Berlin And Potsdam Germany

July 2005

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July 23, 2005 Washington to Berlin

Everything went well this morning.  Got everything done I needed.  I drove to Matt’s with dad who drove the Avalanche home.  Got to Reagan National 1:30 hours prior to departure.  Had a beer at the Foggy Bottom bar across from our gate before departing.  Got on the Continental Airlines regional jet that I had to duck the whole way down to our exit row seat and waited.  We left the terminal and the plane stopped.  Started up again and stopped.  The pilot came on to announce that Newark was backed up and we had to wait 50 minutes before departing.  Luckily we had a 2:30 hour layover.  When we finally left it was pretty cool that the plane only gets to about 17,000 feet.  We were tracking our flight all the way from DC.  Saw the Washington Cathedral, Mormon Temple, Fedex Field, Philadelphia, etc.  

It was weird flying into Newark.  You know where the World Trade Center buildings should be and they aren’t there.  Newark Airport is really nice though and the prices aren’t inflated because you are at an airport.  We walked around and had lunch at the New York Diner by our gate.  I had a chicken Caesar salad and Matt had a burger with mushrooms.  Also had some spicy chicken fingers as appetizer and a couple of beers.  Had a lady come up to us that was sitting next to us at Reagan.  She was heading to Berlin also.  Her husband was German and had passed away and she was returning to bury his ashes.  The way she came up and introduced herself, Matt thought she was in some singles traveling group.  We had another beer at the sports bar on the other side of the gate and then boarded the plane. 

It was a 757 plane to Berlin, which seemed small.  I had the exit row for us and there was a real ass in our row.  The row in front of us was an exit row also and they had assigned it to a mother with 2 little kids.  They had also double booked it with another guy.  The kids can’t be in the exit row so they had to move the mother and kids.  That left the guy with three exit row seats to himself.  We tried to get the ass in our row to move up but he wouldn’t.  He didn’t want to “disturb their system”.  Well he wasn’t small and we were packed in like sardines in our row.  He knew we were traveling together and made Matt move to the row in front.  He tried to start a conversation with me and I gave him a real curt one-word answer and blew him off for the rest of the flight.  

They had two really bad movies on the flight, Miss Congeniality and Barbershop.  I finally made good dent in my Tom Clancy book I’ve been trying to read for 3 years Red Rabbit.  Plenty of room in the exit row seats but I just couldn’t get comfortable.   I slept maybe 45 minutes and Matt said he didn’t sleep at all.  Not good for an 8 hour flight. 

July 24, 2005 - Berlin
We arrived at Berlin Tegel Airport and the gateway off the plane led right to the customs and immigration counter.  On the other side of the immigration counter was baggage claim.  I’ve never seen it so close and convenient. 

Now things got interesting.  It took awhile for us to figure out there was no subway at the airport.  I bought our Berlin Travel Cards at 18.90 Euro and the guy at the counter was no help at getting us pointed towards Berlin.  A girl noticed we were having problems and directed us to a machine that gave you a print out of how to get from Tegel Airport to Potsdamer Platz subway station.  

Matt didn’t like the giant rotating door exiting the airport.  It was basically a huge circle cut in half that slowly rotated to get you outside.  

We took a bus to the Unter den Linden subway station and took the subway one stop to Potsdamer Platz.  Of course there were to exits and we chose poorly.  We followed the signs that pointed to hotels and we were the other way.  I asked directions from a guy who quickly indicated he didn’t speak English, but he heard Marriott and pointed us in the right direction.  Once again we get to the hotel and went to the wrong side with no entrance. 

We finally checked in and got to the room at about 11:00 AM.  We planned to sleep until 1:00 PM.  That didn’t happen.  Finally started to move around 6:30 PM.  We’ve got a nice room but there is a door that leads outside to a 9-story drop.  No balcony or anything.  Across the street there is a huge hot air balloon tethered to the ground the goes really high   

We left the room to go out about 7:30 PM.  There are sections of the Berlin wall a half a block away.  The Berlin wall would have run right down the wall of our hotel.  The have a 2 brick wall width walkway indicating where the wall was.  We kept trying to figure out which side was which and figured out later we were again wrong.  The Potsdamer Platz area we are in is a lot like Bethesda.  We walked thru the Sony Center which had a fountain, big screen TV, IMAX and regular theatres and restaurants.  We laughed at how everyone was is so calm and noticed the big screen TV was showing calming photos of water running.  They have a huge open-air atrium with a decorative cover that lit up at night. 

