Last Week, Best Week - Week 6

I honestly cannot believe that I am sitting here writing about my week six experiences already. It seems like just yesterday I was walking away from what I was used to into a world of unknown. Now, Bonn feels like home.

The time in Berlin was absolutely amazing. I feel like I use that word a lot when I have described these experiences, but there’s really not another word I could use to better describe it.

The most impactful thing that occurred in Berlin would be the “My Berlin Day”. My group was able to follow around a man named Edgar. We started our day next to the Brandenburg Gate. It was described to us early on that we would be looking at different art and architecture that the Nazi party had built or were planning on building. When looking at this gate, Edgar described to us the building Hitler had wanted to build called the “Great Hall”. This building was meant to be massive. Edgar related it to looking like a mountain. He also spent a year of his life building a model of what Hitler wanted Berlin to look like after the war. After going through this day, it was very eerie to learn that where the intended spot for this hall was, still had nothing built on it to this day. This day also really opened my eyes to the history of the city and Germany. In the United States, everything is so new compared to here. It was really crazy to see how the history of Germany has evidently affected the architecture and the government here. This experience of the “My Berlin Day” was absolutely amazing and very eye opening.

The next day we went to the history of medicine museum of Berlin. This was also a very interesting museum. What made this one so great was the guide we had. He was very funny and great at telling stories behind the specimens that they had in the exhibits. After this we went to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp during World War II. This was a very heavy experience. Our guide did a great job explain the impacts of what when on there, but he also explained very well that it wasn’t just one group prosecuted in this camp. When he was explaining these things, while I had known a lot before, it truly hit that I was standing on the ground where so many horrific things occurred. What really got me was the distance of the walk to the camp from the train station. Knowing people had to make this walk through towns is sickening. I had to take a seat for a while and really process what I had walked through because it wasn’t an easy thing to see.

That night we had our farewell dinner. It was a great dinner filled with good food, amazing friendships, and a surprise visit from a belly dancer. It was so sad to say bye to all of the people I had spent the last six weeks with. This morning, it hit me that everyone is gone and doing their own things. I’m planning on traveling with my host family this week to Paris and then heading to Dublin. I am so excited for a little bit of free travel and then more than ready to go home after that.

Savana