Paris: the final haul
Funny how life is circular. But we managed to make it here with less trauma. Unfortnuately Maria and I are SO tired of being tourists and living out of suitcases it does feel a little like we're biding our time. Which is a shame because it doesn't really give Paris it's due.
We walked around Paris the first day just shopping and exploring. We had lunch on the Ille de St. Louis... because I can't be in France and not have CREPE! and plenty of it. It was very good. We found a cute little creperie and had a leisurly lunch. We found a salon and tried our best to look human before we came home, not to mention getting some pampering before coming home. I managed to communicate what we actually WANTED, IN FRENCH! Well... it was exciting for me :). And then we headed back to the hotel.
Sunday, we had lunch with Jean, which was very nice. We did a little more walking around afterward but the French are not as horribly capitalistic as the Americans so things are actually CLOSED on sundays... PFF.. how ridiculous. So we found The Marie Curie Institute which, being IN france... was closed... due to sunday, and then headed back to the hotel... which brings us to this very moment. Where I'm about to take a bath, yes we have a bath, pack my bags, and go to bed. We have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to catch our plane back to NEW YORK!!!!! And what a long trip it's been, check back after I come out of hiding for some updates about my overall perspective and thoughts about the trip.
posted at: 13:04 | path: | permanent link to this entry
I lost my best friend here once
Ireland, a lot sadder place than I had originally thought it would be. A lot of memories... some of which I really don't want to remember were stirred up. But other than that we had a rather hellish day of travleing that ended in a very nice bed. So, it made it bareable. The next day we headed to the tourist office. We got a great response to our science question. "do you have any science related museums or attractions... and the lady responded "yes... we have... well... no... we don't. We then headed over to Saint Patricks. I remember singing there three years ago. Interesting to remember things and what I remember. St. Patricks is beautiful and the acoustics are fabulous. Though I couldn't make much noise this time I remember the reverb just singing.
Next we walked over to the Guiness factory. though you may not THINK there is much to learn about beer... there is a hell of a lot more to know than about making pasta. It was very well set up and we got a free pint. Which actually got me quite drunk because we hadn't eaten anything. So, we got some traditional Irish pub food of lamb stew and shepards pie :)... I love living meal to meal sometimes. Then we turned in for an early night. Just a brief aside here. The Irish, way more technicologally advanced than you might think. They offer free Wi-Fi in random places like a 1 km radius of an internet cafe or in the Shannon airport.
And so began our second day in Irland which we decided to fill with shopping. Unfortunately there isn't much shopping to be done in Dublin, nothing spectacular at least. But we did some shopping and got some traditionally Irish paraphenalia. Then we headed over to catch our train. Here is where our adventure begins. We found directions to Ashgrove house. Just in case you were wondering, there are TWO ashgrove houses in the Shannon Airport vicinity, we went to the wrong one... or should I say... we TRIED to go to the wrong one. When directions say "little country road" they mean. "rocky road with no light" So we walked from the bus stop which we took from Limerick into the middle of nowhere. and then walked even more into the middle of nowhere at which point we stopped being able to see and called the hotel. They kindly told us that we were actually in the wrong town, and then they sent "good old Frank" to come pick us up. I need to say that these people... were the NICEST people on the planet. They treated us like family, it was great. But we were very tired and glad to finally be back at our hotel, a few meters from where we started BEFORE the bus, I just thought I'd point out so we headed to bed to catch our plane.
When I said plane in the singular before, I was lying. We actually had to take a plane from Shannon to London-Gatwick... SOMEHOW get from Gatwich to Luton and then take a plane from there to Paris Charles De Gaulle and then get to our hotel in Paris. Luckily the weather was horrid and our plane was delayed. But we are so used to it by now it didn't really phase us, we made all our connections AND had some chocolate cake. We got ripped off by a taxi getting to our hotel but once you hit the 12 hour mark of traveling even we lose some perspective. But here we were in our FINAL leg of our trip... Paris
posted at: 13:03 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Didn't your mother ever tell you to keep the left.
London, the land of English and not just THE english but english like the language. The glory of this, is that I actually SPEAK english. I can read advertisments, understand tv, listen to idle gossip, understand subway announcements so many things that you take for granted. So our first day here was a bit of a treck and took most of the day. Especially because we're staying in Essex. Which is a 30 minute tube ride from the center of London, in rush hour, with bags. Needless to say it wasn't a particularly comfortable ride. But we got here... and boy was it a shithole. Actually, it only LOOKED Like a shithole when we first got here but it has increased with quality as we've stayed for a few days. And it has a BATHTUB... no shower really but a BATHTUB... which is so nice.
