Berlin, Germany

So we started off Sunday morning with a hearty breakfast from the hotel we stayed at, Holiday Inn Express. It consisted of toast, rolls, ham & turkey, cheese, hard boiled eggs, cereals, coffee, and juice. Even though completely different than the breakfasts we are used to, it was pretty good and kept up full for quite a while.

Our first stop of the day was going to be Checkpoint Charlie, which was the most well known Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Germany. By surprise, before getting to Checkpoint Charlie, we came across some remains of the Berlin Wall. Andrew and I both reached over to touch this great piece of history. After a while of staring and picture taking, we decided to move on and made it to the Checkpoint.

The Franzoesischer Dom (French Cathedral), Duestcher Dom (German Cathedral), and the Konzert Haus (Concert House) were our next stop. To our surprise the French and German Cathedral were an exact replica of each other. They were separated by the massive Concert House, which has intricate detailed statues in the front. We are still so amazed by these old historic buildings that have so many stories behind them.

We then put on our walking shoes to view the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) and the TV Tower. Of course along the way there were many museums we wished we could stop in, but knew we didn't have time. The cathedral was finally in our sight, and boy, was it worth the walk. Once again, it was so large with so much detail to it. Each of these massive cathedrals has a courtyard in the front where hundreds of people will lay on a blanket whether it's to take in the beauty, read a book, or just to rest. By this point we would have loved the opportunity to hangout for a while, but with the short time we had to sight see, we knew we had to keep going to see as much as possible.

Andrew and I both wanted to make it back to the Brandenburg Gate a second time, even though we were 20 feet from it ALL day Saturday. Through sign language, we managed to have someone take our picture with the gate as the backdrop. One block away was the Reichstag building (Parliament). If there was more time, the building has a large glass dome in the center, which allows you to go up to the top to have a view of the surrounding city. The line for this was out the door, so we weren't too disappointed!

Our last and final destination was the Holocaust Memorial. The memorial consisted of 2,711 concrete slabs of numerous sizes to remember the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Caution signs should have been throughout this maze-like memorial though, as children ran down the rows 100 mph!

By this time our stomachs were calling out to us, so we made our way back towards our hotel and stopped at an Italian restaurant at Potzdamer Platz. We had someone help translate the menu enough to know I was getting chicken pasta and Andrew was going to get an asparagus pasta. They were both quite delicious! After lunch, this gave us enough time to grab a cup of coffee, stop at a souvenir shop to buy a few Berlin shirts, and then head back to the hotel to pick up our bags.

We were sad to leave because we knew there was so much more to see, but we knew the airplanes wouldn't wait for us, so we jumped on a bus and made our way to Tegel International Airport! I'd recommend Berlin to anyone that is even somewhat interested in history. It was a great learning experience and very surreal!

Enjoy the pictures!! (There should be quite a few since we saw so many things!)