Update on everything that has happened since I recovered from hideousity (have given up on spelling and now will be inventing my own words with my own spelling) of gross night noises.

So, on tueday I took myself off to a gorgeous lake for a restful day with a good book and my togs. I even managed to find myself a spot by the water where there weren't any naked old people - quite a bonus!I lay down to read my book for a bit and in true nana style I woke up 4 hours later in immense pain (it wasnt sand, more like rock with a light dirt covering) but much less grumpy now that I had caught up on my sleep.

Wednesday I had to move hostels (which was quiet heartbreaking as the first hostel had an all you can eat 5 euro dinner... no need to explain further) and ended up in a really central cute little hostel with a dorm with no night hoickers! Wahoooo!

Deciding that all the tourist sights in central Berlin weren't really things I was so interested in I took another train out to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was pretty intense - by 1945 the number of prisoners that had been there was 220,000 and about half that number died within the walls. I took an audio guide around which was really great, very descriptive.

One thing that really stuck in my mind was that around the main half circle was the 'Shoe testing ring'. To discover which material would make good soles for shoes prisoners were used to test different types by walking around this semi circle for hours at a time. They were loaded up with enough weight to represent the true amount that a soldier would normally carry and given shoes at random - it didn't matter what size the shoes or their feet were. The ground changed in organised patches from big rocks to small gravel the entire way around. As you would imagine people often ended up with serious feet problems. I know that lots of terrible things happened at this time but this was just an example of how seriously inhumanly people were treated, it made me feel sick for being a person!

On a lighter note I went into the city and visited where the wall used to be, the Brandenburger Tor and Checkpoint Charlie (where the famous "You are now leaving the American sector" sign is still standing). There was a really awesome museum about the checkpoint that had displays and information about how people tried and sometimes managed to escape from east to west Berlin. Things like cutting a hole in the ends of 2 suitcases and lying in both of them at a time, hiding people in the front of the cars under all the mechanical stuff (yes, very technical) or digging holes right through underground. People also invented mini submarines and were towed underwater for up to 70 kilometres or sewed fake uniforms and drove right through.

It was also incredibly sad reading about all the people who tried an failed, usually resulting in being shot or injured in other ways and with noone coming to help them as they lay there dying. Yet another moment that I thought to myself how much I love New Zealand.

Anyway, I got a ride with a German guy from Berlin to Prague, accompanied by to Spanish backpackers. I was the only English speaker in the car. Lets just say that the driver spoke less english than I spoke German which is really saying something! Strangely enough we all managed to communicate really well, although the driver seemed to think that if he said something enough times and in a loud enough voice we would all suddenly understand...

I always thought Prague would be beautiful and it is (despite the fact that all I really new about it was from when I went to a mock united nations conference dressed I'm sure more like Russians and I doubt I even could place CR on a map!). The building are gorgeous, really old but in a classy way. Today I walked (in my jandies - bad idea) with a Sweed around the city. We visited Charles Bridge we we took the usual tourist photos (even though neither of us new exactly why it was so famous apart from the brief guidebook info) and then hiked up to my future house - the Prague Castle. My residence to be had THE most stunning views of the city, the bridge and the Vltava river. We made it in time to see the guards marching along to music. Down the stairs we went, and went to the Communist museum (after I got us lost, yes I volunteered to do the map reading... oops!).

Seeing as the Czech Republic is cheaper (apparently) that the rest of central and western eruope I was practically forced to do a smidgen of shopping. But in conclusion the best thing about this country is that people are TALL - eg I found shoes that fit me and even occasionally feel dwarfed when standing in a queue.