Aug 17: Eric, Scott and I woke up early to catch our train to Berlin. Of course the train was packed full of people after we told Scott that we wouldn’t need a reservation. Luckily we all found seats, just not necessarily together. The seating only further complicated things when we all got off the train and we only had two suit cases??? Since Eric has such good manners he had forgotten that he had carried my bag onto the train and placed it behind his seat. So he jumps back on the train in search of my bag… after a few seconds Scott starts heading for the door of the train to find E! Just as Scott is about to board the train again I see Eric coming out the door on the other end of the wagon. Luckily Scott heard me scream that E made it off so he didn’t end up stuck on a train headed for Copenhagen.
Our first day in Berlin was great. We visited the remains of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church just up the street. This is a reminder to Berlin of the destruction of the second World War. There is a new wing with 11,000 little blue glass windows covering a modern building… depending on the time of day the lights glow on the inside (from the sunlight) or from the outside when it is dark (from lights within). We went inside the new church and listened to the organ music.
Next we all headed to the East! I wanted to go up in the renovated, both modern and historic, parliament building. On our way there we passed through the Brandenburg Gate. There is a glass dome on the top of the parliament building with spectacular views of the city of Berlin. You are also able to look down into the legislative chamber inside (with the message that there should be no secrets in government). I made Eric and Scott wait in a long line with me to see this. They were such good sports!
Aug 18: After a good night sleep we went to a photography exhibit of Helmet Newton’s life work. There were many naked people but all in all it was pretty good. I think Eric really likes photography so he really enjoyed this exhibit! As we were headed to the S-Bahn (train/subway) we saw many people dressed in their soccer garb! Yes, there was a “football” game today in Berlin against Stuttgart. We all decided pretty quickly that we wanted to try to get tickets to see what all the fuss was about. After a little nap (and waiting for Mike to show up…. We will talk about that later) we showed up at the stadium. They had cheap tickets for sale at the ticket office so we were in luck. We went inside and Scott bought us some rather large beers (that is an understatement). I have to admit that I hung with the boys drinking my liter of beer just a quick as they did. That just meant that I had to pee 3 times as much as them, and I was about twice as drunk! OK… back to the game, Berlin won after Stuttgart took an early lead! The fans were so fun to watch down below us. They were constantly chanting and singing songs! It was a great experience… and a little contagious (Scott, Eric and I were singing along even though we had no idea what they were saying in German). The stadium was amazing… I believe that it is where the World Cup championship was played a year before. It was built during the Nazi era for the Olympics and the 1,000 year Reich. There is so much history in this city. It’s a little hard to believe it all took place here!
Meanwhile we headed back to the hotel expecting Mike to be there (late as usual) but there is still no sign of him?????? I think we all start to worry a little bit considering he was to be here by noon today. We grabbed some dinner then went out for the night. We left a note for Mike because our hotel was really a pension that closed around 7 PM… so if he were to show up late he would not be able to get into the building. Then we went to the East for a night out on the town. Scott asked a girl on the street where we should go, and we followed her to an underground Reggae Club. It was very cool… the modern music was all mixed with a little Reggae beat. We stayed until 3 AM when it started to get really crowded and smoky then headed back to the hotel…. Still wondering if Mike would be asleep on the sidewalk waiting for us to get back:-) Although there was no Mike when we returned to our hotel. Really worried, Scott went to an Internet café to see what he could figure out. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to figure out anything.
Aug 19: Today we woke up and there was still no Mike????? It was so funny when he arrived around 11 AM considering he was a day late. Turns out that Mike got stuck in New York because of bad weather and had missed his connection. It would have been nice to know just because we started getting worried. Turns out Mike was busy touring the City of New York and forgot to send us an email:-) Anyway we figured that a night sleeping on the floor of the airport was enough punishment for one trip!
We decided to take a bike tour of Berlin in the afternoon. We wondered around the East for a couple of hours before our tour started. We passed through the Topography of Terror (where the SS and Gestapo headquarter were located), which was right by a rather large remains of the Berlin Wall. We met up with our tour group and jumped on our beach cruisers (mike got stuck with a girly bike:). We visited the remaining sites in Berlin during our tour: Reichstag, Wall & Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Potsdamer Platz, and the spot were Hitler’s Underground Bunker was located! Our tour guide was very informative and energetic. He was about 26 years old, from Central California, sold an on line business, and is now traveling the world for 5 years (he studied world history in college too). The bike tour was about 5 hours long so we decided to get some dinner afterwards. E and I went home, but Scott and Mike went to a local bar to grab a beer since Mike hadn’t had the chance to go out in Berlin.
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