Berlin, Silvester and after

New Year's eve was amazing. It was an insane party we went to that had over a million people along a mile stretch that led from Brandenburg gate to the victory column. Interestingly enough there was alot of American music, with some spanish. Of course some was in German, but it seemed that it constituted a small part of it. We ran into some Aussies just a half hour before New Years. They turned out to be quite the partiers, it livened up our night. I got back to the hotel late, around 2:15 am, some of the others in the group opted to stay out later. The next day was a day of recuperation, we traveled around some, but mostly slept and ate. Today was more grueling, taking a city tour by foot in which the tour guide kept hastening us along. He was an interesting character, who has French and German blood, I think the goofy hat he wore came from the French side.... It was a bit sad and moving to see how much artifacts, books, and artwork was lost because of war and oppression. Especially in West Berlin, who suffered under Communist regime after the Nazi's were defeated. Perhaps my favorite part of today was standing at the modest monument to the Burning of the Books, where the Nazi party torched over 25,000 books deemed non-german.