Berlin, Germany

Hallo from Berlin!

Ahhh, Berlin--a city best appreciated with a great guide who gives you a place to live for a week, great food, and intellecutally stimulating conversation! I do not think I would have appreciated Berlin as much if I had been the typical tourist, (that I am in other places.) Wait, actually I am not the typical tourist anywhere, I am an exceptional tourist, and budding travel expert! However, Berlin has so very many neighborhoods and lacks the major city square-tourist hub of other heavily touristed cities. I was not sure about the city at first, but I fell in love with it by the end! I understand why Vic lived here for a semester and wanted to move back and why Elizabeth does not want to leave!

I had a handful of places I knew I had to see, courtesy of Vic's constantly growing list. I strolled down Unter den Linden--the most heavily tourist section of town. I even got Elizabeth to act like a tourist--taking pictures under the "Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go to Berlin" sign, well, until she saw people of academia she knew and we had to run away;) We checked out the Wall remains at Potsdamer Platz, and adajacent monuments. There was a neat monument at the Bebelplatz, which consisted of empty bookshelves underground that you look at through glass on the ground. Doesn´t sound terribly exciting... until you think of how many books could fit on all those shelves, and the meaning of how many were burned by the Nazi youth. I climbed the Reichstag, (I think that´s a requirement,) and walked through the Tiergarten. Going by Vic´s suggestion, Checkpoint Charlie´s museum was interesting, but also one of the most cluttered museums I have ever seen! It was a bit interesting to come out of a museum that talked about how many people died around the area trying to escape and now the place is filled with vendors selling old East German memoribila.

In addition, I found the strip mall after strip mall where the Wall and space between the Wall once stood rather fascinating. There was construction everywhere. I tried to imagine Berlin when my brother first visited it about fifteen years ago. What a fascinating history.

Elizabeth, her sister, and I all went to Potsdam on Saturday. The Schloss Sanssouci was probably the best castle I have seen... although it is not a castle at all really, it was a summer home for Frederich II. I found it an appropriate place for Sukey to spend her summer. It was beautiful, and a wonderful day, save the massive rain-thunder-lightning storm that blew in quickly, turned our umbrellas inside out, and soaked us all.

I would have to say that one of the best parts of the week was going to one of the Turkish Markets... they had everything from olives to underware, including some tasty fried and syruped sweat bread. Another great treat was the bratwurst from the neighborhood sausage man. Perhaps not a highly intelligent man, or just one willing to take risks for his job--as he straps a gas burner to his back--but never the less, I ate my share of some great sausage on the street... and the photo proves it! Even the sausage, however, did not compare with the wonderful breakfasts of rolls and Elizabeth´s Grandfather´s homemade honey. It was the thick cream of the honey, and absolutly the best food I have had here. (Her grandfather is Swiss, to give proper credit.) I would say that it is worth the trip to Berlin just to have some of the honey, but as I ate almost all of it, you might have to visit her Grandfather in Switzerland. If you are planning on visiting Berlin though, I reccomend staying with Elizabeth!