Berlin

We went to Berlin (now 2 weekends ago) while we were in Germany. We got up very early and took a morning train from Hamburg to Berlin. We got there and it was COLD!!!! We first walked to the Reichstad, the Parliament buidling. There was a LONG line and it was icy. There were people "skating" on the ice that was on the large grassy area in front of the Reichstag. We finally got to head to the top. It has a large glass dome that is very pretty and allows you to look out upon the city of Berlin. Then, we walked to the Brandenburg Gate. This was once a gate between west and east Berlin/Germany. From here, we walked to Checkpoint Charlie. We passed the Jewish Holocaust Memorial and Potzdamer Platz along the way. Along this way, you can see where The Wall had been. They have engravings in the street where it was and there are still small pieces of the wall up throughout the city. Checkpoint Charlie was very interesting. It has changed a lot since I was even there in 2005. They now have "story boards" along the 4 corners explaining the history leading up to and after WW2. Gene got his passport stamped at Checkpoint Charlie. From here, we headed back to Potzdamer Platz and caught the subway to the Zoo/Gardens. We walked to the Kaiser-Wilhelm church. This church was bombed and mostly destroyed in WW2. It was never rebuilt. They instead built a memorial inside and then built a small church next to it. At night, they light up the new church with blue lights and the old church with regular lights from inside. From here we walked to KaDeWe, a shopping mall that has top designer items and overall way too expensive for us American's. We walked around in this area until evening, waiting for the church to be lit up. Then, we headed back to the train station. Ate a quick sushi dinner (for Noah) and caught the train back to Hamburg. We had a nice time in Berlin and got to see a lot of the historical sights there. We were sad that Michele and Robert have moved to Stuttgart in the south of Germany. But, we will make it to see them soon hopefully!