The Musings of a Granny in Berlin

Hello from Prague!

The group successfully made it to Prague, which is kind of amazing in itself since we completely rely on Nils and his bright orange jacket to lead us through Germany. And since this is our first weekend on our own (eeeeeek), I thought there was a high chance of us either ending up in the wrong country or not even making it on the train. But alas, we're here! I'm pretty excited about seeing the beautiful sights of Prague tomorrow morning!

Leaving Berlin was sad, but a welcome change. Berlin is a wonderful city, but it's very metropolitan. My roommate and I were getting accustomed to settling in bed with our matching books (The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo series) and a cup of hot cocoa by 10 every night. Okay....maybe it was more like 9. But now we're on the road again! On Thursday we visited Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin. This was one of my favorite excursions so far. I've always been fascinated by World War II history and the history of the Holocaust, so it was pretty interesting to be at an actual concentration camp. But it was definitely a creepy experience at the same time. It's hard not to dwell on what actually occurred on those grounds without getting too upset. There were definitely times on the tour where I felt a little uncomfortable, but it was all part of the experience. Sachsenhausen wasn't a death camp, but a prison camp instead. Although as many as 30,000 people were unjustly killed by the Nazis at this camp, it was not one of the largest killing factories they operated. Most of the prisoners at this camp were enemies of the Nazi party. However, one of the more awful things that occurred at this camp were medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors. It's inconceivable to think that people thought it was okay to treat other humans like test dummy's. But that's exactly what they did. I think it's important for people to visit concentration camps, to honor the victims and to reflect on the past, however gruesome it may be. The visit to Sachsenhausen will forever be ingrained in my memory.

On a lighter note, after the visit to Sachsenhausen we took a tour of the Otto Bock Science Center in Berlin, which was enjoyed by everyone. Otto Bock is one of the major prosthetic companies in the world. We were able to understand the science of different prosthetic apparatuses such as the C-Leg and the Michaelangelo hand. It was really interesting not only seeing the engineering side of it, but also the body's and the patient's response to the apparatus. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and we'll be visiting the production center next week. It's pretty amazing what science can do now!

Now the bigger question is, do I want to explore the hostel and Prague tonight....or be a granny and get acquainted with my bunk bed? Decisions decisions. Maybe we'll just go with exploring the hostel....and then my bunk bed. Winning.

Adios! (I'm not even going to try to say something in Czech)