I still don't think I have anything bad to say about Berlin. I love it! It's such a great place - especially for politics/history nerds like meee! I absolutely love being in a place that has been the centre of so many massive events in politics and international relations - especially in regards to WWI, WWII and the Cold War!

Today we did heaps. We got up pretty early, had our breakfast (we have been choosing hostels and hotels that include breakfast in the price so that's really good). I was unusually hungry though and ended up having three breakfasts (FATTY but must of needed it if I was that hungry) :) and then we decided to do one of the free walking tours here! It says it is free, but basically it just works on a tipping basis - you choose how much you think it was worth.

We met the tour guides at Brandenburg Gate and were split in to a number of groups made up of about thirty people. Our tour guide was really cool - his name was Mark and he is from the UK - he used be a history teacher there at secondary schools, but moved here to Berlin because he thinks it's the most exciting capital in the world. He really gave us a fantastic tour so I would definitely recommend finding him if you come to Berlin. He tells you so much interesting information but also adds his own personal interpretations and opinions of things around the city.

The first part of our tour was in the Pariser Platz. This place was pretty interesting and we were told lots of stories about its significance, including how Napoleon stormed through Branden Bur Gate and stole the big statue from above, and then the Germans were really mad, went to France and gotit back. They renamed the statue from being one about peace to Victoria the Goddess of Victory. They also tilted the statues head so that rather looking directly ahead it now stares straight towards the French embassy slightly on its left.

We then went and saw the German parliament building - the Reichstag. This is a really interesting building again because following the world wars a dome was built on to the top. The dome is made of glass and it looks down in to the German parliament - it was a way of bringing transparency in to politics in the country after all the dramas in the 1900s.

Next we went back to the Holocaust memorial for Jewish people. This is one of the most interesting memorials I have ever seen because it's not a very typical plaque or something. The memorial is made of apparently around 2711 slabs of concrete - and every single one is different whether in width or height. Apparently there has been heaps of controversy over this memorial - some questioning its location, its cost and so on. One of the biggest arguments are that its location has no significance and that it was so expensive to build (over 20m Euros) and it would have been better just to arrange for free transport to the concentration camp 35km away. But our tour guide was explaining to us about how its location does have some significance - its right in the very centre of Berlin so every day people will walk past it and remember, the German parliament is just down the road so politicians will walk past it and remember, and also it was built between the two Berlin Walls (I think this strip is called the death strip) and therefore was previously just vacant land. In regards to the cost, our tour guide argued that people who WANT to learn more about the holocaust will pay to see the concentration camp - it doesn't matter about the cost for them, and therefore there should be a memorial that everyone has super easy access to whether they are bothered about learning more about the holocaust or not. You can walk through the memorial and it's supposed to help you understand the feeling of confusion and loss of control. So yeah, that was pretty cool.

We went to the car park above Fuehrer's Bunker afterwards. There really wasn't much to see here. But that's the whole point of it - Fuehrer's Bunker was where Hitler committed suicide in April 1945. There is no signage or memorial plaques because otherwise it was worried that people with Nazi ideology from all over the world would come here. However you can't actually go down in to the bunker now because I think the Soviets like flooded it and filled it in or something.

Then we checked out the Tax Office. This sounds pretty lame but actually it was interesting because it used to be the Luftwaffe headquarters (for the Nazi regime) until the Soviets took over and it became the headquarters for Eastern Germany! Crazy because the Soviets destroyed most of the Nazi buildings, but they kept this one and used it as their own headquarters - so this building was effectively swapped from being a fascist headquarters to a communist headquarters in a really short period of time. There is a big painting on it from the 1950 (communist era) of lots of happy people loving communism and being happy - but actually it was also the same spot that three years later saw a massive anti-communist uprising on the 17th of June which saw 25,000 people protesting, 300 killed and thousands arrested. The Soviets weren't too sure on how to deal with the protest initially but then decided to use brutality to shut everyone up and got their tanks in. It's pretty horrific.

