Definitely American

Today was our last full day in Berlin. The GIF staff decided to wear us down, probably in order for us to go to bed early and be happy, cheerful for our drive to Prague tomorrow. While their efforts were admirable, they failed.
Our adventure for the day was going to Sauchsenhausen. It was a concentration camp during the Holocaust located just north of Berlin. It was more of a work camp than an extermination camp like Auschwitz, but still very emotional and eery. We were given a guided tour at the beginning and learned a lot about the history of the camp and the different people who were prisoners there. It started out as a training facility for the Nazi gestapo, but was quickly turned into the work camp targeted at political prisoners. After the war, it became an internment camp set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. Those people with alleged ties to the Nazi's were arrested and set to Sauchsenhausen, not all survived. At the beginning of the tour, our guide made it seem like the only museum aspect to the camp was inside the remodeled barracks... so Allie and I spent a good portion of time reading everything we could inside those two buildings. When we finally walked back outside, we realized we were the only Gonzaga students still there. We ran into Carl and decided to explore the rest of the grounds. We quickly realized that inside every building on the grounds were museums. Two and a half hours later, I looked at my watch and discovered that it was only 5 minutes before we were supposed to be back on the bus, so we took off running. We hadn't gotten to read and see everything we had wanted too, but it was more important not to get left behind in the concentration camp.Exhausted and out of breath, we reached our bus with no time to spare, only to sit on the bus for another 20 minutes because not all of the buses had all of their passengers. Our luck.
After we returned to the city, we were given the rest of the afternoon to do our own exploring before we were to meet downtown at a restaurant where all 200 of us were going to have dinner. Allie, Gabby and I decided to walk down the street to some of the stores and food places to grab some lunch. We got sidetracked and ended up window shopping more than anything, something I do not recommend doing when you have no money. It wasn't long before we realized this and decided to take the metro downtown and see what we could find down there to do before dinner. And so the adventure began.
We had only taken the metro once before, and that was with GIF staff to the Jewish museum yesterday. That didn't seem to hinder us at all. I was pretty confident in my abilities to navigate the system, seeing as how it is basically like the subway system in New York. And Allie is pretty good with directions. Gabby isn't so great, but she is a fantastic cheerleader. We had been told that we needed to take the U2. It was supposed to be a straight shot to Alexanderplatz, making it the easiest way to get there. Lucky us, we discovered that the U2 is down for construction all week, so I began pouring over the metro map trying to figure out which train we now needed to take. Because of the down U2, there was no longer a straight shot downtown; instead, we had to take one train part way then transfer to another to get to where we needed to be. After two failed attempts at finding the right train, we finally got on the right metro and off we went. Transferring was not as easy at it looked. We found where the train was going to be, but got on the wrong one. Apparently, even though on the map it says the S3 is supposed to go all the way to Alexanderplatz, it actually ends one stop away from where we got on it. Thankfully, it was an easy transfer to a train that would go all the way.
When we finally got to our destination, we spent the next few hours meandering our way down the street, taking pictures, and running into Gonzaga kids. We had dinner at Brauhaus Mitte- our first authentic German meal (besides bratwursts for lunch), and I must say, it was quite delicious. However, we were the first ones there. We waited until a couple other Gonzaga girls showed up to go inside. Because we were only 6 out of the 200 people our reservation was being held for, they wouldn't let us back to the banquet room, so we decided to stand around in the lobby. A group of German guys, around our age, walked past us at one point, and Allie distinctly heard them say, "Definitely American" to one another. We aren't entirely sure how they knew, since we weren't talking, but can take a guess that it probably had something to do with our wearing of North Face Jackets. Dumb German boys.
After dinner, since it was our last night in Berlin, everyone decided to go out. To the same place. The last thing we wanted to do was go to the same bar as 200 Gonzaga kids. We bailed and ended up at the Irish Pub Allie had wanted to go to since day 1. Good choice on our part. We drank Shamrocks, listened to a good Irish band, and laughed at drunk 50 year old women dancing provocatively with even drunker, older men.
Our last night in Berlin was a success. There are still things I would like to see and do here, but its off to Dresden and Prague in the morning!

Wednesday, September 7th