, Spaniards and so many others. In total it is thought that over 40,000 people were murdered there, although we will never know for certain as on the day of liberation the SS destroyed as many records as they could.

I took no photos in the camp. I wasn't sure I really wanted to remember it, and taking photos of a place with such a terrible history just felt wrong. I spent the whole time there on the verge of tears, yet I didn't cry because the shock of it stopped me. I didn't talk to anyone the whole time, yet no one seemed to be able to talk. The only words I uttered were of shock, in a whisper so quiet what anywhere else it would have been missed, but the deathly silence caught it every time.

Walking out of the camp was the strangest feeling. You were glad to be out, to be away from the knowledge that death hadn't occurred everywhere you looked, but then you felt guilty that leaving was so easy for you.

Sadly this wasn't our last reminder of World War II, as we would be going to Berlin where it's reminder was everywhere, and also Amsterdam where the Anne Frank house is.

I'm sorry this is such a photo-less and depressing post, but I thought it needed its own one. Its something that while I want to forget what happened, I don' want the victims to be forgotten.

It'll all be back to normal next time I promise!