Europe for Amateurs: July 13

7/13 - Berlin

We woke up to a lovely breakfast that had been set out by Katie. We ate and then planned our day and left for the city. We spent a few hours at the Jewish museum, which had a brand new section that was designed by an architect that helped Katie design her apartment! The new part of the museum was supposed to be like an exploding Star of David. We worked our way up to the museum, which had a lot of Jewish artifacts from the Holocaust, and much before and after. There was a Holocaust tower, which had only natural light and no heat. It is referred to as a void and is in memory of those who died.

Outside the Jewish Museum!

The exploding Star of David.

Inside the exploding Star of David.

The Jewish Museum also had this portion that was set up on a slant with lots of tall trees and pillars. When you walk through it, you get a little lightheaded and lost. This was set up to show visitors what it might have felt like to live as a Jewish person during the time of the Holocaust.

The only light coming into the void room - natural sunlight.

After the Jewish museum we sat down to eat. Karen bit into a tomato that squirted all over Maryanne and into Karen's eye. (It's all about the details, people... I guess?) After lunch we came across Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the busiest checkpoints for the Wall.

Checkpoint Charlie

Sign at Checkpoint Charlie

After seeing that, we went to the Tiergarten, which is gated by the Brandenburg Tower. It was raining so it was hard to enjoy the garden, but you could still tell it was lovely.

A very cranky Maryanne in Tiergarten...

The Brandenburg Tower.

There was some sort of French music festival going on outside the garden so we could get shelter from the rain there. It was interesting to see because the Wall went between the garden and the gate. It was here that we also saw the parliament building and a Holocaust memorial with over 2,000 rectangular blocks of concrete all lined up in rows.

The parliament building.

The Holocaust memorial.

We then walked to Potsdam Platz where part of the Wall was memorialized and still standing. It was fascinating.

Maryanne thought I was meditating... I was actually trying to get a loose piece...

Next wall to fall - Wall Street? Uh oh...

We traveled back to Katie's, made ourselves dinner, got ready for our next journey, skyped our families, and relaxed.

Berlin was an interesting place to be. Not knowing the language at all was challenging at times, but we got around very well. There was graffiti everywhere, but this added to the personality of the city. The people were friendly, and we were even mistaken for Spanish-speaking people who had trouble with English. (Ha!) There were many playgrounds and sports areas for public use -- we even went down a giant slide!

Overall, learning more about the Berlin Wall was what fascinated me the most in Berlin. It's hard to imagine what that time was like, but it was neat to look into the history of it!