Berlin Germany day 20

Last day of my trip today, I left after breakfast and took the metro to the Brandenburg Gate which is quite famous in Berlin. They were doing presentations in front of the gate awarding different people but they were speaking German so no idea what that was about. 

After the gate I walked to the Reichstag building which I'm pretty positive is a parliament building. Walked back through the park towards the metro and just stopped in all the little shops on the streets and looked around. Things are quite expensive here which surprised me big time. I was looking for a few souvenirs and a little magnet was 6 dollars!? Um no thank you. 

I took the metro again and went to the Berlin cathedral, it's right beside the river and it's a very pretty sight to see! I grabbed an ice cream and sat by the river/ cathedral for awhile and just relaxed. Oh my goodness is it humid here!! Not even kidding it's the most humid here compared to all my trips which is crazy because Germany is very North compared to Greece/ Italy/ and Croatia. So I assumed it would be cooler. NO. The humidity was Insaine so I decided to go back to the hostel and just hang out indoors for a bit before going back out because I literally couldn't stand being outside anymore. 

When I went back an Australian guy was checking in, we got to talking and hit it off pretty good! 3 hours later I realized we were still talking and I mentioned the time and he asked if I wanted to go get some supper in city centre together. So we left and took the metro to the centre and found a place to eat. His name is Tom and he's travelled so many places! All over Europe, South America, Australia and Africa. He said his next stop is North America so I got him on FB and hopefully if he's in Canada we meet up or now when I'm in Australia I have another person I can get in touch with! 

I was wanting to go to the Jewish museum aswell and he tagged along to see it too. Oh my word I think I would have had a better time buying bread and feeding the pigeons in the park. Such a weird musesum! I was obvisouly expecting to see things on the Jewish life during the war or something along those lines. It was mostly about Jewish people when it all began thousands of years ago and a little to do with the war. HOWEVER that's not what made the musesum a bad experience. There was an exabition that's free with your musesum ticket so me and Tom went in. I have photos. Prepare yourself. Shit gets weird.

Brandenburg gate 

Awards going on in front of the gate 

Reichstag building 

Berlin cathedral 

Exhibition at the Jewish museum 

Some weird rooms with even weirder things inside them!! 

Front of the musesum. 

Goodbye all my readers!

Goodbye all my readers! 

So after 6 months, 24 weeks, 182 days, 82 blog posts, 17 flights, 10 countries and countless memories to last a lifetime, my adventure abroad has come to a close. 

Thank you so much for being part of my journey! When I was first questioned if I would do a blog I laughed and replied no way. However it turned out to be an amazing way that allowed me to bring people along for the ride! Thank you to everyone for reading and being part of my experience! 

I learned so much about myself over these last 6 months, whether being life lessons, how to book the absolute cheapest flights in Europe, simple little tricks on every day stuff and several things about myself in general. 

Although my trip was intended to be 9-10 months I am happy with my decision to end it at 6 months and come home. It's not so much the time to me anymore it's about the things I did and got to experience so with that being said it's time to come home. Whenever someone asked me why I was moving to the UK I responded because if I don't I will regret it for the rest of my life. I needed to see what was out there and do all that I could while I was still young and just out of school. It truly was the perfect time. 

And yes I would have regretted not doing this trip 100%!!! I can almost guarantee that if I hadn't done this trip I never would have went to Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, split, Corfu, Athens and probably Berlin. That's 5 out of the 10 countries that I visited! 

Home is where the heart is, and my heart is back in the little province of Saskatchewan! Even if some Americans don't even know where that is! (Ya I met some very intelligent people on my travels)... Dumb asses 

Remember to travel and have adventures because you can always make money, but you can't always make memories. You have 1 life to live, make sure it's a life worth living! Cheers! 

Berlin Germany day 19

*Before reading this blog please know I visited a concentration camp today, There are also photos at the end. If you do not wish to read or see the images please don't read this post* 

Left this morning taking the train out to the city traveling towards the Sauschausen concentration memorial camp. Which back during WW2 used to be a concentration camp. It's free entry for people to go in, however I paid for a guided tour so I could learn things about the camp, etc. Which in the end was very well worth it! 

This camp outside of Berlin was mainly used as a "concentration camp" so the main goal of the camp was to be a working camp. Not an "exile camp" compared to other camps such as auschwitz where sadly the only point of the camp was to kill people. At this camp between 30-70 thousand people died, they aren't sure on the exact number because the Natzis destroyed documents before the war ended. At the Aushwitz camp more than 1 million 1 hundred thousand people died. 

With that being said prisoners were still treated beyond unfairly, they lived like animals, were punished for all kinds of things and the death toll number is still incredibly high. 

I got to go through the gates to the camp and see the grounds. Where all the barracks (houses that the prisoners used to live in) used to stand. Now they have memorialized the houses with rocks and pebbles surrounding where the barracks once stood. Along with the barrack number. Only 2 original barracks still stand to this day, number 38 and 39. They have put new windows on them and the siding has been redone but the inside is completely authentic. The objects inside are not originals however such as the bunk beds, tables, toilets, etc. 

We got to see all the guard towers against the fences which they said were 24/7 monitored by a solider with a machine gun. Their purpose was to watch for prisoners trying to escape. 

Saw a lot more things such as the Natzi commanders houses and things around the camp they did. But the saddest thing I saw was the gas chamber and the stoves. The gas chambers were built to hold 30 people and once the prisoners were gassed they were then taken to the stoves across from the chamber and burned. 

The tour was roughly 4 hours so a lot of information was given, I really recommend if you ever have the chance to visit one of these camps that you do because their is a lot of information given, so you learn a lot and it is a memorial now for all those that died in the camps in WW2. 

The wall to the left is still the original wall that was there during the holocaust. On the other side of it is the camp. 

Natzi commanders house 

Entering the camp "ARBEIT MACHIT FRE" which means work and you will be free. 

The concentration camp 

Not the same fences but rebuilt to resemble the old ones that once stood there 

The only 2 barracks left standing, and as you can see in front the stones representing the old barracks that once stood there 

The original barracks where the prisoners lived 

Guard towers 

Where they shot prisoners instead of gassing them. 

Statue to memorialize all those who died in the camp 

The real gas chamber that once stood here, still same bricks around it. 

Stoves used after the gassing