Walked around to a bar Matt had seen while we were looking for the hotel and had our first 2 beers.  The restaurant was the Restaurant Mommseneck, House der 100 Biere.  I had a couple of Berliner Kindl which I liked and Matt had a Warsteiner that he said wasn’t that good and a Berliner Kindl that he complained was milder than the Warsteiner.  Sorry, I didn’t know what he was looking for.  I just said I liked my beer. 

Matt was hungry and we headed back to the Sony Center and went to the Lindenbrau.  I had a pretzel and a couple of pils beers.  Matt had Roast Pork with Gravy, Potato Dumplings, and Sauerkraut with a couple of dark beers.  His review was there was ample pork but the stretched out the potatoes.  

Walked back to the hotel which were I am now typing this at 11:34 PM.  We are going to go down and have a night cap at the hotel bar and get up early to see the sights. 

12:20 AM and we’re back from the hotel bar.  There were 6 seats at the bar and 4 were taken by people, one by the bag of some euro trash lady.  Matt used one open seat and I stood next to the seat lady was using for her bag.  I never asked her to move it but she could tell I wanted to use it.  She never even considered moving her bag.  I took my Guinness to a couch.  Matt had a Guinness and Dewar’s and Water.  Bill was 11.80 Euro.  Not bad for a hotel bar.  They have a booth for a jazz radio station that broadcasts from the bar.  Cool Jazz 101.9.  

Gonna watch some German TV and go to bed.  Matt has been flipping thru channels.  Big discrepancies.  Muslims praying, naked girls and old ladies with 800 numbers and now South Park in German. 

July 24, 2005 
We woke up this morning at 7:20 AM.  We love the beds, down pillows and down sheets.  I slept great.  Matt was excited about the down sheets so much that he got up and turn AC all the way up so he could have the sheets keep him warm.  He was disappointed this morning though that the AC didn’t get as cold as he had expected or wanted.  Matt’s still on Maryland time, as he didn’t get to sleep much last night.  Also he thinks it could have been the extra salty meal he had at 9:30 PM.  As the alarm went off I was greeted by 3 short blasts of gas from his rear end.  I asked if that was the morning greeting call of the prehistoric Rafferty.  He told me Rafferty’s are highly evolved.  I’ll have to do more research on that.  Matt’s in the shower and we’ll head out when he’s done. 

Matt went to the bank and I left my jacket at the hotel room so went back for it since it looked like rain.  We met at Dunkin Donuts.  The bank doesn’t open until 10:00 AM.  I get a Coke and 2 chocolate covered donuts and graciously buy Matt a coffee.  Off to Subway hell, this subway-rail system is crazy. We can’t make heads or tails of it.  Once again we choose poorly.  We need to go one stop and end up going the wrong way.  Turning around to go 2 stops takes forever.  Something we later walk in about 10 minutes takes us 30 minutes on the subway.  

We finally get to the Unter den Linden stop that is right at Brandenburg Gate.  Overall the city is very quiet, Brandenburg Gate is impressive.  Matt liked the organ grinder at the bottom of the gate even though he only had a toy monkey.  Head right, past Brandenburg Gate to the Reichstag.  We can’t figure out the orientation of the city from East and West.  The Reichstag is a huge and foreboding in the overcast weather.  The line to get in is foreboding also.  We have to wait about an hour or so to get in.  We pass the time though by making many inappropriate German jokes.  It did start to drizzle a little bit and getting my jacket looks like a good move. 

They take in groups of about 50 people in at a time.  There is no tour though; you just take an elevator to the top floor, which has great views of the city.  While waiting in line you can’t help but notice all the patching of, we presume, bullet holes.  The top of the Reichstag has a new glass dome that you take a circular walkway to the top.  Also inside the dome are many picture depicting the past of the Reichstag.  The line would back up near the 1930-1945 dates and 1989.  It’s amazing they salvaged anything of the building when you see pictures after it was burnt and after Berlin was conquered. 

