"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

10 pm Thursday night. Abby, Sarah, Cari, Ricki, and I hopped on our first (of three) overnight trains of the weekend to Berlin, Germany. We arrived around 930am the next morning and spent the next hour or so trying to straighten out our train tickets to Poland. The night before,  Meghan and Amber informed us right before leaving Vienna that the reservations we had made to get us into Poland would be invalid, since Poland is not a part of the EU (meaning our eurail passes would not work). In Berlin, we each purchased a 43 euro supplement ticket that would allow us to cross the border legally. The whole situation was frustrating because the woman at the Vienna train station definitely did not mention a word about our eurail pass being invalid once we crossed the border. After sorting out the train confusion, we self-navigated into the heart of Berlin. Our first two stops: a WWII Memorial (as seen above) as well as a  brief, but productive trip to the Deutsches Historisches Musuem, which contains an extensive WWII exhibit, artifacts included, explaining the history of the Germans, Hitler's rise to power, and European lifestyle from 1200-1990. The rest of our day was spent on the Third Reich guided walking tour. Below are some of my favorite stops of the tour: the Reichstag building, housing the parliament of the German empire; the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park, commemorating the death of thousands of Soviet soldiers who died during the Battle of Berlin; the Academy of the Arts, formerly serving as the arts council to the government since 1931; the Holocaust Memorial, a five acre plot of land, containing over 2,700 concrete slabs arranged in a sloping field...its aim to represent an orderly system that has lost touch with human reason; lastly, the new Jewish district, containing an old synagogue that is the only surviving synagogue (in Berlin) from WWII. Sorry that was the longest, most disorganized sentence I've ever written. Nonetheless, the tour and our guide were fantastic and very informative. Although tired by the end of our 3.5 hour walking tour, we made our way over to Checkpoint Charlie, the name given by the Western Allies to the most well-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Germany during the Cold War. Because we were pressed for time, we chose to have our first European SUBWAY experience. I'm not even the slightest bit ashamed...I enjoyed a roasted chicken breast footlong, just like I would order in America :) We ended up running to and around the U-Bahn station, in search of the train station platform that we needed for our overnight train to Poland.



The next morning, after a successful night's sleep, we were greeted by the train conductor, who informed us that our train was 2 hours behind schedule. Most of the girls went back to sleep. Sarah and I were too awake to do this, so we talked for awhile and had our own short Bible study of a few different Psalms. Upon arrival into Poland, we had to transfer trains to Auschwitz. I purchased all 5 of our tickets on my debit card (since we didn't have Polish money), and because we didn't know the conversion rate, I had no idea how much I had just spent. Fortunately, the tickets were only 2 euro a piece. Our first priority upon arrival into Auschwitz was food (of course). We made our way to an authentic Polish restaurant across from the train station, where I ordered tomato soup with rice, as well as borsch soup, a traditional Polish soup comprised of chopped beets and cabbage. I know it sounds repulsive, but it was SO GOOD. In fact, I plan to make it over Christmas break. After a filling and extremely inexpensive lunch, we walked 30 minutes to the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Our 3 hour guided tour allowed us to see both the Birkenau and Auschwitz camps, the largest killing center in the Nazi universe. Our guide debriefed us on a variety of history surrounding WWII. We also saw the inside of some barracks, a gas chamber, and a crematorium. The entire tour was extremely EERIE, to say the least. The sky over Auschwitz darkened around 430pm (and no lights are contained inside the camp). It felt like a ghost town. I don't even like typing about, let alone talking about my experience. I know in a few months I will be glad I chose to experience what life was like inside these camps, but right now, I'm still terrified/sad/sketched out.