Auschwitz, Prague and beginning of Germany!

Hello everybody.....well where should i start.
We visited Auschwitz and the adjoining camp of Birkenau just a couple of days ago, and i think it was probably one of the most harrowing places i have ever been. The camp is still standing and they have turned the different barracks that housed prisoners into incredibly moving memorials and exhibits that give you a disturbing look into conditions at Auschwitz. I had read lots about the war and the inhumane conditions etc but nothing prepared me for the reality. There was a ban on taking indoor photos, but we have some moving outdoor ones. Some of the exhibitions inside include the size of the ingoal of a rugby field of hair that was collected and bagged up by the nazis from the bodies they gassed. They had piles and piles of shoes, hairbrushes, pots and pans etc that were all collected and stored in warehouses and have now become haunting memorials to the deceased. Rows and rows of pictures line the hallways of the prisoners up till 1943 with their arrival and death dates below...most lasted only couple of months, because if thez werent immediately exterminated on arrival, they died from the cold and starvation. One of the most disturbing exhibits was the piles of suitcases of the deceased, they all have birthdates on them, and you can see the cases of children included in the exhibitions. Fair to say i was teary throughout the exhibitions. We finished up the tour at the main Auschwitz camp with a walk through one of the extermination chambers....i found it horrific, i wanted to vomit. Seeing the place where so many people spent hideous last moments is quite gruesome, and being able to see the holes in the roof where they dropped in the gases etc really makes it real. We then moved up to Birkenau, which is part of Auschwitz and its expansion when it became too small, here you can see rows and rows of rebuilt barracks where the prisoners were housed, and it was here where they had the most prisoners exterminated....they had 4 more gas chambers here which were very busy. Prisoners literally arrived at the camp, if they werent selected for work duties they were sent immediately to the gas chambers...mostly women and children. All in all just over 1 million people were killed at these camps. Today it is compulsory for all German school children to visit the concentration camp sites twice in their schooling, once in primary and once in high school.
While we were at Auschwitz we saw loads of Jewish school groups visiting....i cant imagine how difficult that would be for them, after seeing how much it affected us.
Although it was a sobering visit, it was still a highlight of our trip.

Prague was next on our itinerary and we had a lovely day wandering round the city, not really doing much....but somehow filling in 8 hours.
We spent a lot of time...and money at the markets near Wencelas square...yes the one in the christmas carol...and we got some really cool stuff. There was really cool handmade wooden stuff, lots of toys and we had so much fun playing with everything at every single stall...probably why it took so long. Caleb brought himself a wooden train, that he is telling everyone is for a child of ours one day....oh ok, we believe you, cos im sure its gonna sit around till then unplayed with!
It was so fun just wandering, getting lost in the gorgeous cobbled streets and alleys of Prague, we went inside and had a look at a church and we wandered up to the old castle on teh hill to check out awesome views over Prague, but most of the time was spent just chilling. Overall a brilliant day. That night we decided we would be good children and call our fathers for fathers day, however the stupid calling card that we had searched for for ages, wouldnt work, so we got to speak to my dad for a whopping minute and half and Caleb left a message for his from our cell phone...it was super expensive!

This morning we drove from Prague into Germany. We spent a wee bit of time in Dresden which is quite cool...because of the bombing in WW2 they have done a lot of rebuilding and refurnishing etc in this area, and its very pretty. We also saw the best street performer we have seen on our travels....he was a guy dressed as a business man taking a dog for a walk, and he was frozen mid stride....incredible...its hard to describe how good he was....we took a picture, not sure if it does him justice tho.
Then we arrived here in Berlin, did a driving tour on the bus and then arrived at the hostel. Got dinner tonight at a restaurant called the happy pig...dont know how happy the pigs will be seeing as Germany is kinda known for its pork! Caleb will be happy tho, cos hes gonna sink his teeth into the pork knuckle...maybe he can be the happy pig! oink oink, wash it down with a stein! (one litre).

Tomorrow we are doing a 3rd reich tour and then no lies we are doing a pub crawl....really only cos we get a David Hasselhoff t-shirt (crazy germans), we have also been listening to the baywatch theme song on the bus quite a bit, caleb has been singing his lungs out and dreaming of Pam. Caleb also made one of the guys download the freakin schnappy song, you know the annoying alligator one...and yes that has been played on the bus too....however those songs are slightly better than some of the other horrid stuff that gets played by the bogans at the front of the bus...its what happens when you get too many australians in one place! ACDC are suck!

Oh yeah, i owe jess orchard big time, cos i emailed her a bunch of nonsense which she put onto powerpoint for me, so i can send it in for part 2 of my job interview...should know by the end of the week if i want the job...still not sure, its in east london, which will be a big move, but guess i will cross that bridge if i get offered the job...will keep you posted!

Havent posted any pics cos its just too much like hard work from the hostels....promise will put them up in london, prob so many that you will be begging me to stop.
Luv yas...