My camera card started acting crazy so I changed the card and told Matt I’d like to head back to the hotel to download the pictures to see if I can figure out what has gone wrong. 

We walk through the park toward the Soviet Soldiers Monument.  It had a couple of tanks and howitzers at the entrance.  It seemed like a smaller version of our WWII memorial.  Huge Soviet soldier tops the memorial.  There were a bunch of pictures on the buildings behind the monument.  Berlin was truly a mess after the war.  The Soviets also did not waste any time building the monument.  It was up by 1946. 

Between the Soviet Soldiers Monument and the hotel we stopped at the Holocaust Memorial.  It is a full city block of rectangular blocks of varying heights.  They are lined up perfectly, like a graveyard but the ground underneath undulates up and down.  Matt said it was order and chaos at the same time.  He was really trying to get deep into the memorial.  He did get scolded though for jumping from rectangle to rectangle.  Apparently there is a woman whose job it is to keep people from memorial jumping.  The space between the blocks was about 3-4 feet.  It was amusing to hear kids screaming and having a great time running thru the blocks.  You would hear them first and then you’d see the streak by your limited field of view quickly, usually with a parent close behind trying to catch them.  I guess I was supposed to be Matt’s parent and did a bad job watching him. 

We headed back to the hotel and Matt was getting hungry.  We stopped at a food stand on the road.  I got a bratwurst and Matt had been craving a curry sausage he had read about.  He chose poorly again.  Basically he got a cut up sausage with curry type pepper sprinkled on and smothered in ketchup. Umm-Umm.  Also the lady was out of drinks except for one beer that could have been out on display forever.  I passed when she tried to give it to me.  As we got near the hotel I got a coke at the stand at the giant balloon across the street from the Marriott and Matt went to get some traveler’s checks cashed.  Apparently that was harder than you would think.  The person must not have trusted Matt and called American Express to verify his check had been purchased. 

I downloaded my photos and the memory card started working again.  I lost a couple of pictures inside the Reichstag Dome.  Matt got a quick nap and we went off again.  Once again we can’t figure out the subway.  There are like 9 entrances to the Potsdamer Platz subway station for the 3 lines. We never pick the right entrance.  This time we can’t find the direct line to the Zoologischer Garten.  We have to go 2 stops up to Friedrichstrasse Station and change.  A lady gave us directions in broken English, which is pretty much what we speak, so you’d think we could understand.  She told us we had to go up a level to find the S5 line.  Well we had to go up to the ground level, which was 2 levels and figure out that S5 was in the elevated train station above our head.  Four stops and we arrive at Zoologischer Garten subway.  We still can’t figure North, South, East and West and end up going the opposite direction we needed to be going to get to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. 

I had joked earlier about Matt being George Costanza and how he should do the opposite of what ever his first impulse is.  We are both Costanza here.  Every time we go one way, we should have gone the other. 

We stop at a bar named Joe’s in honor of Joe Barrett and have our first liter of Lowenbrau at 3:15 PM.  I forgot how big the liter glasses were, but it was getting a little hot and we finished it fairly quickly to avoid it getting warm.  Matt likes the outside café lifestyle.  The Kaiser Wilhelm Church is right across the street from Joe’s.  It’s a neat combination of old and new.  The original spire from the church has been kept in its post WWII bombed out state.  On both sides they have build modern buildings one a church and one a spire made of small stained glass panes.  Inside is really neat since the whole building is basically stained glass.  The spire though has a strange kitschy-hippie style store.  It just didn’t fit the church. 

Behind the church is a big fountain and court with people performing for money.  Germany is only about 20 years behind the times in street performers.  They all are break dancing.  Matt joked if we came back in 20 years they’ll be rapping. 

We see a sign advertising an Irish Pub.  It’s not really a trip if you haven’t been to an Irish Pub especially when traveling with an Irishman.  We are looking for the Europe Center.  Matt wants to walk down a street that looked fairly lively first and once again “he chose poorly”.  It’s a high class area that when we rounded the block to head back to the main road took us by a bunch of transvestite burlesque shows.  Thanks Matt. 

