I am a Berliner...not the pastry

I have wanted to get to Berlin since coming to Germany. There is so much history contained in this country, especially in Berlin. We drove to Berlin, all six hours of the drive, which actually is pretty good time considering the threat of staus along the way. Some people had said we should take the train because we inevitably would get caught in one. We were lucky, we had one on the way home for 30 minutes, not too bad. Unfortunately this was one of our worst vacations for weather since being here. It was cloudy the whole time and rained off and on, sometimes pretty hard. The weather was cool and the wind blew pretty hard most of the time. We got to our hotel at 1pm and ran into the guy the ran the hotel as he was leaving. He checked us in very hurriedly and left. Here is the interesting thing, we never saw him again, if I hadn't have run into him at that moment in time, we would have wasted a lot of time waiting for him. We dropped everything off and then walked to the Metro, which was only 10 minutes away. Berlin has a very extensive metro system which is good and bad. It makes it nice when you want to get somewhere but there are so many tracks that it can be a bit confusing. We found ourselves standing at metro stations for several minutes trying to make head or tails of where we were going, sometimes we just made our best guess as a train would pull up and we would hop on hoping it was going in our direction. Luckily, we were right every time.


Our first stop was Brandenburg gate. I won't relate much of the history, as you can look it up for yourself, but the history is very interesting. Just as we left the metro station at the Brandenburg gate the first of many downpours started, so we headed back underground to wait it out. A few moments later it had passed and we were walking toward the gate. The gate is this massive structure that really is the persona of Berlin, it is the image one equates with Berlin. There were several country embassies that sit around that area, many of which used to be old nazi buildings. After taking pictures, we walked over to the Reichstag (German parliament building). It was again looking threatening, so we kept a lookout for potential hideouts. We walked around the Reichstag and then along the river, looking for a portion of the Berlin wall. After stopping and discussing we realized that we would see a big portion of it the next day, so we decided to walk down to Checkpoint Charlie. As we got closer the sky looked very ominous, so we ducked into a souvenir shop, just as the skies opened up. We walked in and browsed the store for quite some time, even Eddie was browsing. We ended up buying a lot of small stuff, just as the rain let up. The Checkpoint area was interesting, if only for it's significance. The actual checkpoint was a replica, there were two 'actors' portraying an American and Russian border crossing guard. I wanted them to stamp our passports, but they said they weren't doing it today because of the rain. There was a museum dedicated to Checkpoint charlie, we didn't pay to go in, but it did have pieces of the wall attached to the outside of the building. Being in the former East Berlin area, there are reminders of what it was like in the form of shops, museums and other subtle clues. We ate at McDonalds near checkpoint charlie, in fact it overlooked it. Near the checkpoint there was a wall that had a running description of the wall, the history of the Berlin and East Germany etc. Next we walked over to the Jewish Memorial, a very neat experience. It was a series of over 2,000 slabs of concrete, shaped in rectangles, placed in rows and columns. As you approached it, you could see some were taller than others so there was dimension to this memorial. The interesting thing, however, is that what you didn't see was that the ground undulated beneath the concrete slabs. In essence, as you walked amongst the concrete pillars some were more than 12 feet high, but from the outside they didn't look more than just a few feet in difference.

We took several pictures, it was all so picturesque. We walked back up to the Brandenburg gate again and this time we did some more souvenir shopping.

We then caught the Metro back home as it was around 10pm and we were getting tired, even though there was still ambient light outside.
The next day we started off by going to the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church. We got off the metro followed the signs, 350 meters to the church, off we went. We went 400 meters and no church. Did we pass the street it was on? Is it further ahead? It's a large church we couldn't have passed it. Then I noticed the church that was built right next door to the iconic church, I had seen this new church in pictures, it was next to the old church...but no church. Then I realized that the whole church was covered with a makeshift structure hiding it from the world. They were repairing it and you couldn't see any of it from the street, just the sterile covering. It will be hidden from the public until 2012. Guess we'll have to come back. We hopped back on the Metro and took it to the Eastside Gallery. This is the name of the longest existing piece of the Berlin wall, each section has become a canvas that artist have been commissioned to paint on. Some of them were crazy, some just let your imagination run wild, while others were amazingly beautiful and thought provoking.


