Brats in Berlin

Okay, first off, I am at an internet cafe on a German keyboard. Any typing mistakes are likely to be due to the fact that things are in different places, and it is taking me a bit to get used to it! I would have bought internet service at the hotel, but the difference is about $7.50 an hour in the hotel and 1 Euro in the cafe. Hmm. So if zou see the occassional "z" instead of "y" you are just going to have to deal with it! I'm paying by the minute here!

So yesterday was a LONG day. We flew into Frankfurt, spent a few hours there in the airport and then hopped a plane to Berlin. I unfortunately suffered from the same malady that affects me whenever I fly anywhere - I couldn,t sleep a wink on the plane. I knew that this was going to be a problem because we had a long day scheduled for Monday, but I did what I could and got a cool thirty minutes on the Berlin flight. And true enough, we did have a long day on Monday. We met Monkia and Wolfgang, our Berlin-Leipzig-Gotha hosts, and then took a ride to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Esplanade. This is one nice hotel! The down comforter alone is reason enough to stay here! We didn't have time to check the beds out though as we had to immediately change and head to the Reichstag, which is essentially the capitol building of Germany. The Reichstag was bombed heavily during WWII, and still shows the signs of it. Its old dome was destroyed and has been replaced by a huge glass dome. We took a tour of the building and then walked around on the roof where I was able to get some good shots of the city. I also had my first bit of food, which was a pretzel. Quite tasty! We then headed to the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburg Tor). This is of course a rather iconic symbol of Berlin. It is where Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall and from which there was massive television coverage once the wall did fall in 1989. We walked through to a lovely plaza where you could see the hotel window from which Michael Jackson dangled his son Blanket - you know I took a pic of that! We then walked to the Memorial for Murder of the Jews of Europe. This was a pretty stark memorial. It is open to the interpretation of the person viewing it. It is a collection of large stone blocks of varying heights. They are also set on a field of land that is not flat, so that when you walk through the memorial (highly encouraged), you rise and fall, and at times, you feel lost. Perhaps that is the point. Very powerful stuff.
After that we headed out on a bus tour of Berlin. I admittedly really started to feel exhaustion creeping up on me, and I know that I dozed off at one point. We got out at the remnants of the Berlin Wall. That was really cool. You could walk in and around the still existing parts (most of the wall has been torn down). After that, we got back on the bus and headed to dinner - finally! I had an amazing dish of goulash with bread dumplings and my first of what I am sure will be many apple strudels. Back to the hotel and to bed - I actually fell asleep with a book in hand! Very long day, and a great night of sleep!
Everyone is headed back to the hotel now and I am going with them - I am a little intimidated by the area because we are in the Red Light District of Berlin! Ha ha! SO I will hopefully write more tomorrow!
Ta ta, kids!