We of course pass the Europa Center and turn around.  There is no sign except for the garage and one hidden down an alley.  Even though this is a fairly large mall.  We finally find the Irish Pub that has a sign of Snoop Dogg underneath the main sign.  We go in and they are playing all American music.  The bathroom signs have the male wearing a skirt making it a 50/50 shot on which one you picked.  Finally the bartender gave us small Guinness’.  This is a thing that drives Bedlow crazy.  Why would anyone serve me a small beer?  Knowing he would be upset if I stayed I finish my one small beer and bag of chips then head off.  

Matt is amused at a Dungeon and Dragons type store next to the bar.  He seems to know more about it than he seems to be willing to tell.  Next to that is a store selling medieval weapons.  This combination disturbs Matt.  He doesn’t think they should be encouraging the Germans in any type of warfare.  We leave the other side of the Europa Center than where we entered and find the entrance is exactly where we had started, the fountain behind Kaiser Wilhelm Church. 

We head to the train station and stop for a beer at Hanne Am Zoo, a soccer pub directly under the train station.  While we have our drink I decide we still have daylight and should try to fit in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.  We actually know the line to get on to get to the Stadium since it’s the same we arrived on.  Eight stops down the line we arrive at the Olympic Stadium.  We have no idea where we are going but get lucky this time as there are 2 exits and one is closed.  It’s a miracle but it’s the right direction.  

The stadium is about 500 yards through a wooded walkway from the station.  It’s very impressive for being built in the 1930’s.  It has just been refurbished in 2004 we find out.  It costs us 2.00 Euro to enter the grounds.  It finally starts to rain pretty hard as we get near the gates.  I was stubborn and didn’t want to pull my jacket out until we get to the entrance.  I get soaked.  The Stadium is very simple and as Matt kept saying reminded him of Grecian buildings.  Of course, he’s never been to Greece but I have and he was right.  It holds 74,400 people and has a new modern roof that covers all the seats.  Behind the stadium is a really old looking stadium that was probably some sort of warm up track.  The diving and swimming stadium are also next to the Olympic Stadium.  It also seems to be in pretty good shape.  

We went up to the second level of seating and just sat down while the rain really starts to come down.  It was kind of spooky as we are one of a handful of the people in the stadium but the rain bouncing off the roof made it really loud, almost like cheers.  It’s like the ghost of Jesse Owens was there bringing in cheers.  

There were 2 sets of giant athlete statues on both sides of the entrance.  One set of statues has had tree overgrow to the point it looks like 2 giant statues going to the bathroom behind some trees. 

It stopped raining when we went back to the train station and we were on the line that was a direct route to Potsdamer Platz.  I had felt good all day but sitting down for those 14 stops got to me and I really felt worn out.  Matt didn’t sleep much the night before and he was also running on fumes. 

We got to Potsdamer Platz and headed to the mall we originally got lost in when trying to find our hotel for a meal.  It was a Greek place.  I got some spinach on dough and fried cheese in a rolled up piece of dough.  Matt got some sort of diced meat plate with peppers, fries and a small salad.  Matt finally had a beer he liked and I had a couple of tiny cokes.  As usual while out of the country, I’d kill for a 7-11 Double Gulp.  We got back to the room where I have downloaded my photos from the afternoon and typed this entry.  Matt has had it and I’m going to follow.  It’s about 11:00 PM. 

We want to see if we can fit a lot in tomorrow including Potsdam and Schloss Charlottenburg. 

Some of our observations of Berlin so far, it’s a very laid back city.  Matt claims there are lots of soothing elements to the city that were built in by the Allies during reconstruction to sooth the Germans and keep them from wanting to take over the world again.  It’s a kind of subconscious mind control.  It’s just little things like the big screen TV at the Sony Center playing pictures of running water.  There is a store next to our hotel that has spinning, hypnotic like figures that are projected on its wall.  The water fountain at Europa Center.  Little things like that to keep the population calm.  It works on Matt, he says he calms down every time he sees the spinning lights by the hotel. 

