Taken from my journal: November 4th (Sunday)

So Im sitting in my hostel's cafe after a long day of walking and touring. After waking up numerous times during the middle of the night because people were checking out, I finally got out of bed around 9am and got ready for the day. I headed to the meeting place for the concentration camp tour and when I got there ended up running into Jason and Katrina, two kids I had met on my flight to Berlin on thursday night! We ended up hanging out the entire day together and it was a lot of fun.

After taking a lot of public transportation we finally end up at Sauchausen. This concentration camp wasn't a death camp but a working camp. Prisoners here were typically political prisioners or people who disagreed with the party in power, or they were actual criminals. It wasnt until the camps later years that Jews were sent here. At least 53,000 people men died here. The conditions here were beyond awful. There were at least 400 men per barrack. You can't go to a place like this and not hate the world just a little for allowing this to happen. It was so sad. The hardest thing to envision was station Z (death zone basically). Seeing how and where people were killed, where the fernaces used to be, where bodies burned was the most difficult to see since studying abroad.

After seeing all that horribly depressing stuff we headed back to Berlin. Jason, Katrina and our new friend Brian from D.C. decided to all get dinner at a random music bar when we got back. It was a good time and we enjoyed ourselves. I tried goulash!lol. It was nice to finally have company during a meal. After a very long dinner we all headed to the Reinsaig (Germany's parliament building) and had a look around. It was really cool how its set up and the theory behind it. The huge glass dome surrounds the government members, so if they ever wonder where the power of the gov't come from, all they have to do is look up and see the people of the city walking around looking down upon them.

Our group then parted ways and I headed back here. I have loved every mintue of Berlin. It has become one of my favorite cities so far and I really want to come back and visit more. Oh, and it doesnt hurt that like ALL german boys are good looking lol. Tomorrow I'm going to go back to the holocaust memorial because it is so moving and do some last minute gift shopping. Until next time!!

Love and miss you all!!