Berlin

We are in Berlin. We’re staying at the Courtyard Marriot, which is very nice, except that it’s supposed to be “City Center” and it’s not actually the center of anything. But it’s close to a subway stop so nothing is too far away.

After we got into town last night, we relaxed a little and then tried to take the Rick Steves self-guided tour. But we ended up getting lost and headed back to our hotel area. One thing we did see before getting lost was this old church:

Which was bombed during WWII…you can see its missing spire. After we got back we had a late dinner and called it a night.

Today we took a bike tour. Let me tell you, we are hooked on this! Bike tours are my new favorite way to see a city. You can cover way more ground than a walking tour, and you can get more up close and personal than a bus tour. It was great. We’re thinking of doing another, more focused one, tomorrow.

Berlin has a rich history, which I did not appreciate until we got here. I’m sure many of you already know this, but here’s the Cliff Notes version for those who slept through history class. After losing WWII, the Allies (US, France, Britian, and the Soviet Union) got control of Germany. They split it between the 4 countries. Shortly after, the US, France, and Britan territories joined together to become West Germany, which was a capitalistic, democratic society. The Soviet territory became known as East Germany and was under Communist rule. Berlin was in the East territory, but the other countries didn’t think that the Soviets should control the entire city, so they split the city into West and East territories as well.

It didn’t take long for East Germany to become oppressed and its people started escaping to West Germany. To prevent this, the Soviets created a barrier (the Iron Curtain) down the middle of Germany. Then people started escaping to West Berlin (remember, this was in Eastern Germany). Once in West Berlin, they could become a citizen of W Germany and then go there freely. The Communists didn’t like this either, so they built the Berlin wall. The Berlin wall stayed up for close to 30 years and was just torn down in 1989. In 1990, Berlin was reunited into one undivided city, and shortly thereafter became the capital of Germany again.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me show you some pictures from our tour:

Marks sexy bike:

The TV tower in East Germany. The Communists are mostly atheists, and after they built this tower they realized that when the sun shines on it, it leaves a very distinct reflection of a cross. They tried and tried but could not get rid of it. The Westerners call this the “Pope’s Revenge”.

On this square, the Communists burnt thousands of books that promoted capitalistic ideas. You cant really see in this picture, but below that glass is a monument of an empty library.

I don’t remember the name of this gate, but it is very famous. The statue on top is of Victoria, the goddess of victory. Once a French ruler fell in love with the statue and took it back to France with him. This made the Germans very upset, so they eventually stole her back and put her back on top of the gate- this time with her butt facing France.

Me “climbing” the Berlin wall. Not much of it remains today.

Another shot of the Berlin wall. It’s much thinner than I was expecting. There were actually two walls with a strip down the middle called the “death strip”. People were shot if they tried to cross. The top of the wall is rounded because W Germany tried to help out the East with their plumbing systems by giving them pipes. The Eastern leaders split the pipes in half and put them on top of the wall.

This is the most famous wall checkpoint, Checkpoint Charlie. Not after a person, but because Charlie is the third letter in the military alphabet. These actors are acting as guards for the East and West. We went through the museum after the tour. People tried desperately to escape. They were smuggled in cars, in suitcases, through tunnels, even in hot air balloons. They were desperate.

The Parliament building as it stands today:

We saw many more interesting sites, but these were the highlights. Berlin has changed a lot in the 20 years since the wall has been torn down, and it’s fascinating to see how a city rebuilds itself.

Berlin is also known for its nightlife. Mark and I are not known for our nightlife. However, they do these pub crawls where you can see several bars/clubs in a few hours so we’re going to check that out tonight. The clubs here stay open until 6am, and I can assure you that we will not stay out that late. I am excited to go out- we haven’t gone out the whole time we’ve been here- but I think we will feel like an old married couple….we’ll probably be laughing about what the kids are doing. Haha.

Tomorrows our last day, then traveling all day on Wednesday. Sort of a bittersweet feeling. That’s all for now….