Matt noticed that the city is huge and there are tons of stores, yet you never see more than one person working at them and no one is ever buying anything. 

The underground malls, like Europa Center, the area adjoining Potsdamer Platz’s subway station, all subway stations in fact, also intrigue Matt.  I thought maybe they are underground due to bad winter weather and it is easier to just walk between buildings underground.  

July 26, 2005 – Potsdam & Berlin
I woke up and amended some of yesterday’s journal entry.  I was actually up at 5:45 AM and wide-awake at that.  Waited until 7:00 AM to take a shower and started computer work.  Matt was asleep until 9:00 AM, he claims he was up at 3:45 AM and was mad I didn’t make him get up to get going.  I say preposterous.  He wasn’t awake; he even slept thru the alarm. I did notice when he was asleep that we had a door that actually opened to the outside and took a bunch of pictures.  

Headed to our Dunkin’ Donut for Pepsi’s, coffee and a couple of donuts.  I stopped at the bank to cash a traveler’s check but remember Matt had problems with that, so I just took 100.00 Euros from my bank account. 

We finally are getting used to the subway system.  We went right to our train platform at Potsdam Platz to go to Potsdam.  When we get to Potsdam we were going to take the train but walked outside and a bus was leaving in w minutes.  The train would’ve been faster.  The bus eventually dropped us off at Schloss San Souci.  We bought a pass to see all the palaces in the area for 19.00 Euro for two days.  

We had to wait until 2:20 PM to get into the main portion of Schloss San Souci so we went first to see its kitchen.  They had a huge oven that double as a hot water heater.  We walked around the other side, I truly couldn’t’ tell you which side was front or back, to find these huge terraced fields that led to a fountain surrounded by marble seats and plenty of statues.  

From there we walked over to the Chinese Tea House, which was covered with gold decorations and statues.  Matt figured it was just a cool little house for them to go and to have to get 2 tickets for everything.  We had our ticket saying we were allowed to see everything and then when we tried to go in the guy let us but said we had to go to the booth around the corner to get our ticket.  I don’t know why but we didn’t question him and did as we were told. 

We took a different route back by the Orangerie.  We didn’t go in this palace but it was one of about 5-6 palaces on the grounds.  Matt was feeling parched and we had 30 minutes so he literally sniffed out a snack stand/bar across the street from Schloss San Souci hidden behind a huge windmill.  We are still trying to figure out the windmill.  The stand was named the Kutcherhaus.  This refreshed Matt greatly.  Schloss San Souci was the summer palace of Frederick the Great.  He had Voltaire at the palace quite often.  It really did seem like a man’s getaway house as we were told no women were allowed.  The weird thing was this was the smaller of the 2 main palaces but he used this one the most.  It did have a much nicer view since it set atop the one hill we’ve seen in 3 days. 

The funniest thing about the whole tour was we were made to wear these huge slippers over our shoes.  Of course they barely fit my size 14’s.  It did help greatly as it had been raining and the grounds around the palace were dirt and gravel.  The best thing those was it gave you the ability to almost skate thru the palace as all the floors were marble or wood.  

We thought it was a one-time thing but we ended donning the monster slippers 3 times throughout the day. 

It was after 3:00 PM after the tour and Matt was hungry.  Across the street there was another snack shop at the Zur Hisorichen Muhle Movenpick Hotel.  I ordered what I thought was dough filled with cheese and sausage but ended up being a processed pork roll with cheese incorporated throughout the roll.  Matt had one along with a bratwurst.  Some fries and a beer and we were set. 

After lunch we stopped at a separate wing of Schloss San Souci called the Neu Kammern where we got to slide in our oversized slippers again.  The security guards, who were in every room, laughed when I asked them to take a picture of me in my slippers. 

Our next stop was the Neues Palace.  This palace dwarfed the Schoss San Souci.  It had rooms in it as large as our house.  There was one really neat room that was decorated in shells.  It was starting to get late so we went through the Neues Palace pretty quickly. 

