When I was in ABBA Museum there is an advertisement about Avicii Experience with code ABBA to get 30% discount, my Asian Genes sparks with joy!
It starts with Tim Bergling’s childhood’s room where it’s written he’s coming from an affluent neighborhoods in Stockholm. Yes, emphasis on the word affluent here, combine with talent = success guaranteed! And that’s exactly what he had.
The success he achieved in a quiet short of time, his name was as big as it can get in his genre. He was only a teenager when he got discovered, through his gift in EDM music he jump straight to famous, the one thing he maybe wasn’t prepare for.
This Experience also have a little bit of interactive part where we got to wear a VR to see the recording studios or when we could hear the songs which hasn’t come out yet.
Although we all know how it ends, I can’t even begin to imagine the pressure in the industry until someone who’s from affluent family decided to end his life. He could easily check out from all of this and still have a good life. After all, perhaps mental health is really something we need to pay attention for.
Thank you Avicii for inherited us your music, from not knowing anything about you to know you as an unbelievable music creator through this Experience your fans has built for you. It is such a shame for a very bright young man to leave the world way too soon.. Now we all have to going out without you.
We can’t overlook the tragedy that happened in Berlin especially when the wall was there. At first I thought the wall is just a straight border but I was totally mistaken, the separation from the wall was just unbelievably uneven. This part of the story I named it “Marlyns realized what strive is”
For me, visiting the debris of the Berliner Mauer is a must. However, since the wall was everywhere, means it’s not located in one single long space but it’s splitted into many parts of Berlin. I only went to Berlin Wall Memorial in Bernauer Str and visit Topography of Terror.
To begin with Berlin Wall Memorial, it seems to be “only a wall” until I joined Berlin-Unterwellten Tour where they explained more about what happened to Berliner during the Wall time and get ready, it is a tragic, sad, touching, full of emotional journey.
In Bernauer Str they built some memorial monument for the victims of either World War or Cold War and part of the walls still stands there. The victims are mostly younger than me and ended up losing their life 🙁
Then, I visited Topography of Terror, they have inside and outside museum mainly tell the story of how slowly Hitler’s gain the power, in economy, politics and army-wise. How he and his troops put a disgrace on hippies, homosexual and Jews. It is really sad for me to read how they turned homosexual in and force one to put a conflict to his or her partner. Nothing much to say about this place, it is a must visit but at the same time I become very upset because of what had happened to them in the past, how come such a sick mindset man gain so much power. What makes me even more upset is not all ex-officer got punished, especially the one who considered as “accessory of the crime” meaning someone who ‘just’ built the gas chamber but not the one who turn on the button, this people don’t get any punishment, what a fair world. They know for sure what the purpose of it but yet not found guilty of a crime.
I just want to say that Thanks God right now Berlin is one of the city where homosexual can express themselves as they truly are and not stuck in past’ mindset.
Another very touching story is the one I got from Berliner Unterwelten Tour. About how 4 peoples built a tunnel illegally to save people from East to West, the remarkable Tunnel 29 and 57, where they saved 29 and 57 people through unstoppable 5 months of digging for 145 meters long. These 4 heroes inspires other engineer, real diggers to also dig some tunnels and rescue their loved ones, very rarely succeed.
This is really sad and extreme scary of how people tried to escape, they would write a message on a paper, put together a rock and throw it over the wall hoping someone would read and prepare something to land on the other side. They would just jump from a rooftop, if the other side prepare a matrass or anything to land it’s good, if not… either they got injured or die. The border patrol will just shoot you and leave you bleeding to death for 3 hours at least and then moved your body and on and on and on.
The very touching and emotional part from the tunnel diggers are mainly they want to be together with their family again, the wall had separated them from their loved one for decades and the tunnel had showed me how they never gave up on each other, how they strive against all odds.
I can’t go on, Berlin’s wall history is really beautiful, it is so beautiful to the point that I can’t take it anymore. Berlin is really really must visit and can offer you 1001 things to do.