So after a good night's sleep we went out for a VERY busy day. We started off with St. Paul's cathedral which is very pretty and they are ALMOST doen with a 18 million pound restoration effort. So most of the cathedral was very clean and we went upstairs to the whispering gallery. I have been looking forward to the whispering gallery since the very beginning of this trip since I was very young even. I remember being amazed even as a kid at the acoustics of the whispering gallery. But this time there was scaffolding around and I think it messed up the acoustics because I couldn't hear anything Maria said from across the way. I was heartbroken. I know it sounds dumb but I almost cried. But I proceeded to the stone gallery and took some panaramic pictures of London. And then I was determined to actually make my way up to the top floor because as a small kid I couldn't bring myself to climb the stairs. Since I've never really been afraid of heights I figured I could handle it boy was I wrong. I remmeber now why I neer climbed the stairs. I didn't make it up two flights before I couldn't will my legs to go any further. I mean, I was paralyzed and it took quite a bit of will power just to get down again. So, with my fathers words from years ago ringing in my ears, I still was a coward. But I was also still sane so you win some you lose some. All in all St. Pauls had been a bit of a let down. The crypt was pretty cool seeing such people as Florence Nightengale, the Duke of Wellington and William Blake.
The British museum was next on our list. We probably could have spent all day there but we hit up the important things. In particular, Willie, my favorite blue Egyption hippo, the Rosetta Stone, and some random Celtic Art. We passed quite a few boxes for dead human, as JB would call them and I paused to miss him for a minute. (everybody pause for a JB moment).
Next we headed over to Westminster Abbey, I love westminster abbey because at any given point you're standing on more famous dead people than any other place. We saw, among others that we really didn't care as much about, Chaucer, Lord Byron, Lawrence Olivier, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Benjamin Britten, Joule, Hooker, Darwin, Stokes, Herschel, Purcell, Lewis Carrol, Dirac, Newton, Farraday, Maxwell, The Bronte Sisters, Shelly, Keats, Dickens, Roosevelt, and Churchill. Some of which were memorials but still that's a lot of famous dead people. We paid successful homage to our scientific predecessors. And then we headed over to th Aquarium. It was scores bigger than the Aquarium in Malmo, And set up quite nicely. We got to see a talk on sharks, where we learned about there 7 senses. I never knew that sharks had seven senses but I think it just really reiterated the fact that I don't want to really be caught very close to a shark at any given time.
And then there was the london Eye. Remeber how I'm NOT affraid of heights. My fear of choice is Vomit remember. Well the London Eye... freaky, it took me a good ten minutes to convince myself out of being scared. But I finally did and it was very enjoyable. Plus we got to sit down for a bit which we defiantly needed. We grabbed some dinner, bad Chinese food actually, and went back to the hotel for some MUCH needed sleep.
The next day we woke up pretty early, and headed over, by many different modes of transportation, to Greenwich. The Longitude museum was amazing. I have a renewed desire to read longitude. But I got to cross over from east to West and from West to East and back again a few times. We also got to see som really awesome clocks and a great dramatization. We learned about how the Prime Meridian, why it kept moving, and why the Royal Observatory was actually completely useless. We spent quite a bit of time over there and then we grabbed some traditional fishand chips.
Then we headed over to the London Science museum which was actually quite interesting. Had some great exhibits on Optics and Science in the 18th Century. Where we saw a bunch of instruments from the royal instrument maker for Charles II. there was also a bunch of Material science stuff and Material Testing. All in all a rather impressive science/technical museum to add to our array. Infact, we shut it down staying right til closing time. As a side note, we discovered that in England they don't actually tell you the museum is closing they just shut off the lights.
The next day we woke up early, again, with a full list of things to do. We headed over the Tower of London. It was of course RIDICULOUSLY expensive, like everything in London but well worth it. We got a guided tour of the tower from a Yoeman and luckily we got a good one. I enjoy how much the English revel in the grewsome history that lies in that tower. We were herded through the jewel museum on the handy conveyor belts... you know sometimes I wish that all museums were like that... just slowly moving you past all the interesting things. It would be a lot less tiring. We walked around the bloody tower a bit... more gruesome stories. Then we took a walk across the tower bridge, and then walked over so that we could walk back over the London Bridge, which is actually the most boring bridge in the world it just has a famous name. Then we took the underground up to my all time favorite place in London, that's right... BAKER STREET :)... I know I'm a nerd. After some lunch... that's right... STEAK PIE!, we went to 221B Baker Street. I had been there once before but not for many years... in fact... RIGHT after it had opened so needless to say it was different but in a good way.. they still had Watson sitting in Holmes' living room and Holmes bedroom with all the appropriate paraphinalia lieing around but there were also several floors above with wax figures from the stories. I was sad that Mrs. Hudson's resteraunt isn't still next door but I LOVED being back there. Plus I'm a huge nerd so I know all the stories... and moving on...