At the Neues Palace we were straight down the road from the rail station that would take us back to the Potsdam Train Station.  But luckily for Matt there was another restaurant, the Café at Neues Palais.  We both got a Berliner Kindl and bottle of water. Something of note was like a lot of other places you had to pay a .25 Euro deposit for glass or plastic bottles.  We don’t know for sure but we figured that was why you don’t see much trash on the ground.  We also got to watch a tiny mouse run around the café and at one point ran inside but came right back out. 

The train station was about ¼ to ½ mile to the rail station, which was 2 stops from the main train station where we would transfer to take the S1 subway line directly to Potsdam Platz.  

Once again Matt’s amazed at the mall life here in Germany.  The train station doubles as a mall in Potsdam.  We had a beer at the Metropolitan American Restaurant in the train station.  What’s new?  What was new was when I took my regular picture of the bar an old man angrily waved me off.

Matt was fairly amused when I told him.  Maybe it was some German Mafia guy. 

We both got some food for the ride back.  I had a large roll with cheese and ham on top and a Coke.  Matt had a fish sandwich and beer.  We both started feeling tired on the way home and were going to call it quits but remembered we hadn’t been to the Cancun Restaurant or Air Service Berlin Helium Balloon across the street from our hotel. 

A quick beer at the Cancun Restaurant, and bathroom stop and we were off to the skies over Berlin.  The Berlin City Tour Card gave us a 10.00 Euro ticket instead of 19.00 Euro.  We’ve been watching this balloon for 2 days and it was way cooler than we expected it would be.  

The balloon is tethered to the ground and once you board the metal basket that can hold up to 30 people our pilot lets the brakes go and a line go and we head up to 150 meters over Berlin.  It was real windy and I asked our “pilot” if it ever gets to windy to fly.  He tells us we’re right on the brink of it being too windy right now and he’s only going to go up one more time today.  I wish I had asked once we had landed.  The view was amazing and was well worth the price of admission.  Especially since the balloon is fairly centrally located in the city.  You could really tell how large the Holocaust Memorial was from the air since it was right underneath the balloon.  

Landing was interesting.  The wind was really strong as I said and we were drifting towards the Cancun Restaurant.  The tether thought guides you right in.  It’s not a long ride but it was great. 

That pretty much sums up the day.  I came back and hooked up to the Internet, 19.99 Euro for 24 hours, and talked on MSN Messenger to dad back home.  It’s an amazing little gizmo with the camera and microphone.  Matt went out to get some dinner and a nightcap at our hotel bar.  He called me a computer geek when he saw us talking to each other on the computer.

He has now been trying to figure out how to make our room as cold as possible to take advantage of our down sheets.  Of course he broke the door it looks like when he tried to create a cross wind in the room. 

He has set up some really funny postcards to send home.  It’s a bunch of Berlin postcards right after WWII.  They all end up blaming me for something.  The first postcard has a burnt out shell of a car in front of Brandenburger Gate and he wrote, First Wally let me drive….then.  His second postcard is a burnt out shell of a planes engine and he wrote, “Wally Let Me Fly…….Then.  It goes on for 5 postcards.  Pretty funny for Matt. 

One more funny thing from this afternoon.  We both said something at the same time and I mentioned it’s amazing we share the same brain; I don’t know whether to be sad for myself or impressed for you.  He took it as a nice backhanded compliment.  

We’re going to try and get moving early tomorrow since we leave for Copenhagen in the evening and still have a lot we want to see.  Until then. 

July 27, 2005 – Berlin to Copenhagen
I packed last night so I’d be ready to roll in the morning. Matt woke up extra early and went for a work out in the gym.  As I’ll tell of later he should have spent the time packing.  Once he got back we headed checked out and had the hotel store our bags, as our flight to Copenhagen didn’t leave until 6:40 PM. 

We spent a little time outside the hotel at Potsdam Platz at the Berlin Wall remnants while trying to get oriented with the map a little better.  This truly is a confusing town.  It might be because of the your mind keeps thinking that of East Berlin and West Berlin, East Berlin should be closest to the East Coast which of course it’s not.  You also keep finding out where the wall was and it just ran haphazardly through the middle of town.  

