Well we ended up having a bit of a lazy morning which wasn't intentional but that's just how it worked out. I think we are both getting more tired by the day. We have crammed a lot in over the past 5 weeks. Did some skyping in the morning and then a last breakfast at the hotel. They have the best fresh home made muesli and I'm not usually muesli person. We checked out about noon, left our bags and headed back to the Palace of Tears Museum that we visited yesterday on the walking tour but didn't quite finish. Had a chance to listen to some of the stories that people told of their own experiences escaping East German.

Outside the train station is a statue called Railway to Life / Railway to Death. It covers those children that were sent off to Concentration Camps and those Jewish children that were saved and given the chance to get the train to safety, although some of these kids were ill treated by those that fostered them, some had good lives but many felt guilty that they escaped the fate many other children were unable to. Very powerful sculpture.

We then visited the Topography of Terror, a museum on the site that used to house the SS Headquarters and Gestapo. Another very thorough accounting of what happened through the war, a little more about the role the SS & Gestapo had in it. This is near the area of Checkpoint Charlie and there is information on walls as you walk around the area. I think what really gets you is the pictures. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words and in this case, when they are sometimes surrounded by what seems like a 1000 words the pictures are easier to read.

As it started to get dark, as it does around 4pm, mum starts to panic we will be late for the flight. Have to remind her just because it is dark, doesn't mean it is late.

We did make our way back to the hotel and collected all our bags before jumping in a taxi to the airport. What an awful airport. Now I understand why our guide yesterday told us that they are building a third. It's tiny and cramped and once you go through security, there was one little cafe with no food left!! Lucky we were served a chicken wrap on the plane which wasn't half bad for airplane food. We fly British Airways to Heathrow T5 which is their newest terminal. I think it opened before I was here last time when I stood in passport control line for 2 hours. At least they had more people working tonight and we were in line for just over 30mins.

I had booked the hotel that was attached to the terminal as didn't want to have the hassle of getting the bus to the hotels on the outer ring. Mum reckons she walked a mile but I think that was a slight exaggeration. Hard to believe back on UK soil. Can't wait to start catching up with long time friends.