Day 11: Alter vor schönheit

Höhenschenhousen is an old prison camp that the Soviets set up during the days of East Germany to incarcerate and interrogate citizens who were plotting, or were under suspicion of scheming political crimes. I actually made a real noob mistake and went there thinking it was an old concentration camp, but that did not turn out to be true.nit was still really interesting nonetheless. The Stasi were a crazy, clever and calculated organisation, who didn't do anything by accident.

I met up with Ned and his friend, Josh, for dinner. We went into this place and the lady came up to us and said, "no, no, no, no, we are closed. We are closed!" We were incredibly confused because if you looked around you could see people still getting drinks and people also just digging into their hot food. It was also before 8pm so I don't think she meant the kitchen. She must've sensed our bewilderment because then she explained, "no, no, closed for two days." That cleared up a lot.

A new place was found and many beers drunk. Ned's friend left for Salzburg then we found this very swanky, hip, hotel bar where we tried many different types of German beer, including one that tasted like banana. Ned and I were educated about Burlesque dancing (via words) by two very attractive Berliners, and then we called it a night.

The taxi ride home will be one of my fondest memories in Germany. We had a conversation in German. He'd ask questions and when I couldn't understand, he'd give examples of answers, to which I could answer back in very broken German, mixed with the odd mispronounced English word. I loved the challenge and actually came away from the experience feeling pretty awesome.

I didn't have a key to get in so I don't think Valeria and Lisa ought the story was as awesome as I did, when I awoke them from their sleep around 2am.

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