We started walking towards Checkpoint Charlie and about 150 yards down the road ran into another section of the Berlin Wall.  This was the other boundary with the Potsdam Plats section of the wall that made up no mans land.  It ran through what today is this bustling transportation hub and centerpiece for new restaurants and stores in the middle of the city.  There is the huge mall adjoining the Potsdam Plats subway station, the Sony Center, Discovery Channel and an IMAX theater in this area now.  You see pictures of the post war Potsdam Plats and there was nothing but the two sides of the wall and barriers in between.  You see pictures of post WWII in postcards and it seems like it was in that time what it is again now. 

Checkpoint Charlie is about a ½ mile away and is just a small booth in the middle of the street.  We got there fairly early and it was just the booth, but once we went through museum they had three Germans dressed up in American, French and Russian outfits to dress up the booth Disney style.  I thought that was fairly cheesy.  The Americanization of the area cracked me up.  There is a Snack Point Charlie Store including a Subway where I got my morning coke and what I deemed really clever the Czech Tourist Board Store right next to Checkpoint Charlie.  By the way, I am dying for a Big Gulp as usual with all my trips to Europe.  The 500 ml bottles just don’t quench my giant thirst. 

We went into the Checkpoint Charlie museum right before our 72 Hour Berlin Card ran out and got in for 5.00 Euro instead of 9.00 Euro.  We had read that the museum was run down but I disagree completely.  It has a 50’s-70’s feel with lots of black and white photos, thank God with English captions along with German, French and Russian.  It gave it a Cold War type feeling.  

We spent quite a long time in the museum.  It’s truly heartbreaking what the people of this city went through.  The stories, pictures and displays all are out of some nightmare.  There was a car where the person was sown into the passenger side seat.  There was a small van that was given concrete and steel reinforcing to ram the gate.  It ended up with a lot of bullet holes but made it through the barrier.  There was a display about 2 families that sewed together what at the time was the biggest hot air balloon in Europe and flew it to safety.  There were a couple of ultra light planes including one of two the two brothers flew into East Berlin picked up there third brother and flew back.  They had put Russian insignias on the wings hoping to avoid getting shot down.  More impressively was they videotaped the whole thing which was running on a loop in the museum.  They also did this in May of 1989 so they seemed to spend a lot of time on this plan and the wall fell months later.  There was a story of a person who had hollowed out a windsurfer and hidden inside to cross the border.  There was a story of a man named John Running who would climb the West Berlin side of the wall and run atop it just to spite the Germans.  There were literally hundreds of these heart-wrenching stories of people risking their life to get from one side of the wall to the other for their freedom. 

From there we headed to the Jewish Museum.  It is two buildings one old that houses displays that change and the new modern steel one that I was told is designed to be a broken but not destroyed Star of David.  We tried to get in with our discount on the Berlin Card but the girl sniffed out Matt’s card as being expired for 1½ hour.  The regular entry was only 5.00 Euro.  We entered the current display in the old building, which was on the Topf Brothers who built the crematoriums in the concentration camps.  The Third Reich was looking for a cold, professional, focused company who could build the concentration camps.  They found the Topf brothers.  They showed testimony afterwards how the brothers said they were just doing what they were contracted for but did know what they were doing it for. 

Surprising to me was at the beginning even though they were committing mass murder they had laws for cremation that would allow the murdered to request that they be identified by a ceramic id that was put with their ashes in an urn.   They had just uncovered 70 urns recently at the Bergen Belsen Camp that were on display.  Creepily, they had a canister of poison, door to an oven and hatch that opened to distribute the Xyklon B poison. 

We next headed to the permanent display in the new building but not before I almost got into a fight with the girl taking the tickets.  I had my camera bag and a bag of things I had purchased at Checkpoint Charlie, which I let Matt carry through the ticket taker spot.  They had a box that your bag had to fit into to be brought in the museum otherwise it had to be checked.  Well Matt’s bag was tall but didn’t have much inside but the girl says it’s too tall and must be checked.  For some reason this just pissed me off and I grabbed the bad and folded the top over to make it smaller.  She still said it didn’t matter.  So I crammed it into my bag and finally she said OK and we could enter.  What the hell, I can make one big back but not two small bags because one was too tall?  I think this made me fly through the museum. 