Thank you for the experience Berlin, we definitely see each other again. I can’t let you go yet, not ever <3
Alert: This is not gonna be a good story or picture so please read and see it wisely
When I arrived Munich on 25th evening, Giovanni told me that next day there will be a memorial of bomb terror that happened on Octoberfest 40 years ago. The President of Germany and the major of Bayern will give a speech in the place where it happened 40 years ago and that is on the entrance gate of Octoberfest in Theresienwiesse U-bahn station. They have built a kind of monument to remember the attack and the survivors.
I went around the monument to see some comments from the survivors and it is quiet sad, even though they survived the attack, it still affected their daily lives no matter how much times has fly.
Few days later, Radite and I visited Da-Chau, it is the first concentration camp that ever built on Hitler’s time. Claudia already gave me a warning that it will not be for a faint hearted.
We had a tour guide named Hans and I can see that it is very very hard for him to explain to us what happened at that time, he re-tell the story based on the notes that one prisoner made during his time serving in the camp. He quote on what the guard told the prisoners “You have no rights, you are a piece of $h#t and will be treated like so” the prisoners were gathered in a big open space and they have been taken away all their belongings, taken to shower, shaved their hair and given a stripes pajamas that doesn’t need to be fit with their body and they have numbers on their pajamas, they all looks like an unhappy clown. This is the moment of humiliation played among them.
They have been told that “work makes you free” even that slogan written on the gate where all prisoners came in but it’s just a nice slogan, they can’t really get out and no matter how good they are on their work, all the rights are in the guards hands. He showed us what kind of barracks that they lived on, how many people actually lived there. When they built Da Chau it was meant for 5,000 prisoners only but they miscalculated it and got 8 times more, it was around 40,000 prisoners there so all the barracks were overloaded.
He also informed us that suicide was the favorite option and one of the way to suicide is by trying to escape so the guard will shot them or run themselves to the electric wire and that pretty much the options to ended their suffering. Even if they managed to get out they will get caught again and once they caught back to the concentration camp, the guard will put a card saying “I’m here again” and they will do whatever they want with them and in the end they will die. Hans told me the max a run away prisoner can live outside was only 2 months because all the people are not allowed to help them so they will starve themselves or hide in forest and the police will come with their train dogs 24/7 to find them.
I could see he rubbed his eyes when we went to the gas chamber and he can’t even get in to the chamber, he just waited for us outside.
He recommended us to visit the museum and there you will see the story of what did they do to all the prisoners and how many concentration camps out there. There are really too many stories there and honestly speaking, I can’t even read everything it’s just too sick to imagine that one person could have such power to create this sickening system.
Da Chau has created the app and has some spots that we can scan the QR code and see the real photo at that time and honestly it is really inhuman.
When in the end they got liberated they didn’t know what to do, quote from the audio guide “Quite a few people, myself included, just could not understand what was going on, that there was no need to be afraid anymore, that one minute we were hunted beasts and the next we were free men. I can’t remember there being lots of cheering, not many of us had the strength for wild delight, but everyone expressed their joy in their own way. People got on their knees and prayed, cried, laughed, threw themselves onto their liberators and embraced them. Many of the prisoners were just lying around apathetically, weakened and dazed. Some of them survived the liberation only for a few hours or days. They could not be saved and did not even realize that they were free” and that is very sad my friend.
I can’t believe that I’m standing in a real concrete that has been here since 1933, it is a really sad and dark history of humanity and to all the survivors you deserve a very high respect.
Thank you for all people involved to make Da Chau open to public, thank you for all the guides either is audio guide or real tour guide that are open minded and brave to tell us the story.
I really agree that never again this kind of things should ever happen. Lets make one of Michael Jackson’s song become a reality one day, no more terrorism, no more cruelty, no more classifying people based on their race, one day where everyone just come together despite all difference to heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race.