Millenium bridge. a rather unremarkable bridge... NOW... it used to have the same natural frequency as the average human stride. So it used to have this very disconcerting swaying motion when you walked on it. For pure curiosity we walked across. They reinforced the bridge so it no longer shakes. It does however end at the globe theatre. We didn't go in but we did walk around the outside just for fun. We couldn't go in because it was way too expensive and it was getting late. So we ran a few errands and went back to the hotel for bed.
The next day was reserved for shopping. It was london afterall. we wante dto go and do a sweep of Oxford Street, hit up Picadilly circus and over to Harrods. All of which we did, making a quick stop for Farraday's labs in the Royal Institute. They had a cute little museum and a reconstruction of his original lab. It actually gave a really great account of his biography and discoveries. But this was our last night in England. It was action packed but it was nice ot move on.
posted at: 13:03 | path: | permanent link to this entry
This has been Pancake education for the American Jackass
So, all day... ALL day on the train. Meaning about 11 hours of travel changing twice. But there we were in Amsterdam where weed runs freely in the streets and sex runs freely... well in the streets too I guess. I think I may be the ONLY twenty something that has gone to amsterdam in the last 50 years and NOT gotten high or had sex... and I'm damn proud of it. Mostly because I'm a contrarian and secondarily cause I really had no desire.
But we had a VERY cute little hotel room which wasn't actually a hotel room it was just the bottom floor of some guys apartment. In fact there was no sign, in fact there were no directions OR sign. so we just kinda guessed and when we got there we didn't think we had ACTUALLY gotten there so we just kinda stumbled around for awhile until one of us had the bright idea to call him. But very tired, we managed to find the place and settle in.
At this point in the story thanks to my amazing roomate Jess, I found out that...
I GOT INTO PENN STATE!!!!
Which is awesome because it's my number one choice and the first school I'd heard from. So we decided to go out and celebrate, that's right... party it up. SO we went to a nice quiet bar and had chocolate cake. Yup, chocolate cake... in amsterdam, to celebrate... who ever said I was normal anyway. We also did some walking around the city which is very pretty. I don't understand why Venice is so famous for Canals really, Amsterdam had quite a few and the water wasn't that sick putrid color. But that might just be my Venice predjudice coming out. We went back to our room and went to bed. Besides we had a busy day ahead.
That's right... PHYSICS. there is a lot of great physics in Holland. Lieden is one of the oldest university towns in the world and they had 5 Nobel Prize winners between the years 1900 and 1950, which is really quite amazing considering that a few years the award was skipped. We went to the museum in Lieden, a half hour train ride from Amsterdam. It housed such things as Einstein's pen that he used while he was there. Lorentz's equitment, a preserved childs arm, you know the usual stuff. actually that last one was really, really gross. Have I ever mentioned that I really could never be a doctor? The Uterous with Fetus preserved in formaldahide actually might have taken the cake when it came to NASTY. But the entire exhibit dedicated to infectious diseases... I never knew syphellus could be so GRAPHIC. Remind me not to get syphillus. But ANYWAY. We then headed over to the famous "guestbook room" it was Paul Ehrenfest's living room and instead of having his guests sign a guestbook they just signed the wall. Which was actually extremely cool. Unfortunately there was some kind of graduation ceremony going on right next door so we couldn't go IN but we got to look in anyway. We then headed back to Amsterdam having accomplished our mission to find physics in Holland. And we were STARVING. So we got the munchies. Imagine having the munchies without the pot. It was great. First we got french fries with green peppercorn sauce. For those of you who don't know, Amsterdam is famous for french fries. And then on our way through the city we saw a cotton candy stand and the overwhelming urge to eat an entire stick of sugar overcame both Maria and I at the same time. So we bought... a lot of sugar. Like a really lot of sugar. We got some funny looks but it was good. And so we headed over to the Erotica museum, very famous in Amsterdam, frankly I was disappointed and if you care... I'll tell you why.