We walked along the 1.3 Km length and took it all in. We got our passports stamped at the wall, some corny thing you are supposed to do as a tourist, so we did it. We grabbed lunch and left the wall and headed for the large television tower (4th tallest structure in Europe). As we got there it started to rain pretty good, so we stayed in the metro until the passing shower...passed. We walked over to the Berliner Dom, a large protestant cathedral. It was meant to rival St. Peters Basilica, not as big but very ornate and the unique coloring on the outside, make it a wonderful place to stop and take it the contrasting palate. The church is located next to 'museum island', an island in the middle of the Spree river that contains 5 museums. The one that stood out to us, and the one most people said to go to, was the Pergamon museum. We stood in line for quite some time waiting to get tickets. We were going to attempt to hide Eddie in Hailey's big bag, in fact I stood in line most of the way with him in there. Then I had Hailey ask a worker if he could come inside in my bag, 'no' was the answer. I decided to part ways with my family and let them go inside and see everything and Ed and I would go for a walk and explore. We found a local market selling goods. We strolled through looking at everything and then found our way back to the Berliner Dom area. There was a large grassy area with a large round fountain in the center. There were trees lining the bank of the river and they had built wooden lounge chairs that you could lay back on. So that is what Eddie and I did while we waited. We finally joined up with the rest of the family. As we didn't really have this trip planned out very well, we just flew by the seat of our pants. With that being said, we had no idea what to do next. I had seen this area called "topographie of Terror" labeled on the map...boy that sounded interesting. We decided we would see what that was all about. As we reached our destination, the sky turned black and the rain started to fall.


This turned out to be a great stop. This block was the most feared address in all of Berlin. It housed the foundation of the third Reich; the SS, the gestapo,SD and RSHA. As a Berliner, you did not want to be anywhere near this place. They had a covered area outside that had the history of Nazism, the third reich and Hitler. We stood outside reading all of the hanging placards, in the cold and rain. Then we noticed a large building behind us and decided we might be able to find a bathroom in there. Come to find out this was the actual museum, complete with a more detailed account of what we just read outside. I will be the first to tell you, I didn't know very much about Germany and WWII, but after this vacation I definitely learned quite a bit and it has peaked my interest in learning more about this historic time. It was raining most of the way back to the Metro, so we were pretty wet...and tired and ready for a warm night's sleep. That evening back at our apartment the storms let loose, it rained hard and blew even harder. I felt quite comfortable lying in my bed, nice and warm listening to the elements howl around outside.
The next day we packed all of our belongings up and loaded them into the car. Since we didn't have to be out of the apartment until 11am, we just left the car parked into the parking lot and walked over to the Schloss Charlottenburg. It was a large palace built by a Prussian king. It was patterned after Versailles, the huge palace outside of Paris. It was actually pretty impressive from the outside. We walked back to our car and drove to the Olympic stadium, where in 1932 Jesse Owens proved his dominance over Hitler's dream team. Unfortunately, the stadium was closed because they are getting it ready for the Women's world cup soccer tournament that they are holding in Germany. There have been few cities that I would have a desire to go back to, but Berlin makes my short list on this. Info Transportation to city: Drove van Transportation in city: Metro Lodging: Apartmenthaus Sybille Hecke Sites:

Prague blog

We have been really forunate on all of our vacations so far. Everything just fell right into place, we found the right hotels, we had our itinerary all laid out, the finishing touches completed. Like the pieces of a puzzle, everything fit. This one however, was a different story. We had no plans, no hotel in advance, no reliable transportation. It just didn't feel right. But was that going to stop us? No way.