We got to see parts of the former Berlin Wall. I don't know if I wrote this in my blog yesterday but I didn't actually realise the wall was so high. I mean of course it would be tall because otherwise people would have climbed over it easily enough, but it's actually pretty big. We were told a lot of information about the wall - such as how prior to it being built, about 3 million East Germans fled to West Berlin and were flown out in to other capitalist regions. But then the wall (150km long) was built on 13th August 1961 pretty much overnight - originally it was barbed wire but then they made the concrete one. So people who had family or partners on the other side of the wall were totally cut off from them without any notice. The interesting thing about this is that whilst it was West Berliners who were technically imprisoned within the wall, it was actually the East Germans who were prisoned and the West Berliners who were free - if that makes sense. It was also interesting being in this spot because arguably if World War 3 had started, this wall would have been at the very forefront of it.

Next we went to Checkpoint Charlie. This was really boring and I don't have much to say about it. Apparently pretty much everything there was just put up for tourist purposes really since it was all torn down when the wall was destroyed.

We then headed to the French cathedral. It was built in 1705, with another cathedral built directly opposite the following year or two. But they were destroyed - probably during the war- and recently rebuilt. The interesting thing was that they looked very new whereas the statues on them were filthy and old - apparently the Germans hid all the statues during the wars! I also learnt that almost 90% of Berlin was destroyed during WWII. That's pretty crazy.

Fredrick's Forum was our final stop. There was a lot to see here - including Humbolt Universitaet and its library, a Catholic church, and an opera house. The university building used to be a royal palace so it looks fancy. It's a significant place because lots of smart people went there like Einstein, Lenin, Marx etc. - but then a lot of them fled Germany because of the Nazis. The Opera House is significant because usually in Germany the opera house is joint to the royal palace because it is meant to be just for the super elite - but one of the kings wanted opera to be enjoyed by all kinds of people and made it more affordable and accessible! The Catholic Church significance was because it was being built in a protestant area and therefore was showing that Germany is accommodating to people regardless of their religion (which is a big deal given what happened the following century with the Nazis). We were told a crazy story about the library - apparently when everyone was getting all revved up about how amazing the Nazi party was they decided to burn 23,000 books - anything that did not match Nazi ideology was really bad and because most of the books were written by a wide variety of people they all had to go. We were told a really amazing quote by Heinrich Heine as he stated that "where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also"- he said this in 1821 so over one hundred years before the holocaust, but it's amazing how that link played out given that many of his own books were included in the big burn out.

Our tour guide also told us heaps of his own opinions such as how he thinks Germany is a really great model for other countries moving on from wars. He was saying about how Germany is pretty upfront and honest about the atrocities it commited and it makes sure that none of its citizens forgets what happened so that they won't ever do it again - he compared it to the British who have also commited heaps of atrocities and massacres but keep it pretty quiet. He explained how he taught history in the UK and obviously had to teach about the World Wars and how naughty Germany was, but never ever taught about the bad things England did. He compared this to Germany where they make sure their own people know at least the basics of what happened.

Hope I haven't bored you all too much. I've included a ridiculous amount of information in this blog but it proves to you that I learn A LOTTTT today and all through a free tour! (We did tip 5 euros each but yeah). The tour is through Sandemans New Europe Company and I would definitely check it out if you're heading to Berlin. Actually I think they do tours in a bunch of European cities. They also do lots of others here in Berlin including a Red Berlin tour (about communist Berlin), Alternative City tour (looking at street art and graffiti, abandoned ruins and so on) and a Third Reich Berlin tour looking at the former SS headquarters, etcccccc! Matt and I are seriously thinking about doing some of the other tours since we still have two full days here!

Oh yeah also its Germany's election time WHICH MAKES ME HAPPY TOOOO! Heaps of politics stuff going on such as big talks in the square near our hostel and so on! I LOVE THIS CITY.

P.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS LOWE!!