cold war action

12512 ok so pictures wont be happening while we are in berlin, cause the internet is garbage at our hostel, so ill update these posts with pics later. Still in Berlin, woke up had the hostel breakfast, yogurts, bread which i spread hazelnut spread and honey onto, but the most exciting point was the liverwurst which i spread on the rye bread. after that we hopped onto the bus, the bus took us to a berlin wall memorial, it had sections of the wall, and faux sections of the wall made of metal arty stuff. this bit wasnt all that interesting, but the exhibit did have a 20 min video documentary bit which we sat through, the documentary was entirely shot from a helicopter, in 1990, so shortly after the wall "fell". obviously they didnt tear down all 100 miles of the wall all at once. the "tearing down" was symbolic, but it was cool seeing all the aerial shots of the entire perimeter of the wall. after that me and a group of girls (how fitting to my character) wandered into the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which i managed to miss last time around on my Berlin visit. first off, i must say the museum was impressive, from the outside it didnt seem like all that much, but inside it had ALL kinds of cool stuff. Panels with pictures and history stuff, and stuff beyond the immediate Berlin Wall stuff, it had info on NATO, and the proxy wars, and Korea, and the Suez Crises. it had newspaper clippings from both sides of the wall describing escapes (and failed attempts) and they had both original and copies of the devices used to escape east germany. the private mini-sub, the underwater scooter type thing that you hold on to, was designed by an engineer trying to escape from the communists. there was a home made hot air balloon, and air plane, and some cars with modifications to hide people in, all kinds of cool things. this is outside the musuem, with the tourist trap guys in "uniforms" and a stranger paying 2EUR to take a picture with them.

after that we went to the Topography of Terror musuem, which prolly didnt even exist the last time i was here. it was very cool (and free). an exhastive museum on the Nazi party, and its security apparatus. chronologically it walked you through the rise of Hitler, and his consolidating power, and the development of the SS, SA and later the SD, and who was running it, and what they were doing, and who they were doing it to. it was clearly focused more on what thye were doing to run germany at the time, cause it was only at the end, the last 5% or so that went into describing the SS and whatnot in France, and Belgium and Italy, and Serbia and everything. the exhibit also went into what the US and British did to the SS after liberation, like putting them to work digging up and properly burying concentration/death/labor camp victims. and the final bit was on the Nuremberg trials. after this musuem we made our way to and through the Brandenburg Gates, took pictures, and off to the Reich-stag to meet the rest of the group, we were the only kids NOT to go bac to the hostel to get on the bus, we were out and about, and seriously wanted to see museums and such, it would have been a waste of time to go "home" and stuff. anyways, the reichstag was pretty cocl. we went up to the roof, and walked around this big dome thing that they had. of course it was super green friendly, it reflected the light into the building for heating and lighting purposes, and the water was used for grey water or whatever. it was mostly for the view, which you will get to see when i finally load the pics. (edit: now)

we went to a german place for dinner, i had Schwienerschnitzel and a litre of "bohemian dark beer" with those same girls and a few addons, the food was good, but not particularly spectacular, dunno if ive been spoiled by Milwaukee, but i have had schnitzel that was as good or better (and obviously for alot less than 12EUR). i hope to get to sleep soon, tomorrow on to dresden, and back to prague.