Auf Wiedersehen Berlin

I can’t get over how awesome Berlin is! This week we have had more class, been to more museums and gone on more tours than ever, and yet this has still been the most fun week of the semester! I knew I would like it here, but I never thought I’d love it this much! We’ve had a culture overload. We’ve experienced everything from Bach to cross dressing cabaret. Fun highlights from the week include group karaoke, a giant chocolate factory, dessert (Kihlstrom cookies) and a classical music performance at Gabriel flat, a wine bar, museums (yes they were actually fun, thanks to Gabe), and so much more. 

This was a very serious week as well though, and this significantly added to Berlin being one of the best weeks of my life. Gabriel gave an extremely insightful lecture on the timeline of the holocaust; there was so much that I either didn’t know, I had misunderstood, or I was flat out wrong about. We took the train to Sachsenhausen Concentration camp the next morning and had an extremely moving experience there (I’ll write about my visit there in a separate post). Gabe led us on a walking tour around Berlin and showed us the Nazi’s lasting impact on the city; we also worshiped in a Nazified church in a Berlin suburb. The hour I will remember most from my week in Berlin is the hour that that a woman name Gila told us her life story. She was born in Berlin in 1941, her father was an important Nazi commander on the Soviet front, and her mother was a blue blooded woman who could’t take care of herself, not to mention her kids. Gila was a “problem child” to her parents and was always asking questions about the war and holocaust (a HUGE no-no in post war Germany). She eventually married a Israeli and her father disowned her. She is such an amazing woman and her whole story about her life as a ‘revolutionary’ is unbelievable! I recorded it on my computer and I will never forget it. The best part was when she describer her grandkids. One of her daughters married a Jew and lives in Israel. Two of her sons (Gila’s grandsons) are in the Israeli Army. Meaning, those Israeli soldiers’ great grandfather was a Nazi. Gila said that if her dad knew his great-grandkids were jews in the Israeli Army, he would roll in his grave. 

We’ve defiantly spent the most time as a whole group here. We’d have class most mornings from 9:00 to 12:30, a two hour break, then back for cabaret class from 2:30 to 6:30. At first, I was ready to explode from just pure annoyance. I don’t like huge noisy groups no matter who’s there, so this trip and this past week in particular has been a real challenge for me. I’ve slowly (very slowly) been getting more tolerant of our time as a group. I enjoy basically everyone here individually, it’s just when all 43 of us are in the same room (or bus) for hours upon hours I get extremely agitated. 

I’m really bummed we’re leaving Berlin, it’s been a blast! I cannot believe how fast this semester is flying by! I want time to stop so I can soak up every moment. We’re on our way to Dresden for the night, then off to Prague! What’s great about the rest of the trip is that after tonight, we’re in most places for a good amount of time (5-7 days each), no more of these three nights and leave (Oxford, Bayeux, Bruges, Amsterdam).