2.0 Jah Berlin

After ten minutes of sleep on an overnight flight, a spazzy three hour layover, and then one more hop across Germany...I finally arrived in Berlin.  It's a beautiful city.  The sidewalks are huge and every street smells like either pretzels or currywurst.  My travel companions, TJ and Indy, wandered up and down the main street with me for a few hours until we found a cafe to sit down at and get our first real German beers.  IT was a little chilly outside but was well worth it to sit along the street and people watch.  The next day the actual program began.  Let's just say we hit the ground running...literally.  I don't think I had been as physically exhausted as I was the first few days--ever.  Here is a semi complete list of the buildings we visited during our five days in Berlin.

1.0 Gedenksfatte Berliner Mauen
2.0 Reconciliation Chapel
3.0 Berlin Wall Memorial Documentation Center
4.0 Blue Church
5.0 Altes Museum
6.0 Pergamon Museum
7.0 some new David Chipperfield Museum
8.0 Neues Museum
9.0 Deutsches Historisches Museum
10.0 Ministry of Foreign Affairs
11.0 Friedrichs-Werdersche Kirche
12.0 Riechstag
13.0 Krematorium
14.0 New National Gallery
15.0 Philharmonie
16.0 Sony Center
17.0 Philology
18.0 Several buildings belonging to the 1987 Building Competition
19.0 Jewish Museum
20.0 Holocaust Memorial
21.0 Nordic Embassy
22.0 Dutch Embassy


There's a few more random ones that I didn't comment on in my sketchbook, but I think that list gives a very fair idea.  Honestly, the thing that struck me the most about Berlin were the dogs. They followed their owners around everywhere, without leashes.  For example, while walking back to the train station from the Philology we passed a woman biking very quickly down the sidewalk.  About fifty feet behind her was a dog running at full speed to catch up.  It was cute.  So knowing me, I reached down to pet it.  But the dog was like "NO WAY LADY" and just ran passed me, his eyes completely focused on his owner. 

Another overwhelming thing about Berlin is the history.  The difference between deep East and West Berlin is still very distinct.  You can really see the change in economic status depending on what side of the Wall you are on.  It's amazing to think that all of these terrible things happened there, not so long ago.   The scars on the city are very evident and I think they will be there for a long time.

Today we left Berlin.  It was honestly a little sad.  I think I'm a little emotionally attached to the city because it was our first one and we spent a fair amount of time there.  But honestly, I really feel like we had started to make our own place in the city.  We had a couple of cafes we went to daily and could wave to the bartenders as we passed by the door.  It was nice to feel a part of such a big place.

We've now arrived in Nuremburg and are staying in a castle with wifi.  More posts to come...