Berlin

We arrived in Berlin at 9 AM yesterday......yes it's true-we woke up at 2:30 AM London time to get here. Crazy, i know. Well, first off, Berlin is different than London, which doesnt surprize anyone im sure. Diana and I both got a sort of unsettling almost eerie feeling walking around the city yesterday....could have been the lack of sleep but we were convenced otherwise. We toured a famous museum about Ancient Greece and then ended the evening sitting at a cafe looking onto an open aired market with glass of German wine....so fun! We have started Hostel life and its......lets just say interesting- not quite like an American owned flat in London, but it gives us a semi-warm place to sleep and shower.

Today was an adventure- its was wonderful learning about all the History of this place. We took a free city walking tour from a guide who knew so much it was hard to store it all in my brain as fast as he was talking. We walked through downtown east and west Berlin and learned about Nazi Germany, World War II in Berlin, the numerous fallen governments in the recent past, and the Berlin Wall to name a few. So interesting! This city does do a lot to cover its past but if you look hard there is symbolism everywhere telling about the past and giving hope to the future. We were real interested in the Holocost, and they have one memorial so far dedicated to victims (it only open last May)- in the middle of the city. Its for "All The Killed Jews". Bold name; bold memorial. It is in the center of the city and its made up of 7110 rectangular stone blocks of all different heights; some we could walk over and some were many feet about our heads. The irony of it all is the memorial has NO symbolism at all. Its random; makes no sence.

After learning so much about the history of this place, all the crazy rulers its had, and its plan for a New Berlin (as they like to title it), we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around looking at the scarce remains of the Berlin wall. So much of this city is brand new. The buildings, streets, plazas, memorials are all new and very modernly designed. Real cool to look at. Its hard to find history with your eyes in this place.


Berlin has been real neat; tomorrow we're off to Munich, so two more days of trying to figure out what really long long words mean. They add about 2-3 too many syllablles to thier words if you ask me. Well, I hope all is well with you. Please e-mail me if you can to let me know how you are; we seem to have pretty regular internet access. Alright, again I miss yall and love you. Please forgive the mispellings- German keyboards are a little tricky :)