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So... I woke up at 6 am on a bean bag chair in the lounge area. Not the best start to my stay in Berlin! I got up and went to my bed, slept for a couple more hours and then went back upstairs for breakfast. Roxanne and Patrick said that they tried to wake me but I just fell back asleep each time. But Dylan told me he did the exact same thing his first night there so I guess I don't feel so bad! After fueling up for the day, I headed out into town to catch a free historic walking tour. I managed to make it just in time to the meeting point outside a Starbucks near Brandenburg Gate and got put in a group guided by an Irish girl who has lived in Berlin for a couple years. Right away she was telling us about the buildings around us, like the US and French embassies and the hotel across the street that Michael Jackson held his baby out of the window! We stood underneath the gate and she gave us a quick rundown of German history. What immediately set Berlin apart from the other cities I've visited is how recent the significant events are. The Berlin Wall came down only 21 years ago and the city is still recovering. We walked past Reichstag, which houses the German Parliament and then down the street to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is an area about the size of a city block filled with a grid of 2711 concrete blocks of varying heights. As you walk into the center, they tower overhead until you reach the other side. Some say that disorienting feeling you get symbolizes the confusion felt by the Jews during the Holocaust. A couple blocks away is the site of Hitler's bunker. It's just a parking lot and dirt area (only recently they put up a small information sign about it) and our guide says it's now a tradition for locals to bring their dogs here to crap. From there we visited the site of Checkpoint Charlie which has a small touristy replica (the original was demolished). Apparently someone made it past the wall disguised as a cow and the outfit is on display in a little museum along with stories of other incredible escapes. We moved on past a couple more sites like churches and buildings used by the Nazis. We walked through Bebelplatz, where the first major Nazi book-burning event took place in 1933, and ended on Museum Island which houses 4 of the major museums. I learned so much on the tour and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Berlin. I met two guys on the tour, Jim (from the US) and Tim (from Australia), and afterwards we grabbed lunch from a grocery store and ate on the patio at the hostel they were staying at. After hanging out for awhile, I headed back to Hostel Aloha cause there was a pub crawl that I wanted to go on. Roxanne, Patrick and two guys from Brazil joined me and we made our way to the first stop (a oldies rock and roll bar) to meet with the guide. Our group ended up being about 50 people so they split us in 2. One group went to a ping-pong bar and mine went to an absinthe bar where I tried a shot of it for the first time (it tastes like black licorice!). Next stop was a bar with live music, but they weren't very good which kinda ruined it. Our fourth stop was a goth bar with all sorts of skeletons on the walls. We ended the night in a techno club where we all danced for awhile before me and Patrick decided to head home. It ended up taking us an hour or so to find our way back so I had to refuel with a kebab before passing out for the night (in my bed this time!). A fantastic day in Berlin! I originally booked 3 nights but already I'm planning on staying longer!
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