Berlin!

On the second day in Berlin, we got up early and headed out on the free New Berlin Tour. It was still very cold out so we all got bundled up and it just so happened that the tour start point was right next to a Starbucks! Sometimes everything just works out. :D

Anyways, this free tour was the best tour I have been on since landing in London! I learned so much about Berlin over those three hours, even though I was absolutely freezing the entire time. Our tour guide was originally from Australia and was really knowledgeable. We all had a really great time and definitely experience more of Berlin on that tour than we would have done on our own.

The first picture is of the Berliner Fernsehturm, also known as the television tower.

We started the tour in the Pariser Platz. This is Hotel Adlon, one in which a certain megastar moonwalked to the window and hung his baby outside of it. (For those of you who don't remember this - it was Michael Jackson!) Each room in this hotel is around $12,000+ per night and comes with your own butler. However, breakfast is more.

On the other side of the plaza is the Brandenburg Gate! It was commissioned by a king of Prussia as a symbol of peace.

There was a protest going on through the entire plaza, all the way through the Brandenburg Gate. It started snowing as they were dancing and yelling - very cool scene. I have no idea what they were protesting, but can make out the word "AIDS" on one of the signs.

We then went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial has 2,711 square metre stelae, or concrete slabs. Each are the exact same dimensions, but in varying heights. The ground slopes up and down throughout the exhibit and at some points the slabs are so much taller than you and at others you are walking on them. It is definitely an eerie sight.

Standing within the memorial, the stelae reach far into the sky.

Standing at the outskirts of it you wouldn't think that in the middle they tower over you.

I have never felt so in tune with the history of a city, like I did in Berlin. There were bullet holes in building after building (as shown above.) There was still a sense of division between the people, as it has only been 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down.

We all found this pretty odd, until we realized that "Die" in German means something like "The" in English.

One of the remaining parts of the Berlin Wall! There are only three stretches of wall still in tact, with most of it looking similar to this. There actually now has to be a gate around the wall so as to keep people from taking anymore off of it. This is me, Heather, Emily and Amy, all bundled up.

They also had a few sections of the wall that had been painted by artists on display on the street. Also, notice the snow?

Checkpoint Charlie! The image is of Sargeant Harper, one of the last guards at Checkpoint Charlie. This is also the ersatz guard house from what was the American sector.

The Gendarmen-Markt. This is a French cathedral, and there is another twin cathedral on the other side of this square for the Germans.

Within this square, there was a traditional Christmas market! Sadly, it was just being set up and wouldn't open until the week after we were there. But, we saw our first real Christmas tree!

This is kind of hard to see, but underneath the glass are tons of empty rows of bookshelves. This is a commemoration to the book burnings during the Nazi rule.

Humboldt University! They have a pretty great past faculty, including Albert Einstein who taught here for 20 years. They are almost always selling used books in front of the University, which faces the area in which the book burnings occur. They try to have copies of books that were burnt on sale, as well.

The Berlin Cathedral - built to look much older than it actually is.

The Brandenburg Gate at night!

We finished off our day by going to the museum near the Holocaust Memorial. This was the first thing you saw as you began the museum tour.

Well that is it! Berlin was a really, really great place to visit. I wish it hadn't been so cold, but that is my only complaint. Germany was also special because it is the last country I am visiting during my program! From now on, I am solely in England. (At least until my parents and sister come!)