London Baby!!

So my latest jaunt was  to London, England and I loved it! I definitely think London is one of my favorite cities I've ever been to. Here are some reasons..

1. The boys in London are by far the most good looking boys I've ever seen in my life. And I'm not just talking about every one in fifty, I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE. So that's obvious why I enjoyed walking around so much.

2. It has the fun city-ness of New York but such gorgeous buildings to go with it. It's the best of both worlds.

3. The tube (the subway) is the easiest thing ever to navigate. We never once got lost or confused.

4. I am fascinated by their accents, I think it may be my favorite accent. I was telling Colleen, even the trashiest people looked fancy just by the way they spoke.

5. The weather was beautiful, couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

6. It was so much fun to walk around on the week days and see everyone in their fancy suits, heels and bags. They all look like they stepped right out of a magazine.

7. The royal couple..enough said. It took all my might to not buy a mug with their wedding picture on it.

The one think I did not like..

The pound is almost double the American dollar..not cool!

So we flew into London on Friday morning and jumped right into our sight seeing.

We started at the Tower of London Bridge. It was so neat to see, I couldn't believe how beautiful a bridge could be. You should be ashamed Walt Whitman..

 This is the view from on the bridge!

This is the Tower of London, we did not go in because we were lacking money and time. 

 We also crossed the London Bridge, also extremely disappointing. Then we walked around for the rest of the day and found a fun outdoor food market and the Southwark Cathedral. We were pretty beat from traveling all day so we took it easy, had dinner at this Chinese noodle place, then headed back to the hostel to get to bed early.

The next day we got up bright and early to do some serious sight seeing. We began at Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards. 

 This is a picture of the park that is right across the street from Buckingham Palace. It was so nice to see fall leaves, it made me feel a little at home.

These are the gates right before you cross the street to get to Buckingham Palace. Just breath taking. 

 Buckingham Palace.

 The Changing of the Guards. This was a very cramped and slow moving process but it was still extremely interesting. 

 Westminster Abbey, this picture can't even do this place justice! I wanted to go inside but they were about to close for the day and the line was extremely long. It's alright, I'll just do the tour next time I come to London. 

 The Big Ben!! We couldn't find it anywhere on our maps and were very confused then we were crossing the street to go to Westminster Abbey and I turned to Colleen and I was like, "Is that it?.." and we couldn't believe it! I didn't realize how intricately decorated that thing is.

 Such a beautiful view, you just don't see things like this back in the states.

 This was probably my favorite place in all of London, Kensington Gardens. We got sandwiches and soup for lunch and brought it here to eat. It is just so peaceful, yet full of life with all of the people hanging out. J.M. Barrie, the man who wrote Peter Pan would come here to relax and it's here that he began writing Peter Pan.

 The Peter Pan statue that was donated to this park. If you know me at all you know how deep my love for Peter Pan and the story of not growing up is. I think that is a big reason I loved this park so much.

 Later that night we headed back to the hostel a little bit earlier, with the intention of going out that night. I got on my lap top and did some homework while Colleen read and by the time we knew it, it was already 9:30pm. So we decided to just hang out at the hostel and get drinks. We still had a great time!

The next morning we got up and headed for the Globe Theatre. This was the thing I was looking forward to most on the trip but sadly, it wasn't as grand as I expected. The tour was 12 pounds and the guide took us into the audience, talked to us for about 20 minutes, let us walk around on the floor in front of the stage, then said goodbye. It was kind of a let down but there was a whole exhibit and everything inside so we got to see that which was nice. 

This is one of the theatre doors.

 They were re renovating the theatre since it is off season which compromised some of the beauty of the pictures.

 It still was so neat to be there though!

 This is the outside of the theatre.

 Colleen and I sat down to watch a clothing demonstration, thinking that they would be dressing one of the two assistants but instead they asked me if I would be the one to be dressed. I agreed obviously; they were using a costume that would have been used for Ophelia, from Hamlet.

 I think I may keep this look up, it's pretty sharp.

 Later that day we headed toward the National Gallery to see the Leonardo Da vinci exhibit, not realizing that exhibits could be sold out. So instead we just walked around the Gallery and saw other gorgeous pieces of work. This is the outside of the building.

 After the Gallery we headed to a carnival that was being held near Kensington Gardens and spent the night there, it was a good time. 

Overall I had a great weekend and I loved everything about London, minus running to my terminal Monday morning. We didn't leave ourselves with enough time to get to the airport and almost missed our plane. We made it just in time thank god. If the cost of living wasn't so high I could absolutely see myself moving to London!

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

 When I was in Berlin, my friend Colleen and I took a tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. I knew this place was going to be pretty influential and I was correct. Although this was not a death camp, there were still many horrific, sad stories of deaths that occurred here. There were prisoners ranging from communists, jews, homosexuals, jehovah's witnesses, polish, ext. I felt it necessary to take these pictures and write this blog entry because I wanted to share with my friends and family the history that I was fortunate enough to experience that day.