Unfortnuately due to my sickness that was the only day we spent in Amsterdam. and as of now I'm IN the chunnel which is actually really cool... I'm UNDER the english Channel. and I'm going to a land where the speak ENGLISH.. I'm so excited to understand what's going on again.
posted at: 13:00 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Dane-land Dane-land it's big it's heavy it's wood
So, we spend ALL day on a train. Like really ALL DAY. But eventually we got to Copenhagen. WE checked into our hotel, a little more expensive than we were used to but it had ISDN, and they didn't LIE this time. A really cute place the only problem of course being that the shower WAS The bathroom. And when I say it was the bathroom I mean The faucet for the sink was the SAME as for the shower. the drain was right next to the toilet, and the only thing seperating you from the rest of the bathroom was a curtain you pulled shut when you wanted to shower. But it was warm... it worked and who are we to be picky about showers... I mean really. So, we had quite a glorious stay there.
After getting there, we went out for a traditional danish dinner which consisted mostly of large chunks of meat and sauce. lots of sauce. Like I said it was my kinda place. Afterwards we went to bed to get a start bright and early in the morning.
And then the morning came. Well we didn't really succeed in the bright and early part but we evenutally got out to a coffee shop where I had the Danish equivelent of a Danish. Which is actually completely different then what americans call a Danish but really good none the less. And we planned our week. Honestly we could have done a lot more than we did, but the problem with going to places at the end of a two month quest is that you're tired of seeing interesting things. Or at least you're tired of seeing interesting things you have to get up and actually GO to see. But we found a great walking tour of Copenhagen that focused on the science aspect of it with such names as Romer, Steenson, Olested, and of course Bohr. So the first day we walked pretty much all over the center of Copenhagen and finished about half of the walking tour. We saw the birthplace of Bohr, and where Romer first measured a finite speed of light. There was more to see but it would have to wait for another day because the night was reserved for the Erotica museum. Again, I'll spare those of you who aren't interested but if you ARE please click --->HERE<--- for more details (you must be 18 or older to view). We headed home a little early so I could put some work hours in and go to bed.
The next day, we went to sweden... that's right... all of sweden. Ok I lied, just Malmo, but we mostly went just to say that we went to sweden. There was the worlds SMALLEST aquarium there which boasted FLESH EATING PYRANAHS but... they didn't really have any, I htink they just said that so you'd come to visit. HTough they did have an electric eel hooked up to Voltmeter that was actually really cool, but don't worry it wasn't in the actual aquarium it was sort of down this hallway that I don't even know if we were supposed to be in. but regardless, It was attatched to the smallest natural history museum with lots of stuffed things and a lot of sweedish. But we continued, to the exactly mediocre technical museum that had a lot of cute models of how sugar was made from sugar beets, another completely useless fact that I can now add to my fastly growing array of useless knowledge. I'm being a little hard on Sweden, but it was actually very cute everything was nice and small, Corey would have liked it. But we headed back to Daneland for a planitarium show. There was a lovely english translation for me which was very nice, as not all places are so kind. It had a little bit of everything, much less traditional planetarium than Austria, but then again I could actually understand this one so they each had their ups and downs. It was basically intro Physics rolled into a 50 minute audio visual masterpiece. entertaining but nothing I hadn't seen before, since I did take intro physics like... 3 times. But after the show we walked over to Maria's aunt's house which was very nice because it was a house, with home cooking. Most of the conversation was in Danish, though I managed to follow a suprising amount of it. Food was good and dessert was even better. To work it off we walked through a very deserted Copenhagen, back to our hotel.
Which brings us to day 3 in Dane-landia. We decided to do the rest of the walking tour. It actually took us a lot longer than we had anticipated so we skipped the "experimentarium" which seemed a lot like the Liberty Science Center in that you could put yourself in a bubble and discover how men and women are physiologically different by doing "challenges" that kind of thing. Probably a little childish for two physics grads so we didn't mind skipping it. But we did get to see where Olested discovered electromagnetism, and Niels Bohrs grave. The cemetary was very nice, not as painfully poignent as Mozart but I think that might be in large part by the fact that it WAS pretty, and the Danes sure do know how to treat their dead. We then went out by subway to Maria's Uncle's house, which was VERY cute, and we had a spectacular dinner. Unfortunately I had had a spectacular lunch very recently before eating dinner so I ate to the point of uncomfortable... and then kept eating. If you're ever with me in that situation please remind me it's a BAD idea. Needless to say I had a very uncomfortably full ride back and night's sleep.
