Berlin, May 28 & 29

Berlin: May 28 & 29, 2017

Trains are great a great time to collect thoughts. And sleep. Marie and I survived 48 hours in Berlin, which is almost shocking based on the amount of sleep we got the past two nights. Berlin is a city with so much history. One thing Germany does well is the recognition of their past to prepare and inform the citizens for their future.

The first time I saw this was in Hamburg. All over Germany there are gold stones built into the ground in front of the houses of individuals who were taken from their home and put into concentration camps. They are uneven with the ground so the point of these stones is so that people trip. The idea being that if an individual stumbles over the stone and look at the stone that they would stop and remember the holocaust and those that were affected.

You can't go to Berlin without talking about the Wall. It's a interesting time to be there are see the history behind the wall. The standing wall in the city has paintings on the West side to demonstrate democracy and on the East side it was blank. A true testimony to the people of East Berlin and their way of life during the communist regime. It is so apparent how Germans understand the problems of creating a wall.

The Germans demonstrate passion in their government reflecting their people. The Reichstag is built with a dome above the plaza where the government votes and debates laws. This Dome was engineered to reflect “the people” of Germany who are in the couplet. Meaning that as they debate and work on the laws they are working for the people. The service of a government official is to work for the people so this demonstration in the government building in Berlin is so power.

On a different note, I stayed in my first hostel this week. By hostel I mean that Marie and I stayed in a hotel room in a hostel. But we made dinner in the cafeteria and met some people from the States. They were just both out here traveling by themselves, which is giving me too many good ideas for next summer. They bought a ticket to Europe and a ticket home and they are just winging it with a backpack. Sounds like fun, anybody in?

Anyways we went to the “Monkey Bar” which is the bar above the zoo. And, I cheered someone too hard and I broke my glass/ got slushy all over myself. So that was a highlight for sure. Truly never a dull moment. People here go out too late and we got home at 3 AM. It also gets dark "late" here. by late I mean 10 pm so I’m in no way prepared for the sun to not go down in Sweden.

Today we went to “checkpoint Charlie” and the cathedral in downtown Berlin. Both were super cool and we rode our bikes everywhere so great exercise.

We are on our way to Dusseldorf before we fly to the UK.

I’m going to try to attach pictures but my dumb laptop doesn’t have an SD card insert and the piece to connect it is like 35 Euros.

Hope all is well!!!


UPDATE: attached are the photos, i just paired 30 pounds for it (eyeroll)