Tuesday 19th April :)

Ooooh first post, oh goodie ^^
On the 19th we went to Berlin (again) and did a tour called The Story of Berlin. It was a very interesting tour which included a tour of an unused bunker for a nuclear attack. We arrived in Berlin at 9:45am, but the tour place didn't open until 10am so the lovely Frau Zimmer gave us 15 minutes to wonder around and spend as much money as possible :) I bought some more things for family and friends and @Mr Howell, buying one bag doesn't make me a bag-a-holic xD When the clock struck 10 we scattered back to the tour building and waited for everyone else to arrive. When everyone got back, we congregated to the entrance of the tour and made our ways in. What I saw was amazing but I didn't get many photos because my camera was nice enough to die ): The first room looked like a rave club thing due to the bright colours all over the room, especially the blue lights on the floor. My group and I went into every room and thought they were all well decorated and such. The first 10 rooms on the first floor had a positive energy because of what was in them. One of my favourite rooms was room 13 because of all of the life size sculptures; there was a humongous (sp?) camera that you could walk into and could look through. It shrunk whatever you could see to a miniature size. Once my group and I had looked through the first floor, we discovered stairs with a sign that read ''Tour continues this way'' If you have been with us on this trip, you will understand why we are not a fan of stairs :P As we walked down in a casual pace, we looked at the walls and saw some slow yet subtle differences in the artwork. It started as some innocent pictures of peoples faces, of whom I think were famous people back in the day, but as you gradually went down the stairs the images and artwork started to have a negative vibe. Then when we were nearing the bottom of the staircase, we saw some Nazi pictures and it gave an eerie feel. Walking downstairs wasn't my favourite part of the tour due to the horrible past of Germany and because of all of the Nazi related topics that were downstairs. It was especially not nice to see that some of the glass moving doors (that funnily enough you can't go through) if you looked at hard enough, made the Swastika : / Dairne and I took a little break and sat on some marble seats, and Dairne was nice enough to tell Mr Howell about her funny yet weird dream, about a building catching fire and her and Callum needing to find everyone who was on the trip, Dairne couldn't find Mr Howell and Callum went in the building and brought our Mr Howell, however he had shrunk to the size of someones hand. The look on Mr Howells face when Dairne told him was priceless. After that awkward moment..... we carried on with the tour, I don't really remember much of the downstairs as my memory is a bit off :L << Laughing face. When we came out of that tour, we met up at the front and went on another tour with the Story of Berlin people.
I feel really bad but I don't remember the tour guides name :S But I do remember that she was a very nice and informative. She took us on a 30minute tour of an unused bunker that the West Berliners built as they feared a nuclear attack. We were taken through numerous rooms when reminded me of a concentration camp,due to the limited space and how everything was set-up. All the beds that were there were metal rectangles and you had no blankets or pillows due to the temperature that it would have been if you stayed in there with 3,600 other people. That's right, it could fit 3,600 people O: The rooms that I can remember were the overall room with the 'beds', the kitchen, which I thought was too small for someone or someones to cook meals for 3,600 people, the gas mask room, those masks are REALLY scary :S, the water filter room, another water room.. a water generator room I think it was, and some other rooms. The tour ended with us emerging onto the street after climbing more stairs :P I think that this was one of my favourite days to date due to how informative the tour was and how I could get a feel of how people used to live in constant fear. Danke schön Frau Zimmer!! I really appreciate how much effort and time you have spent into planning such a wonderful trip for a bunch of semi annoying pupils ;) I think I speak for everyone when I say how thankful I am and how thankful everyone is that we have had such an amazing oppurtunity (sp?) and experience in such a beautiful country. :D