The next day we were heading over to Aarhus to spend the night with Maria's OTHER uncle. First laundry. it took a bit longer than expected like most things we do. First there wasn't actually a laundry where the hotel said their was a laundry, so we had to walk much further than expected with all our luggage. We did miss the music museum which was a little disappointing but it gives me a reason to come back to Copenhagen which is always nice. And so we headed to Aarhus.
We spent the night with Thomas and Tina who I liked very much. They had lots of books, lots of music instruments (including a VIOL) which she actually played and they were very hospitable, and had great food, which is always a leg up in my book. It was so nice to be in a real house again and it was so comfortable. Plus I TOTALLY met her cousin Morton, who worked for Bang & Olfson and offered to pass my name along which is of course... totally AWESOME. So we went to bed pretty early in anticipation of an early train ride the next day. Unfortunately the inevitable happened, I got sick. Some kind of stomach thing and if you're reading this you most likely know for me... stomach problem=VERY BAD. Luckily we were in an actual house and Tina is an emergancy room nurse which is always at least a small comfort. Needless to say, we didn't spend all day on a train as was originally planned. We pushed our trip off an extra day and spent a glorious day sitting on the couch doing nothing but watching TV, quite a bit of which was in English including catching some CSI and the tail end of THAT'S RIGHT!!! LAW AND ORDER. It was the tail end so I missed my dearest Lenny but you take what you can get right. We needless to say went to bed early AGAIN, in order to get up early AGAIN... for the actual day on the train.
posted at: 12:59 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Germany... Yeah it's a boring title... it was a boring country.
And so we arrived in Munich, in the evening, after dark. We walked through the red-light district and a few blocks to our hotel. It was so cute. Wireless LAN in the lobby and a very nice man at the front desk that kindly offered us fruit as he informed us that we wouldn't actually be staying in that hotel. There was a computer glitch and they overbooked. But don't worry they were sending us to a very nice hotel down the street, actually right next to the train station which is exactly where we just walked from. But they were going to pay for the taxi which would get us back there and we figured... at least they couldn't put us in a WORSE hotel right? that would be WRONG. besdies it was made abundently clear that the hotel we were going to be more expensive but we would pay the "SAME PRICE".
So we had a very exciting cab ride over that they paid for and we got there. It seemed nice enough, going through some renovations but it was very possibly very nice. So we had a charming conversation with the consierge and then we went up to our room. And so I opened the door, and walked into the room. I only got about a foot in before I hit my shin on the bed... so... I moved over a few inches at which point I hit my shin on the small cot that they had put next to the original bed so I moved back a few inches and ran into the wardrobe. Actually my baggage couldn't fit into the room with me let alone Maria and her luggage. The room was a small single with a cot shoved in the only 3 feet of empty space. So we sat, and stared for a bit and then Maria saved the day. She marched down the stairs and demanded an equivelent room that we had reserved at the other hotel. The guys face was CLASSIC. It started with confussion, quickly turned to fear, and then immediately turned to guilt. He managed to stammer "I uhh... paid for the taxi!!" and "He told me to do it!"
Well, they gave us a new room for the small charge of a few extra Euro. When we walked in it was nice... two beds... room to MOVE. Which is always good. So, we settled in and Maria went to take a shower. it wasn't even fifteen minutes later when Maria came out of the shower, in a towel, with one hand behind her back. Pulling that hand out from behind her back revealed a showerhead. Funny that she would be holding a shower head since shower heads are usually attatched to some kind of water source. I quickly learned that this showerhead had indeed BEEN attatched to plumbing but was no longer attatched to said plumming. So, Maria, after much cursing and some laughing at the ridiculousness of our situation marched down to the front desk to report it. They handed her keys to ANOTHER room so that we could shower. And she went to go check it out. Unfortunately, that room was currently OCCUPIED. So, we quickly replaced this room with another room. This one was NOT occupied. And so, we went to bed.
Only to be awoken in the morning by a loud knocking of a plummer. Who kindly fixed our shower before either of us had to shower. But he fixed the shower with a showerhead that didn't fit so it didn't actually attatche to the wall. Needless to say I had a VERY interesting experience trying to shower, and the small lake that some had previously refered to as a bathroom must have taken days to clean. Now, at this point in teh story you might think I'm making it up... but i couldn't make something this ridiculous up if I TRIED. So, we headed out, dropping our bags at the train station for the Deutches Museum. It was a very large technology museum. Remarkeably like the museum in Vienna but worth the trip. There was some much more physics oriented demonstrations. Unfortunately alot of the things we found the most interesting were only in German. We did however get to do some of the very interesting experiements including the feather and lead experiment in a vacuum, the changing of center of gravity, and the a lot of electrostatics. Afterwards we headed back to the station to wait for our train.
