Bitchin Berlin

Alright so we were in Berlin- the capital of Germany and a crazy place for 20th century history. I really really liked it there. I thought it was really cool we were seeing all these places where history was made, and really shaped the country, and unlike a lot for the cool history that we had learned about in other countries, this was all during our lifetime.

Lets back track a bit though and talk a bit about accommodation. So ya really good hostel. We were in a four room with two Australian guys. They were also traveling Europe together and were good fun. Easy to chat with and ended up hanging out with them a bit. Allie and I of course didn't remember their name until about two days into staying with them so we referred to them as Mario and Luigi most of the time.

The first full day they we set out on our favourite activity- New Europe Free walking tour! M & L joined us for this adventure and we all headed out after it to see a few sites a little closer. During the tour it was absolutely pouring but we managed to see some really cool stuff: The Reichstag's, Holocaust memorial, Check-point Charlie, part of the Berlin wall, museums, Hitler's bunker, and the hotel Michael Jackson dangled his baby out of. Big stuff.

After that Allie, I M&L went through the Jewish memorial again, which is made up of a huge span of cement block of all different heights that you walk through and its really crazy because you get in the middle and you are totally lost, you can't seen anyone, and its so quiet. Our guide said its still a controversial sight because ti was just built by the government because they felt that it was something that its something that they are embarrassed of and no one can just act like it didn't happen. Really interesting place. Hitler's bunker barley even has a sign by it, its a parking lot now and they only reason they put a sign up was because people in the neighbourhood were tired of being asked where it was.

The next day Allie and I went on a Red-tour of Berlin. It was focused on the communist rule in Germany and the division of Berlin itself. On this one we saw huge pieces of the Berlin wall, some of it made into art, the death strip, and heard a lot about exactly what it was like. Our guide was an Irish guy who said he was tricked into going to Kentucky on a soccer scholarship and ended up with the ridiculous degree of History and acting. Anyways this made our tour amazing because he knew so much and would act out scenes and use Russian accents all of the tour- amazing. Another great point was that at the beginning of the tour they ask where everyone is from and Allie and I say Canada and the couple in front of us do to. They ask where we are from and we say and then it hits me- this girl is in Degrassi the next generation. Allie are pretty much BFF's with her now so if are looking for your big break then you can probably be an extra on this low budget Canadian teen drama re-make.

Berlin is full of amazing things- their pedestrian walking man is famous because he's so different then any other countries- his name is Ample man and there are merchandise stores for him everywhere. In the train stations there are food stores call Le Cro bag- think its supposed to combine croissant and bagel, but really it just sounds like some sort of reference to scrotum.

So back to our roommates. When we went on the red tour they went on a concentration camp tour. Before hand on of them cam out of the shower and ask if his hair looked 'concentration camp chic'. Appropriate. After that they were on the mission of their lives to Leggo land. Really historic and memorable I'm sure.

We got on with them really well and actually went to a beer garden's and everything with them (I'll speak about this later). That night they decided to get quite drunk and came back to our hostel quite late. Now Allie, unlike myself who is a corpse when I fall asleep, is a very light sleeper so she hears when anyone gets up. Well the morning after this she woke up to inform me that she though that Luigi got sick in the night. I asked her how she knew. She said well he got up in the night and then the next time she woke up he was back in bed- his friend's bed, and they were spooning. she got up to use the bathroom at this point, and by the time that she got back to bed, he had moved back into his bed. We laughed really hard at this and then figured that there had been other signs. At this point we started referring to them as the ambiguously gay duo and singing in the transformer theme ' ambiguously gay duo, maybe more then meets the eye'.