David

Forgot to mention the most awesome Skype chat with David Meili last night! Was the best part of the whole day.

Day 82 Helsinki

19 July
We met up with Tuuli at 1030 and she was our personal tour guide around Helsinki. We went to a church built into rock, some second hand markets, walked around a lake to an amusement park where we went on a really old wooden rollercoaster, to some food markets and then back to the centre. We tried lots of Finnish food like rye bread with rice in the middle, big cinnamon rolls and Finnish coffee. We went for dinner at Nick and Tuuli's apartment where we had an awesome home cooked meal. We walked down to the port to the tall ships sailing event and watched a fireworks and smoke show at 9pm-still light!

Day 81 Berlin to Helsinki

18 July
We went for a walk down to the kaiser-wilhelm-gedachtniskirche shopping area and the ruins of an old church. We went inside the remaining part of the church that had been bombed in WW2 and we could see the cracks in the ceiling that had been repaired. It was interesting to see photos of the church next to photos of the ruins and how the council was trying to fix the area. Next to the old church there is a new church built with blue stained glass windows and from inside it was like a blue glow. We used the bus and train to get out to the airport. We flew to Helsinki arriving in the middle of a thunderstorm. We met up with Nick and Tuuli for dinner and went for a walk around some of the tourist areas. The first two photos are Berlin, and third is from Helsinki taken at 1030pm.

Day 80 Berlin

17 July
Today we went by train to one of the concentration camps, the sachsenhausen memorial. The grounds were laid out as a big triangle so as the grounds could be seen by the main watch tower. There was an example set up of the border of the grounds; a path where you would get shot without warning, an electric barbed wire fence, another path then an 8 foot wall. We went into some barracks that had been restored and had some of the details of the daily life in the camp as well as prisoners' stories. More disturbingly we saw the execution trench, the crematorium, the burial ground of the ashes and the memorial site. It was very emotional and confronting.
In the evening we went to a beer festival for a look around then headed to a pub for schnitzel twice the size of our faces - the meals in Germany really are huge!

Day 79 Berlin

16 July
Happy 24th birthday Alistair!
After a bakery run for breakfast we caught the metro train into Berlin centre. We started at the Reichstag building and also walked though the Brandenburg gate. Next we went to the holocaust memorial site, 2711 concrete blocks in an open square. We also went through the underground information centre which had a timeline of the holocaust, excerpts from letters and diaries of Jewish people- sometimes right before they were murdered, and also stories of Jewish families. We visited the topographes des terrors and checkpoint Charlie. After a sombre morning we had hamburgers for lunch. We went to the longest part of the Berlin wall still standing, now the east side gallery with murals covering the wall. Late afternoon we also stopped at the alexanderplatz square. For dinner we had HUGE serves of pork and duck, thank you Chris and Steve for dinner. Later we also made a visit to the microbrewery, Hops and barley.

Day 78 Amsterdam to Berlin

15 July
Today after breakfast we went for a walk along the canal close to our b&b. We then used the tram to get to the central station where we caught a train to Berlin. It ended up being quite a long day, getting in to Berlin around 9pm. We used the metro to get to our hotel. There are lots of little cafes and shops in the area surrounding the hotel. Alistair satisfied his cravings with a German beer and huge piece of pork for dinner.

Day 77 Amsterdam

14 July
Today we used the bikes from our  b&b to go back and look again at some of the sights we passed on the bike and boat tours from yesterday. We went to the highly photographed I Amsterdam sign near all the museums, to one of the more beautiful canals in the city with 7 bridges and climbed to the top of the Nemo building for a good view of the port. We then locked our bikes and went into the main square. We followed a free audioguide around the red light district and learnt a bit more about how the government is controlling weed and prostitution- was definitely eye opening but very glad to get out of that area! The city has been very busy this weekend, lots of tourists and people coming from other parts of the Netherlands during the holidays and for the summer weather.