Touring Berlin

Berlin is an awesome city. I really didn't know that I'd like it as much as I did. Even just getting there, the people were friendlier (not to say that Müncheners aren't friendly, but Berliners are more outgoing). And it seemed that more of them spoke English, which is good. And...their Deutsch? So much easier to understand than the Bavarians. I never realized how exaggerated their accent really is.

We got there Sunday night, and settled into our hostel. That was stinky man fog night.

On Monday, which just *happened* to be the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down (a different blog), we did a free city tour. Which was awesome. Totally awesome. The guide, Louis (aka the British giant), was hilarious and very informative.

We started near Brandenburg Gate, then moved on to visit the Holocaust Memorial (also a different blog). We went to the Reichstag, Luftwaffe HQ, the area above Hitler's bunker, the death strip, the Wall itself, Checkpoint Charlie and a ton of other places. I learned a lot about the history of the city, WWI and WWII, the Third Reich and what came after. It was an excellent use of 4 hours. But it was insanely cold and rainy that day. I was thoroughly chilled by the time we got back to the hostel. And my pants were soaked to the knee :(

That night we went to the Mauerfall celebrations. Again, a different blog.

On Tuesday we did a couple of the free things our guide recommended in the city-namely, going to the East Side Gallery (the remaining portion of the Berlin Wall that has been painted by a number of international artists) and the Holocaust Museum (both different blogs).

Another thing I have to mention...the men. Oh sweet god, the men. I saw so many good looking, young guys I can't even believe it. Munich has hot guys, but also a lot of oldies. More young guys in Berlin for sure. And they're a little cooler- I actually saw guys with tattoos! Damn, I love Germany!!

Soooo...I'm considering moving to Berlin now lol :)

The pictures: the first was at the end of our tour, a palace where we sat on the steps and heard the story of the Mauerfall (the fall of the Wall). The second is a huge mural at Luftwaffe HQ showing how super duper cool socialism was in East Berlin-look at how happy those people are! Dancing! Parades! Revelry! Lol :) The third is Checkpoint Charlie, or rather, what stands there now. Basically now it's an American soldier looking over East Berlin and on the other side, a Russian soldier looking over West Berlin. There were TV crews doing interviews there when we walked past. I had to resist the urge to wave and say "hi, mom!" to the cameras. But I might be a celebrity in Norway now, who knows. The fourth picture is a Trabbi, a shitty East German car. People would wait for years to get one of these sexy little machines. The last picture is the underground memorial near Humboldt University to commemorate the burning of 20,000 books by students by unacceptable authors. Yes, by students, not soldiers. Eek.