Our van was in the shop a few weeks before we needed it for this trip. It freaked out on Sharma and overheated, A/C stopped working, the check engine light came on and had several leaks. I dropped it off at our mechanic. I normally just drop the car off in his parking lot, drop the keys in a box and leave a note on the seat saying what is wrong with it. I usually receive a phone call within a few days with what is wrong and how much it will cost. This time there was no call. I called him a week later and he said that he was on vacation and now is very busy. I said just let me know when you look at it. 'No problem' he said, he'll look at it tomorrow and let me know. Another week passed, nothing. Called him again. This time he had bad news, it was going to cost a lot of money to repair it...more money that it was worth. I decided right then and there to junk it. It was time, it has been a great vehicle, but it is 14 years old and has 190,000 miles on it. It is only a matter of time before something major goes wrong with it. It is time to cut our loses.

So this brings me to our current vacation. No van to drive to Prague, we decided to rent a vehicle. We got a mid-sized car that ran well and had A/C, what more could you want. The drawback to this is that we can't take advantage of the discounted gas that we are entitled to as part of our military agreement with Germany.

Our pet sitter was also booked this time around, being Memorial weekend, so we had to take Eddie as part of our trip. I love Eddie, but sometimes he can be a bit of a handful when he is out. He gets a bit anxious...wait, a lot anxious and can attract attention. The thought of going through this gave me anxiety, so here we are, two anxious people trying to go on vacation to have a good time.

We loaded up the car and started off for Prague. It took us a little longer than we anticipated to get there...seems like this is always the case. We had great travels until we got to Prague. We were racing against time, because our hotel confirmation stated that the front desk closed at midnight. We got into Prague with about 10 minutes to spare but had no idea that we had to drive all the way through Prague to get to our hotel. It took forever to get to our hotel, and then to make matters worse, we could see our hotel but couldn't get to it. We had to call our hotel twice to make sure they knew we were coming so they would close the doors on us. We drove up this deserted road trying to find the hotel, realizing it was a deadend we turned around. We spotted a couple of police officers standing, smoking and talking. I pulled up and asked for directions. They didn't know either but gave us their best guess. With a bit of luck we finally found our place. Time to go to bed.

The next day we ate a continental breakfast at the hotel and left around 9am. We had to walk about 15 minutes to our metro stop, under a couple of overpasses that could be intimidating, especially if it was nightime. We found the metro to be easy to use and convenient to where we wanted to go.


Our first stop was the area near the Powder gate. As we were approaching it, we noticed several advertisements for concerts, operas, ballets etc for that evening. We had our choice of twenty different places to watch a show, but we had Eddie, there would be no culture on this trip. We wandered down several streets without a real destination or purpose. We could see this amazing edifice in front of us, but it was surrounded by buildings and we didn't know how to get there. We wandered down a couple of streets...passed a TGIFridays...that wasn't what we were looking for, too American. We finally made our way to the area that contained the church and then realized it was still surrounded by buildings. The church we were after was called 'The church of our lady Tyn'. It is a monstrous church with multiple spires, very beautiful. We were standing around near this area, trying to get our bearings straight and figure out where to go next, we noticed a group of people taking a picture of this thing'. It looked like a hooded figure, but it was a statue. It had a plaque on it, but it was in Czech so we couldn't read it. Come to find out the place was called Estates Theatre, and it was the first place that Mozart's Don Giovanni was ever performed. We took a picture outside and then strolled into the lobby, asked if we could go inside and take a picture, were denied and then left. There were several groups of Americans in tour groups, we stood and listened for a while but realized we did'nt like that style of tourism and kept on moving. We worked our way to several other churches and happened upon a wedding that had just taken place. They were taking pictures outside of the church in front of this classically restored automobile. We stopped and took a picutre ourself, little did they know they had just become part of Sharma's roll of pictures. In this same area there is something called an astronomical clock, a very neat clock that displays the relative position of the sun, moon and zodiac constellations.
Next we walked to the old Jewish settlement admiring the synagogue, the old cemetery and other buildings...what we failed to realize is that it was Saturday...their sabath. Everything was closed, we would have to return tomorrow. We continued on to the Charles Bridge. A wondrous bridge, that spans the Vltava river, unique with its pairings of statues the whole length. It was very crowded with sightseers with vendors selling their goods. As we were approaching the end of the bridge I noticed these photographs of different Beatles lyrics painted on this graffiti ladened wall. I took note, but did not buy. Then a few vendors later I noticed more pictures, and the next vendor had more. By this time I was intrigued so I stopped and browsed through them. I selected one, Hailey and McKay each got one as well. As we were leaving I asked the vendor where these pictures were taken, expecting the obvious "London" as a response. I was surprised to find out we were about two blocks from it...that suddently became my mecca, I had to find it. It was a nice stretch of wall, a block long with all sorts of Beatles lyrics, inspirational sayings and tributes to John Lennon. It was the highlight of our trip. Everybody in the family took turns defacing the wall with our own Beatles lyric. It was well attended and everybody had a good time. We stumbled upon a street bazaar, full of souvenir shops and tourist kiosks. We spent quite a long time shopping...correction, Sharma spent quite a long time shopping. It is okay though, we knocked out most of our souvenir shopping at this stop. Our next destination was the Prague castle. A huge (according to the Guinness Book of world records, the largest castle in the world) castle set on top of a mighty hill. Yes, we climbed up to it. It is within a walled area that contains a church and other buildings. The best part was the view that it afforded us once we got to the top. We looked out over Prague on a beautiful evening and just took in the sites. One of those quiet times to reflect on the unique situation that we find ourselves in, being in Europe. We walked back down from the castle and caught a metro home. We were tired and it was late, our beds sounded good.