So, we had quite a bit of time to kill because we were catching another night train. We waited in the waiting room for a good majority of the time and we met another traveler. He was, initially... very... creepy. Actually he was creepy throught the 4 HOURS we spent talking to him. Needless to say neither of us wanted to be left alone with him. But soon enough we managed to escape, and catch our train.
This night train was by far the nicest.... and the loudest. We had a two person couchette which ment we didn't have to share anything, we could sit up untilwe went to bed. Seemingly everythign we could want. Unfortunately the wheels hadn't been oiled in awhile so everytime we made a turn it screeched horribly and Maria more than I heard every single part of our compartment rattling. And they didn't give us breakfast, but we've had a lot worse... A LOT worse. So, we got to berlin, made our way to east berline, and managed to find and check into our hotel. It was so cute. The management was very nice, the rooms were clean, overall everything we could want. they lied about the ISDN of course, but a small price to pay for a working bathroom, a nice room and breakfast. So we passed out for a considerable time to catch up on some sleep, and then we headed over to the tourist office.
In Berlin's defense, we were expecting soemthing fabulous. The World Year of Physics was supposed to be huge in Berlin but apparently in Germany the year starts in March instead of January... like the rest of the world. So there was a whole lot of NOTHING going on, we couldn't even see his house. So, we were grossly dissappointed and we spent the rest of the day being depressed about being in Berlin. The next day however, we managed to get out and start being douristy again. We went over the music museum. In a very interesting building, a plethera of new and interesting instruments. Well, old nad interesting actually but there was some neat documentary on Bennie Goodman, and some more information (some of which was in english) about the clarinet. Did you know that the REASON the attractive range on the clarinet was called chalumeau because it was actually a dirivitive of another instrument called the Chalumeau? Well, it is. Fancy that. It's also made out of this weird African Grendilla Wood, which gives it the black color. Yeah so I learned quite a bit. We headed back to the center of the city for lunch. After quite a few hours of searching we found a really nice resteraunt and we had a lunch. We had Berlin Beer, we had fabuluos food and lots of it. We sat for a good four hours before we finally moved on but we did, to an internet cafe and then back to our hotel for home.
The next day we went over to the technical museum. It was probably very nice but having seen two of the best it seemed to fall short. It was also geared toward much younger students. Though they did have an entire floor on sound with some interesting experiments. It didn't take us long to get through it however and we headed back to the city center for another big lunch. Then we headed over to see the museum at checkpoint charlie. As we walked over we sort of stumbled on a memorial that really hit hard. a field of white crosses with names on them were placed next to the largest remaining chunck of the Berlin wall, at the gate of checkpoint charlie. It is now painted painfully white to match the crosses. Also, as we walked into Western Berlin, there was the original gate set up with two guards, a soviet and an american, obviously actors. I couldn't, and still can't decide how I feel about making that "photo opportunity" so touristy. But the wall museum, set up by a prominent historian, during the time of German occupation, recounts every aspect of the wall, including art, escape plans, pictures, bizarre collections of stuff. Put together in such a way that it told the stories of thousands of people attempting to escape from Soviet Occupied East Germany. Sad but inspirational.
Unfortunately a good fraction of Berlin's history is sad. So we didn't get much of a break from sadness before we took the train out to Oranienburg to the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp. There are no words to discribe this experience. Sad, Depressing, Wrong. Nothing even comes close. Trying to describe it here would be futile. I cried myself to sleep afterwards. Needless to say, we didn't do anything else that day.
Our final day in Berlin we SHOPPED. Let me tell you Berlin... not so much with the shopping. I mean, when they say, not a fashion capital of the world... they really ment it. And when they say there isn't anything worth buying there.. oh wait... that was me that said that. So, we had some errands to run so we ran them, and then we went to the erotica museum. I will describe this but I will spare those who really don't care by adding a link... an explicit link that you must be 18 years to view.
And so our stay is Berlin was over. Thank God. Berlin is cold and depressing, but we expected better things from our next destination... Copenhagen.
posted at: 12:54 | path: | permanent link to this entry