Kylie's Ab-raad!: Gabe the God

8/29

Just kidding.

But today after class, we took a walking tour of Berlin (with Gabe), which is his town - aka - he knows everything. It's interesting to see the extent to which both the contemporary european challenges and the nationalism courses fit so perfectly into everything we've heard about the city of Berlin so far, but its incredible to have our classes actually relevant to everything we see going on around us.

On a more honest note: I think the Pointers are trying to kill us. We've been going from class (8/830) till after dinner (8/10) everyday and half of us are sick already. I love them to death, but reading into the wee hours of the night are not exactly my thing when I'm in an awesome city. Rumor has it Gabe and them have talked about toning it down and not trying to kill us over the next few months - so that looks promising! ;) (note: the fact that we are constantly learning things we are genuinely interested in knowing eases this a bit, but we do like sleep)

And back to positivity -

The Royal Church of Berlin from the side. Gabe showed us pictures of multiple Nazi's to whom Hitler served as the best man in their wedding on their wedding day, with him by their side.

Over in Museum square, there are still bullet holes in some of the buildings. Gabe explained that while it makes the city look nicer, these bullet holes carry the story of the city in them, and that taking them out is in some ways a tragedy.

The same church as above from the front.

Gabe's card - #winning.

Chocolate shop rivaling Ghirardelli

Bethany ready to destroy her ice cream

Note to family: this was good, but still not the best chocolate that I have ever had (costa rica)

It almost seems sick to have these pictures next to the chocolate ones... but this is the ground above Hitler's bunker.... we stood at the corner in front of this building where his headquarters were, staring at a side of the road where the building he had been in was destroyed in the wake of the loss of the Germans. They don't want to think about it here - they don't want to be reminded of what this area was on a regular basis, which I completely understand. To give a man who took so much even MORE power in memory seems ridiculous, but at the same time, standing here, with only a small plaque addressing what happened within the 100 square meters around us was bizarre.

According to Gabe, Hitler's office was above the yellow car about 4 stories.

This was a memorial for the Holocaust victims. Its 2,711 concrete blocks that vary in size. You get lost in them and even with our herd of 40 people, we lost each other fast. It was designed to make you feel alone, unsure, and like hope was just around the corner. It was meant to honor and help people identify with the victims rather than illustrate their numbers.