Schlump-flavored ice cream!

Hello again, on Monday. It is almost 10 here, getting close to 3 pm where most of you are (if anyone is actually reading this, that is).

We got to Berlin yesterday. Most of us didn't even sleep before the trip since we had to be ready to leave at 1 AM. We were all a little zombie-like by the time we boarded at 5. We did make it to Berlin, and so did all of our luggage. One of our girls found that her bag was totally destroyed though, and the airline had to replace it.

Berlin is so beautiful! It's a really interesting contrast between modern, 70s, and then 18th and 19th century architecture. There is so much history! The people here are very liberal though. We struck out to find lunch yesterday, and ended up in a cute little cafe' that didn't look too expensive. When our server arrived, she/he was.. well, just that. She was a great server, and was kind enough to translate the German menu for us.

For supper, we went into old Berlin, close to one of the watch towers for the Berlin Wall and across from Humboldt University. We ate outside and there was a nice breeze. The food here has been pretty good, heavy, but they haven't tried to feed me any sauerkraut, thankfully. After dinner, we walked around the corner to the place where the students burned the books. A very poignant monument stands there- an underground memorial with a window looking down into rows and rows of empty shelves.
A short walk later, we arrived at a church where a priest had stood in front of the building, trying to spread the message that what the Nazis were doing was wrong. They beat him and threatened his life to not do it again, but he did- and was sent to Dachau and was murdered. I think that says a lot for the notion that NO one was doing anything, and all Germans were Nazis.

Today, we got up early and drove outside of town a bit. Our first stop was the Grunewald Train Station, platform 17, where German Jews were deported to the camps. The memorial commemorates this by listing the numbers that were deported, along with the date, around the now-retired tracks. We then headed to the Wannsee Villa, where the "final solution" was decided upon. There is, in general, a lot of gray area about the Nazi's plan to murder every Jew. While it may not have been the original plan (although it was probably Hitler's plan all along), it was definitively decided at Wannsee. After the villa, we went to the Topography of Terror, which holds two exhibits on the Nazis and the horror they inflicted. Interestingly, the museum is on the location of the SS headquarters (which had been underground). Finally, we drove to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. There were some teenage kids jumping on and off the memorial (a big area full of wide columns). Being the teacher I am, I of course had to get off the bus to go tell them this was a place of remembrance for the 6 million Jews who died. They laughed, but stopped. I even got a round of applause when I got back on the bus! :) Ironically, the memorial is around the corner from the place where Hitler's bunker had been, which is now purposefully pretty obscure and only a relatively small sign is there. We were told they put grass there in hopes that dogs would do their business on it..?

Anyway, we are off to our first camp tomorrow, Bergen- Belsen, where Anne Frank was murdered.

Oh, and about the schlump.. we've eaten quite a lot of gelato on this trip, and went out for it tonight, again. When we got there, we saw a blue flavor called schlump..? We asked, and found out it was bubblegum flavor. Weird.

Anyway, have a good week, and check in soon. I'm sure tomorrow will be a very interesting experience.