I got to see a good bit of Northern Germany that day. The landscape is pretty similar. Interestingly, in the formerly East German states, there's a lot more graffiti. That's really the only difference. I was looking around for any signs of differences, but the Wall came down more than 20 years ago and everything's pretty much the same now.
Berlin is a really cool city! I didn't get to see much of it. In fact, we were traveling longer than we were in the actual city. Our small group included the 11-yr-old, a lady from church who was our guide, and myself. This is the Hauptbahnhof (main train station). It's absolutely enormous! I think it's five levels.
From there, we took a one-minute U-bahn (subway) trip to the Reichstag. That's where their Congress meets. You can go up in the dome, but you have to wait for like three hours.
Then we took another mini trip on the U-bahn to the Brandenburger Tor. I had imagined it to be much larger, but it was really cool nevertheless.
Around the block is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It's a really cool memorial. It's also really easy to loose people in it. That must be symbolic...
Then we walked down the road to the Siegessäule (Victory Column).
Then we took a bus and the U-bahn to Checkpoint Charlie.
We made it back to Hauptbahnhof just in time. And to think, back at Checkpoint Charlie, Brigitte asked if we wanted to go to this huge mall on the other side of town... It's a really famous mall, but we really didn't have the time.
On the way back, we stopped in a town former East Germany for dinner. We even found a Trabbi! Back in the day, you had to put your name on a list and wait for years to get one. People would sign up for their child to get one as soon as the child was born. That's how long you had to wait. Personally, I think they're rather cute... :)
I took hours to come up with the list of sights and bus times and everything. We didn't use much of it at all. We missed our first U-bahn because Brigitte couldn't find it. We seriously walked around the whole dang station. Then we ignored the rest of the schedule and all of my hard work. She just asked around for directions. I found out on the way back that the last time she was in Berlin, the Wall was still up. That explains the incompetence a little.
We returned to Braunschweig for a few minutes, and then we went to Hannover for Institut. All in all, I traveled more than 500 kilometers that day! How's that for a day trip? I can't wait until my friend Ary gets to be an Au Pair in Berlin in December- then I can visit her there!
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