Day 16
Last day of vacation...and today is our second full day of Berlin touring. This time a walking tour of the city. Up before the alarm, we set out to get a pastry and a Chai Latte. :) We arrived at the tour meeting place an hour early because yesterday there was a great little market there and they had a few things I wanted to look at again. Well, no market today * insert sad face here* but the people from the tour company sent us over across the street to check out a section of apartments where they put the Jews when they kicked them out of their homes and before they were sent to camps. They have the area fixed up really cute now with cafes and other things, and the apartments look cute. But cute if only one family lived there. They put up to 16 people in each tiny apartment. One bathroom of course. Even this didn't prepare them for what was going to happen next. For those that weren't hidden or snuck out of that area went to Auschwitz.
When it was time for our tour, we gathered up everyone and had well over 40 people, so they split the tour in two and we had Nigel as our guide. He was probably early 60s, British/Scottish (depending on which one was more convenient) and hilarious. Later in the day I pegged him as funny, but definitely narcissistic and liked to mention he was "famous" (he has been on the history channel before) and talk about all the people he has met or knows. He cracked us up at first, but he often got distracted with his own personal stories and for me his personality got a bit stale and his language a bit rough. So I was ready to be rid of Nigel, but was glad we had him because he was extremely informative and knew his stuff...no doubt.
We walked around the city and Nigel explained everything we were looking at as well as its history. Very cool stuff and I've learned so much on this trip. Lots of bullet holes in the buildings that remained after the war. 80% of Berlin was damaged beyond repair after they were bombed, so most of old Berlin is only now in old photographs. We stopped for a quick bite for lunch, but I woofed my muffin down so I could run back to the chocolate shop we passed by. It is pretty famous and had been there since 1800 something. That is more important than any lunch I could think of.
After lunch it got even more interesting as we headed for Checkpoint Charlie. We stood at the line where the wall had been and looked over to what was the American sector. I thought Nigel said he'd give us a few minutes to walk around by the actual Checkpoint Charlie station, but next thing I know we were moving on. Guy said Nigel said we were running behind and needed to go. He liked to say we were running behind because we asked a lot of great questions. Our group really didn't ask that many, so the only thing running us behind was him running his lips. ;) So Guy said we'd go back after the tour. So on we went and saw a small section of the wall that actually still remains. Germany is still doing a lot to erect monuments and other things to memorialize the events of the war. One very cool but sad thing was if you looked on the ground in front of the buildings there were sometimes little bronze squares with names on them. These were the names and dates of Jewish people who were dragged from that particular building and sent elsewhere. Some have where they died on them.
Another newer memorial was of a man who we learned of the day before who was one of the "Special" prisoners at the concentration camp we visited. He had planted a bomb with a timer that was to go off at the time Hitler was to give a speech. It was in a pillar by where he'd be standing. He had been working for weeks to chisel out a place for the bomb, then got the materials and assembled the bomb himself. He missed Hitler by 13 minutes. The bomb went off, but Hitler (or Big H as Nigel called him) had just left the building. It was so powerful it killed a half dozen people and injured several dozen. There is a beautiful artistic piece erected in his honor.
As we neared the end of the tour, the eeriest thing we did was stand directly over the spot where Hitler and his wife, of only a few hours, killed themselves. 36 feet below where we stood was his bunker. They have since filled the bunker in and a parking lot is there now, but some of the structure was left in tact below us, where Hitler had ended his life. As we walked down a bit further, there was a huge memorial to all the Jews that died in the holocaust. It covered a huge area and was simplistic yet overwhelming. The artist wanted people to sit on the monuments and interact with the art by walking around all the paths. Millions of dollars were donated for this piece. It hasn't been there very long and a few winters ago were especially brutal on the concrete and it is starting to crack. I hope they can maintain it.
Our last stop on the tour was Brandenburg Gate which was built by Fredrick the Great and had trees lining the streets as you came through it. Hitler took all the trees out and put pillars with eagles and swastikas lining the streets instead. Nigel had a picture of that time. Today, trees are back. I had a horrible photo op of the gate because this city is soccer crazy right now and they had erected a big stage or tv or something on the other side making a good photo opportunity of this fabulous area impossible.
Guy and I bid farewell to Nigel and headed back for Checkpoint Charlie. It is now 4:00 and we started our tour at 10:30, so needless to say, we were tired. We started to catch a cab, but instead we walked back. The area was packed with people of course, but I took lots of pictures and we hit some of the souvenir shops around the area. I also took a picture of the McDonalds across from the Checkpoint because we had seen it on the food channel as having something they served that was German. We went in to see what it was but didn't see anything too unusual on the menu.
After this we headed our tired bodies back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner and find a place to eat. One thing we did know was we were too tired to walk anywhere and we just wanted to take a cab to a restaurant, eat, and come back. So we looked up some restaurants and chose one we found on Trip Advisor. So we went down to the concierge and asked him about it, telling him we wanted some authentic German food. Guy wanted Wiener Schnitzel and there is a place right by our hotel he was eyeballing, but it looked a bit touristy along a strip of shops and restaurants, so I suggested we find one online. Well, the concierge had never heard of the restaurant we had found, but suggested another one about 5 minutes walk from the one recommended by Trip Advisor. So we hopped a cab to the one we found online and went inside and then walked right back out. It was a bit too hippie-fied for Guy *insert visual of Makanda here* and so we walked to the restaurant recommended by the concierge. We were kinda lost and asked directions from a young couple singing and playing guitar on the steps of a museum. I approached them and said "hello" which they responded in English. So I said "I'm sorta lost". The guy said "Aren't we all" in that sorta dreamy hippie I'm just a tad bit high voice. But SCORE, he knew exactly where the restaurant was. It was called the Twelve Disciples...heavenly, huh? So we walked right to it and was seated and given menus. It was a pizzeria!! Did we not tell the concierge we wanted authentic German food? Well, I told Guy since it was our last night and they didn't know who we were, lets just walk out. So we did. We ended up walking all the way back to the hotel and eating at the little place around the corner after all and Guy got his Weiner Schnitzel. I had a sausage with curry sauce, but I promise you, it tasted like a chili dog. :) We of course had another piece of apple strudel to end our evening and drug our sore muscles back to the hotel to shower and take some Ibuprofen.
A 5:30am alarm has been set and tomorrow morning we will bid farewell to Berlin. There were a couple of museums we didn't get to and several other sites that would be interesting to see. So we think we'll probably see Berlin again in the future.
We are both truly appreciate of God's blessings and being able to take such a fascinating trip. Tomorrow night I will also be appreciative of my own bed and pillow! :)
xoxoxoxox - B