 This is a plaque in memory of all of the Jews that perished on "The Death March", which was when the Nazi's took thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.

 This is a picture of the Nazi housing developments. They lived right outside of the camps in houses that are marked with pointed roofs.

 A sign in town pointing towards the camp. Everyone that lived in Oranienburg, Germany (the town the camp is located in) worked in the camp, so the camp was not hidden. The town still to this day is still run down place.

 Right outside of the camp.

 One of the guard towers outside of the camp.

 Inside the main reception area.

This is a layout of the entire camp. 

 This was the building that the Nazi's used for games and entertainment. They would force girls to dance for them, would have the Jehovah's Witness prisoners serve them because they would never fight or talk back. The building is undergoing renovation.

 This is the main entrance of the camp. This is where all of the prisoners were brought and stood while they were inspected and classified.

 I just couldn't believe I was standing at the gate that so many people would stare at each day, longing to see the other side, but never did.

The front gate that reads, "Work will set you free"

 The main common area where they made the prisoners come stand every morning for role call. They had thousands of names to read off each morning and if one person came out of the bunk late they would completely start from the beginning. They sometimes would have to stand on this field for over 10 hours without moving, or they would make them squat for hours then force them to jump up quickly, beating them if they fell. 

The inside view of the front entrance. 

These were the bunks that the various prisoners lived.

 This is one of the light posts and guard towers.

 This was the "neutral zone". If you crosses over these stones you were immediately shot by one of the guards in the towers. If you actually made it to the fence you were electrocuted. The very common way of killing yourself was running into this fence with hopes you would either be shot or shocked.

 One way of torturous death was to make the prisoners try on a new type of boot and making them run this track that runs around the main court yard and has many different surfaces. They would make them wear an extremely heavy weight on their back and the main outcome was people dropping dead from exhaustion and lack of food.

 Outside one of the bunkers, clearly re renovated.

The fountain where hundreds of them had to wash themselves in each morning. They all had 45 minutes to get washed up and outside for roll call and they only had one, maybe two of these.

 The story of one of the homosexual prisoners.

 A food bin with pleas for freedom scratched onto them.

Each different type of prisoner was given a triangle on their pajama top depicting what type of prisoner they were. 

 The toilets that hundreds of them had to share.

Inside one of the bunkers.

 They had to sleep in these beds, usually three to a bed. They would have to sleep on their sides in order for everyone to fit.

 They would tie prisoners hands behind their back, then hang them on these poles from the ties so their shoulders would snap and they would die. You could tell how long someone had been hanging there depending on how bent back their arms were.

 This is the foundation for one of the solitary confinement bunks. If you were known to be mouthy or rebellious they would put you in here and give you specific tasks and special types of torture and then make you stay in a cell completely alone with no one else around you.

 The inside of one of the solitary confinement rooms.

 The hall way of the same building.

 Those two holes are where the gallows used to stand and there is a memorial placed there now.

 One of the famous artists that was brought into the camp, referred to as the Walt Disney of the area, was considered higher up so they let him work in the cellar and wash vegetables and decorate the cellar. He decided to put hidden meanings in his work so this one is parsnips inspecting carrots and being degrading although they look just like the carrots. This obviously is a metaphor for what was happening.

 One day this artist was washing potatoes and the person he was washing them with said, "Man, I wish these potatoes would just wash themselves". This is his work representing if that were to happen.

A pair of striped pajamas.

I found the top quote very hard to read, "There is nothing that injures human feelings so deeply as being forced to watch a fellow human being executed." The bottom one reads, "We had to walk past the corpse, past the hanged man, with our caps off and we had the greatest respect for these victims."

 This is the monument that the Communists put up when they took this camp over and used it for their own imprisonment after the Holocaust.

 This is the site where over 12,000 bodies were found buried in the ground. It was thought to be from when the Communists had control of this camp.

 The Communist's prisoners bunk areas.

 The square closest to the camera is the remains of the gas chamber.

 They would lead them through the doorway in the top center and the guard would stand on the other side of the door on the left and watch to see how effective this type of gas was.

 The tiny room on the left is where a guard with a gun would sit and then they would lead prisoners into the room at the top of the picture and tell them they were going to "get measured". They would make them stand against the wall where the guard was standing on the other side of and when they stood against the measuring tool the guard would shoot them in the back of the neck.

 What remains of the crematory.

 This is inside the medical room. This room was used for various medical experiments. Probably the creepiest room of the whole tour.

This experience was very eye opening. There isn't much else to say about it, just how sad it left me yet beneficial because I now feel like I have a new found understanding for what happened after being there.