Het verslag van het eerste deel van de reis. In het Engels, want in de eerste plaats geschreven voor mijn penvriend Jamie, die in een Amerikaanse dodencel zit.Saturday, April 30, Berlin, GermanyToday we drove from Leeuwarden to Berlin, a 620-kilometer (385-mile) journey. Our car is a Rover 75. The trip went well and we had a great time on the way. We left Leeuwarden at 08:00 AM and we arrived in Berlin at 04:00 PM. We are staying at the Meininger City Hostel, a youth hostel pretty close to the center of the city. The hostel is cheap and great, we have everything we need. The four of us share one room. The facilities are basic but clean. We're paying less than ¤ 20.00 ($ 25.00) including breakfast.
After checking in, we went into the city and visited some of the sites, such as the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag. On the way, we met a guy who was selling
3D-prints. He told us he was a physicist and he had invented a way to make these 3D-pictures. They are really amazing, my mom and I both bought one, even though they were ¤ 8.00 each for a postcard size print.
Berlin is a beautiful city and it feels peaceful and safe, much more so than other big cities I've been to.
When dinnertime came, we went to a Persian restaurant called Khayyam. We had the most gorgeous meal there, served by a very courteous waiter. After dinner we had a few drinks at a bar and then went to our room at the hostel.
Great weather today, partly cloudy and about 68° Fahrenheit (20° Celsius).
Sunday, May 1, Berlin, GermanyToday we walked, walked and walked. I've got blisters on my feet, but we had a wonderful day. We started off by walking to Checkpoint Charlie, where my dad and I visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum while my mom and Esther went for a cup of coffee down the road. The Museum deals with the Communist Era in general, but the most interesting part of the exhibition consists of amazing escape stories about people who fled from East to West Berlin across the infamous Berlin Wall. The Museum displayed many artifacts that had actually been used in real escape attempts, such as a car with an adapted fuel tank to hide a person, a home-made hot-air-balloon and a home-made airplane (!). Some of the stories are very touching, such as those of lovers who had been separated by the Wall and who were determined to be together again, people who just wanted to be free and join their loved ones in the free West.
We had lunch in a restaurant that was located directly under a railroad track. The ambiance was not very exciting, but the food was good. I had sheep's cheese with tomatoes and onions.
After the Museum we decided to go back to the hotel via the Kurfürstendamm, a large shopping area with lots of fancy stores. Unfortunately, all the shops were closed, but we did manage to get a hold of some really good ice cream.
In the evening, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was not only cheap, but also very good. When walking home, we had a very lively discussion about whether it would be possible to use farts as a source of environmentally friendly energy. This is what happens after a few drinks.
Before going to bed, we had a few more drinks at "Bella Stella", the bar located in the same street as our hostel.
Great weather, sunny and 77° Fahrenheit (25° Celcius).
Monday, May 2, Wroclaw, PolandToday we drove from Berlin to Wroclaw, about 350 kilometers (217 miles). It was easy to find out with eyes closed that we had entered Poland. The road immediately turned real bad. The road after the border was made of concrete slabs that did not connect well. The gaps between them made for a bumpy ride.
In Wroclaw we checked into our hotel. It's really old and shabby and it's on a busy road, so the rooms are pretty noisy. Thankfully, I brought some earplugs with me. We have no right to complain though, as we are paying only about $12.00 per person per night.
After checking in, we went out to discover Wroclaw. The place is absolutely filthy, but the old center is beautiful. It's got buildings with gorgeous facades painted in yellow, pink and light blue. We had a drink at one of the many cafés. Esther, my mom and I decided to go shopping and my dad went his own way. Prices for clothing are considerably lower in Poland than they are in Holland. I bought a pair of slippers and a very nice black leather jacket.
When we'd had enough of our shopping spree, we went back to the Market Square to find my dad. We joined him at a sidewalk café and had dinner there.
Sunny weather, 82° Fahrenheit (28° Celsius).
Wednesday, May 3, Osiwecim (Auschwitz), PolandToday was the day we went to visit the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz. It actually consists of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. Auschwitz I was meant for non-Jewish prisoners. It consists mostly of stone barracks. On the front gate the infamous line: "Arbeit macht frei" or "Work is liberating". A very bitter "joke" indeed, as many thousands of prisoners died there because they were forced to work very hard while receiving very little food. The former barracks have been turned into exhibition rooms that tell the story of the camp. There are pictures, artifacts and preserved rooms. One of the most impressive parts of the exhibition is the barrack in which possessions of the Jews murdered by the Nazis are displayed. Thousands of suitcases with names written on them (among them the suitcase of Margot Frank, sister of Anne Frank), hundreds of thousands of shoes, hundreds of thousands of combs and toothbrushes… The saddest items were the babies' clothes. I could not help but cry when looking at them. The children who once wore them died a horrible death in the gas chambers…
Auschwitz II is shocking because of its sheer size. When you stand in the entrance building, you see dozens upon dozens of barracks, as far as the eye can see. It consists mostly of wooden barracks originally intended for 54 horses each, but they were "home" to 400 people at a time. When walking through these barracks, one realizes that it must have been unbearable in the wintertime, especially because all the prisoners were severely malnourished and did not have warm clothes.
Auschwitz II was expressly built for the destruction of the Jews. There are two large gas chambers. They consist of an underground undressing room, the gas chamber itself and a large room with incinerators for burning the bodies. Auschwitz II had the capacity to utterly destroy 4,500 people per day. One-and-a-half million people were murdered in Auschwitz. The Germans exploded the gas chambers on their way out, but the remains are still there and easy to recognize. A place that makes your blood run cold...
By far the most shocking thing in the camp (to me at least) was the fact that some of the visitors were taking photographs of one another in front of the barracks and other parts of the memorial. It made me really angry, since Auschwitz is a place of such immense suffering and sadness. These people were behaving as though it were Disneyworld…I felt a strong urge to ask them what the hell they were doing, but I didn't.
Sunny weather, 82° Fahrenheit (28° Celsius).
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Lupa_Solitaria op 10-05-2005 21:41:23 ]