The next day we grabbed breakfast at the hotel again and caught the metro. First we stopped at the Jewish Quarter since it was open. We bought tickets to take the tour of the Old Jewish quarter and decided we should hide Eddie so that he could go along. We dropped him into Hailey's bag and stood in line. The next thing I knew we had been spotted and told that we couldn't take him in. I opted to stay outside while everybody else went in. When Sharma got to the ticket booth, she explained the situation and described how big Eddie was, she got special permission for Eddie to accompany us, as long as he stayed in the bag. No problem. We enjoyed the buildings and especially the cemetery. It contained the gravestone of Rabbi Loew, who is associated with the lengend of Golem...look it up. All of the kids took etchings of Rabbi Loew's headstone. Very cool. We went to St Wenceslas square and walked toward the National museum. It was a nice walk and we passed a lady selling pizza, we bought a slice each and a drink and enjoyed it as we sat in the middle of the square watching the cars zip by. From the National museum we walked down to a museum dedicated to Antonin Dvorak, Sharma's favorite composer. This was her highlight. We almost had tragedy strike...we got there and realized it was closed. We tried to read the sign and realized we had missed it by 10 minutes. RATS! So we decided to walk around and look in the windows, then Hailey noticed that they were just closed for lunch, not for the day. Awesome!! We waited in the shade and then the time came. We paid the small fee and I just sat back and watched as Sharma and Hailey were enthralled with everything. It had his viola, piano, pen, music sheets, family pictures, graduation robe. It even had a desk that Beethoven owned. It was very neat, and Sharma was happy, that is all that mattered at that point in time. We walked to the National Theatre and walked out on to the bridge next to it. There were several paddle boats in the water, many people taking in the day on the river. We stood on the bridge and watched them. We walked down to McDonalds to grab a quick bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel.


We caught a nice night's sleep and the woke up and grabbed one last breakfast before leaving. On our way out of town, we stopped at an IKEA for Sharma. If any of you know her, this is her passion, so she loves to collect catalogs...but not just any catalog, European IKEA catalogs. We stopped, but it was closed except for those that were having breakfast there. Sharma went in and convinced the lady to lend her a catalog...little did the lady know that that would be the last time she would see it. Now announcing, in our IKEA catalog collection, we officially have a Czech IKEA catalog...I know how excited everybody is. Since you can't make it over here to see it, I am sure if you ask Sharma, she will take a picture of it and send it to you. We decided to drive to Dachau and see the concentration camp. Too make a long story short, we drove 4 hours just to find out that the site was closed on Mondays. I felt so bad, I should have looked up the hours/day of operation. The drive home was especially long from that point on. Info Transportation to city: Drove van Transportation in city: Metro Lodging: Wellness Hotel Step Sites: