Trip Day 9 Final Day

Everything started running in slow motion by the end of the trip. It seemed as though we were all running on empty, but there was still much to see in Berlin, so we couldn't take the day off and call it a trip. Instead we got up bright and early to go see the Rathaus. Because of the location of our hostel, it actually took a substantial amount of time to get anywhere, so we left around 7 to get to the Rathaus by 8. In good fashion, we were 15 minutes late. That wasn't a problem however. Inside the dome on the top of the Rathaus, we learned a great deal about the past of Germany's government, what it all went through to get to where it is today. It was quite interesting. We knew we couldn't spend too long there because there was much more to see. We walked past the Brandenburg gate once more on our way to the Holocaust Memorial. That was one of the most moving memorials I have been in. It gave me chills seeing it and walking through the granite bricks. We couldn't stop there though, we absolutely knew we had to see the museum too. That was even worse. Nothing quite hits you like reading the letter of someone telling their children they love them, as they are being sent to die. It was hard to read, but it shed such a great light on the Holocaust. After the museum we couldn't hang around long. We hopped a train and got off near Checkpoint Charlie. That was interesting in its own right, but we had a different destination in mind, the Topography of Terror, a museum dedicated to the Nazi regime and the atrocities that occurred under them. This, despite being a very good exhibit, was intensive reading that proved to be difficult on our tired feet and eyes, which was unfortunate. A more pleasing exhibit is where we headed next, the East Side Gallery. An inspiring walk along the wall really showed an interesting view of what it was like before the Curtain fell. After the walk along the wall, we made our way to the Berliner Dom. By this point in the day, we were getting quite tired, so a visit to the cathedral brought some much needed rest, to simply sit and enjoy the view from inside. It was one of the most extravagant cathedrals I had seen yet. By now it was getting late in the day and we were running out of time before our train would leave. We played it safe and simply headed back to the train station to wait. By some mix up though, we had to pay extra for out tickets, because we were traveling through the Czech Republic, which was not covered on our Eurail passes. The nice part was that one of our travel days was not used AND we got upgraded to a sleeping car, so for the first time on our train travels, we were able to lie down for the duration of the 12 hour ride from Berlin to Vienna. By 6:30 the following morning, we pulled into the Vienna station, and our trip was over.