A nice place for astrologists and blow up dolls..

(Berlin, Germany, June 7)
this day was probably one of the most epic and random days i have ever experienced..there is no way that it could possibly translate onto paper.. well i guess its not paper now that its blogged.. but into writing.. alas i shall try..

to start things off.. i meet Matt and Ken in my hostel.. they are two dudes from San Diego (which in german.. means a whales vagina..lol.. sorry in germany it had to come out).. and i also met Kara and emily.. whom they had met the day before, while on a bike tour of the city (a tour i plan on doing when i return to berling june 20-21).. emily is a fellow canadian.. and kara is from north carolina.. so now we have the charecters.. the 5 of us hit berlin.. and hit it hard..

i was forced to wear a yammeka? (the jew hat) in a cemetary we randomly stumbled across.. i thought i would melt, fizzle and disappear like the wicked witch of the west.. i do not like to participate in religious practices, simply because of my religious views.. i am all for watching, and taking it in.. just not participating in any way shape or form (although call me horrible, but i would love to go to a black church one day.. where they sing everything.. anywho).. so we can call the hat i had to wear a form of kryptonite for me.. GOOD news.. i didnt melt, fizzle or disappear.. nor did i become useless like superman... i remained the same, and checked out this cemetary with extremely old gravestones.. it was erie because there were several knocked over, and the trees and vines had reclaimed the area stolen by the graves...the vines and overgrown grass dominated the cemetary.. it was like a graveyard in the middle of a rainforest... a site for sure...

when we finally could figure out the maps we headed to a sunday flea market.. it was huge.. our team of 5 navigated it as best we could... but 5 random people have 5 different interests.. so we lost each other quite often.. just outside of the market we found a wall.. entirely spraypainted of course.. everything in berlin is spraypainted.. i have no idea how they reach some areas, alas they are painted just the same... i have established that grafitti is as much of the berlin culture as nascar is to the trailer parks.. they go hand in hand... and can and should be enjoyed for exactly what they are.. although i loved the spray paint, im a fan of pop art.

the jewish theme would run throughout the day.. oddly enough in a city that is vastly void of a jewish culture since the end of WWII.. well actually during.. but we know what happened.. and its understandable as to why they left... but we checked out the jewish museum.. a new museum that was errected to i think commemorate the jews, and held in a sort of memorium.. in conjunction with the jewish national memerial.. which i visited later on.. although due to map difficulties we ended up at checkpoint charlie, before we arrived at the jew museum.. checkpoint charlie was a legacy left over from the fall of the berlin wall.. and like all legacies it remained fairly unchanged.. although commercialized just the same... giant H&M bilboards surrounded the monument. honestly i would have prefered random grafitti over billboards..

there was a very annoying theme to the jewish museum.. it was all "open to your interpretation".. so in order to achieve this.. lets slant the floors.. slant the walls.. and enter tim burtons dreamworld.. nothing is level.. everything is off.. and we are supposed to interpret it as we will.. the walls and floors created a sober drunk walk through jewish culture and the holocaust.. there was the garden of solidarity or something.. and guess what.. slanted.. and open to intepretation.. there was a tower room.. that was the interpretation i believe i got correct.. it was supposed to represent the gas chambers...but i dont really know if i was right.. because its open to your interpretation, and you could think it was.. well i dont know.. it was creepy cold, barren and silent in that room.. and of course open to your interpretation.. (have i said that enough to annoy you yet.. cause i was pretty fed up with the whole concept myself).... there was also a really interesting example exibit i call it.. it was called the void.... it represented 10,000 jews absent from modern berling.. there were 10,000 metal cutout faces strewn across the floor... in the end we spent 4 hours in that museum.. and learned a ton, in fact info overload... i found a superman yammeka.. i thought it was funny (the seinfeld/superman thing).. and there was an exhibit about how hitler tried to achieve the arian nation.. super interesting.. and disturbing..

after the museum.. and more map shenanigans.. by this point Matts map was split into east and west berlin.. quite litterally, his map was in shambles... but we found hitlers bunker, where he commited suicide during the fall of berlin.. the bunker was dug up and filled in, the ceiling was 3m thick.. and the walls i think 3 ft.. so it could not be entirely destroyed.. just the roof removed.. and dirt filling in the rooms...it is currently a parking lot for a housing complex.. there have been thoughts to resurect the bunker, but fears over a neo-nazi pilgrimage to the site has hampered that process.. ironically enough.. the hitler bunker is within eyesight of the jewish national memorial.. i think its odd.. but whatever.. the jewish national memorial was intense.. and open to interpretations.. its a bunch of stones arranged like a graveyard, with different heights.. and in the centre the ground is uneven.. its hard to describe.. but left me with a feeling of uneasyness.. i dont like this open to interpretation stuff...

after.. chick on a stick.. the brandenburg gate, and the reichstag.. at this point it is 10pm... and we had been walking for 12 hours.. so food.. and booze it was.. matt, ken, kara, emily and i brought out the maps again, as the girls wanted to see the hookers in the red light district.. and we needed to find the beach bar for 1L cocktails.. which were amazing..

in the end the night finished at around 5am.. in total around 17 hours with the group.. and to be honest, it was amazing the group of 5 got along so well for that long stretch of time.. i was amazed and thrilled to have met, and traveled with the group.. although not looking forward to being hung over on another long train.. Berlin also marked the end to my backpack trip part one.. i start school in two days... and not exactly looking forward to it, especially after my long ass day..