I woke up at 9 upset, almost, that I hadn't slept later. That being said, Judson was in bed until 10:40 and so I relaxed and passed in and out of sleep until about 10:30, when my obnoxiously loud alarm woke the rest of the room up too. It's ok though, we were moving out today.
See, yesterday Judson and I looked up the availability at the Belushi hostel, which is actually the name of the bar (the hostel is something like the St. Christopher Inns?), and found a two bed private room for only €3 more per weeknight than we were paying at Pangea, and €10 extra for Friday and Saturday. We booked three nights there.
So this morning we checked out at 11, and made the four block trek to the Belushi on Rosa-Luxemborg-Straße. The cute Australian girl at the front desk, of course, doesn't let you check in until 2, so we left our luggage in the luggage room and went on our merry way, cursing our choice not to shower at Pangea.
Belushi is about 5 meters from the U-Bahn, Berlin's subway system. Which is good, because we had a little bit of a trek to go on to get to our first real tourist site, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
We took our line north to Schönhauser Allee, then the S8 to Bornholmer-Straße, then the S1 north to Oranienburg. From there, we chose to walk to Sachsenhausen, as the train tracks no longer lead right to the Camp and we didn't feel like taking the bus.
Much like Melk, Sachsenhausen is situated directly adjacent to a residential neighborhood, making it all the more horrifying to know that ordinary citizens had to be so keenly aware of the atrocities of the camp but so in denial, or in misguided support of it regardless.
Entrance is free, but I got the €3 audio guide. We walked along Camp-Straße, along the outer wall of the Camp, for about a quarter mile, then turned left and crossed through the first set of walls. In front of us we were greeted by the main entrance to the camp, Tower A, with the iconic words "Arbeit Macht Frei" in wrought iron at the top of the inset door that is part of the larger gate. A chilling site.
Before entering the camp we stopped in a building that used to be a garage for official vehicles (and a moratorium for political prisoners there before the War to be laid out after death for their family to see them one last time - a practice quickly discontinued when death rates spiked during the War), but is now a museum for the camp.
I must say, I'm very proud of the Germans for acknowledging and remembering their own terrible past. On the streets here, I wonder if the 85 year old gentlemen I see are former Nazis, or Hitler Youth. I know that, were it the case, they've suffered with the knowledge of their actions for all this time, and that, for the common soldier, is probably punishment enough (a courtesy I, as a Jew, am hesitant to extend). But these same old men were young then, and their 20 year old selves ended up leading Germany for years, rebuilding their national image. It would be so easy for them to have tried to cover it up, but they didn't.
Inside the gates of Tower A, a few barracks remain intact. The rest have been demolished, but large rectangles of gravel now lay in their place, fanning out around the roll-call grounds. In the back there is a GDR obelisk, too. We walked through a few barracks. In the medical buildings, the basements were preserved from the 40s, including the wash room. I remarked to Judson that I hadn't expected to see an actual shower room in a Camp.. But we learned it was only for medical patients who were deemed human enough to require treatment -- Jews and Roma need not apply.
It had been drizzling on and off, but we got the feeling it was about to pour. A clap or two of thunder didn't hurt that assumption. We ran out. On the way the rain started coming down in proverbial buckets. I marveled at how impossible it would be to run away from this Camp, even if you made it over the wall.
We made it back to the information centre, and waited a little for the rain to pass. when it did (mostly), we got on the 14:51 bus back to Oranienburg. Then the cavalcade of trains again, and back to the hostel. We checked in, and we're assigned apartment 5A.
We got into the elevator without a clue where to go. We tried every floor, but couldn't find 5A. We even tried the 5th floor, but was greeted with a Gate and a nameless stairwell. Eventually we gave up and were wandering the 2nd floor, when we found and employee and asked him. He brought us through a maze of twisty little passageways, all alike, through a door, into another elevator, down a floor, and through an emergency exit into another stairwell, where we found apartment 5. So easy, I can't believe we didn't figure that out ourselves.
Our apartment is absurdly nice, especially for how little we're paying for it! Living room, kitchenette (with pots and pans, a fridge, plates and silverware included), and two bedrooms. We have 5A, another two people have 5B. Our beds are comfortable and we have two comfy chairs in our room, plus a little closet. And it's very clean. Win.
We cleaned ourselves up, finally, then took a long siesta. Judson slept a bit, I went to the bar and got online. Around 7 we left for the last of our 2-item agenda today.
The goal was the Nueus Museum, to see that famous bust of Nefertiti. But we failed.
Judson and I were about to ditch out of the hostel to go when I realized we didn't know where we were going. So I quickly googled it on the iPhone and found its website, claiming that it was on Alexanderplatz. The museum closed at 8, so we hurried to the U-Bahn and took it one stop south to the 'platz.
It turns out, as we learned from the info stand the Rostbratwurst lady sent us to, it was another stop away, and by that time it was 20 minutes till closing. We decided to postpone the trip until another day.
Back at the hostel, we went to a restaurant down the street that was recommended to us by the Aussie at the front desk earlier this afternoon. It was Vietnamese food, and the place was called "Good Morning Vietnam." roflcopter.
Delicious food, and cheap, but I got the only spicy thing on the menu. It was manageable, but unexpected.
We stopped in by a small grocery store to pick up some goods for our apartment. We got beer and water, a classic combo. I found Budweiser, the Czech Pilsner that the STL Budweiser stole from. Looking forward to that one. Also Zeweic, my new favorite Polish brew, from my dads recommendation, and some other beer I'd never heard of.
Relaxation in the Belushi bar... Early day tomorrow.
Or it was supposed to be relaxing. We ended up staying up until well after 2 chatting with our new friends Claire (DC), Roberto (Mexico/Texas), and Lorenzo (Vancouver). Lots of beer and gin.
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