Hello all! I have good internet today so I will catch everybody up. I will start with Sunday. We woke up and had breakfast like usual, and then we went to the Deutsche Kinematek Museum, or German Film Museum, which had the chronology of movie cameras, films, and television programs as well as actors and actresses. It was great to see a history of film not centered around Hollywood and to see how the Nazis influenced and controlled films. Censorship was a big part of the Nazi regime, and it is something I am very against. As Mark Twain said, censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak because a baby can’t chew it. We then went to the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof, a train station that several hundred Jews were deported from over a few years. However, at this station, they were deported in passenger cars instead of cattle cars, as to not arise suspicion since this station was a very busy one. This was a very large station with many tracks, and the Germans built a museum, the Deutsches Tecknik Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Museum_of_Technology) around the tracks. Many trains and planes are in this museum, including a cattle car that Jews were deported in. I am going to try to upload a picture, and just imagine 75 or more people being forced to stand in this car for days on end, recently evicted from their homes and uncertain of the future, without water. It is a horrifying reality that the Germans are very good at owning up to. Thankfully, that part of history is not being ignored like it was a few decades ago. We then went to dinner at Mutter Hoppe (http://www.prostmahlzeit.de/mutterhoppe/), where I had a wonderful steak. The menu is in German, but your browser should have an option to translate to English, and you should be able to see their entire menu. This is Prussian cuisine. I had my favorite dessert, rote grütze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8dgr%C3%B8d), which was simply amazing. Then, we had a nice little unplanned walk to the Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag at night, and they look very neat at night all lit up. The most interesting part of the day was actually seeing a cattle car the Jews were deported in. I have read so many books about the Holocaust, such as Elie Weisel’s Night, and to now have a visual for what they are all talking about is stunning. I would like to read that book again keeping that vision in mind.

Right now, it is 4 pm, but I will write about what we have done today so far. It is our last evening in Berlin! As sad as I am to leave this amazing country, I have a wonderful new country to visit where they still speak German. I can’t wait to see what Austria has to offer. Today, Keifer, Elliot and I woke up and skipped breakfast, but walked to Edeka, the grocery store, and bought soft pretzel rolls. These things are just the best. That was our breakfast, then it was off to the Oranienburger Straße (that letter is a double s) Synagogue, the main Jewish synagogue in Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Synagogue_(Berlin)). It was partially destroyed in the Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht). It was also heavily damaged in the next few years as the war ensued. However, it was partially rebuilt and turned into a museum, which we visited. It was a very good museum, and we did go to the top and look out from the dome. Then, we ate lunch, and I just had a sandwich on a brötchen, which is nice bread. I then exchanged some more money and here I am sitting at the hotel waiting for dinner!