It really isn’t what I expected.  There is 1½ floor of Jewish history, a real quick section on the holocaust, then finishing with more history.  I guess I expected more on the holocaust.  This was really a question I had when I had heard about this museum, how much would be on the holocaust?  For as big as the museum is they really glossed over the holocaust.  They had one panel each for the years 1939 – 1945, then some displays of personal items from people in the camps, and a section on Anne Frank.  They never even mention Hitler just the National Socialist Party. 

The next floor was called the memory void floor.  This is a huge museum with lots of space and the memory void floor is half that, a void.  There is nothing there except the cold concrete walls.  You walk around a corner and there is a pit of iron cut circles with faces that have been cut out.  You walk from one end to the other, which is extra loud, I guess to remember the victims of the holocaust.  I told Matt, I didn’t get the whole concept and I thought they just ran out of things to display.  

On the bottom floor there was a holocaust tower that you walked into and again was a concrete prison really.  Just very cold and dark.  Outside they had the Garden of Exile.  It was 49 concrete pillars, seven rows of seven, with olive trees growing out of the top.   They are standing vertically on a slanted floor.  It is supposed to make us think about the disorientation exile brings.  48 of the pillars are contain soil from Berlin and signifies 1948 the year Israel was formed. 

From the museum, Matt took charge.  I chose poorly.  He walked us around looking for a bank.  He walked us through some run down old nasty neighborhood.  No banks anywhere.  We ended up at the Hallesches Tor subway.  A little old man saw us looking at our map and pulled out a subway map from his brief case.  I tried to show him we had that map on the back of the map we were looking at but he insisted we take his map.  The only English he spoke was “it’s better, yes”. 

We took the subway to the Orienenburger Tor, which I was going to walk to the Berliner Dom.  Matt, still wanted money and went to a bank, which would on exchange US cash for their customers.  They sent him to an exchange booth down the road.  He finally got his money, even though I kept telling him we’re leaving in 1 ½ hour and Denmark doesn’t take Euros. 

I pretended to be mad and had fun with him at his expense.  Good Times.

Now that Matt had money he got a sandwich that he immediately oozed dressing all over himself.  I gave up on the Berliner Dom because it was the opposite direction from our hotel, which of course we could find because of the Air Service Berlin balloon.  We worked our way back to the hotel up the Spree River towards the Reichstag.  We stopped at 3 bars to have a beer in each.  All three were had open air seating on the river.  The first one we asked for a beer and they gave us a 0.3 liter thimble of beer.  The second gave us 0.4 liter of beer.  No giant beers on the river.  Matt got me good on the second bar.  He pulled out 20 Euro and the guy asked if he had anything smaller.  I wasn’t paying attention and Matt asked if I had any change.  I had enough to pay his turn at the bill.  So he went and got money after I offered to pay for the rest of Berlin but when it got to paying his bill got me to do pay.  Matt has a little bit of evil genius in him. 

The third bar was by the Reichstag, which got me thinking how crazy Berlin must have been.  I misread the map and thought East Berlin was on one side and West on the other side.  I just couldn’t fathom I could enjoy a beer on one side of the river but would have not been allowed to the other side of the river.  The map proved I was wrong about the area but the concept was still real. 

We finally got to the hotel and started our trip to the airport.  Bad info from subway employee had us go one to many stops to look for the Airport Express train.  I should have known better.  They had told me Tegel didn’t have a subway.  That train went to Schoenfeld Airport.  We back tracked to Unter den Linen and caught the TXL bus back to the airport. 

We started walking the airport to try to find our plane and start to realize the airport is a huge circle and we’ve almost done the whole loop.  We asked an information desk employee where Gate 66 was and he told us to go to the new mall and take a left.  This is exactly where the bus had dropped us off to begin our airport trek. 

This is where I get to what I had mentioned at the beginning of the day’s journal about Matt and packing.  While walking around the airport Matt realizes he hasn’t remember seeing his passport in 2 days.  We got to the gate and he tore his luggage apart and the passport was nowhere to be found.  He thinks he either left it at the hotel or it was pick pocketed.  Guess which. 

I talked to the Scandinavian Air people and explained what had happened.  At least he had a copy of the passport that I told him we needed for St. Petersburg and his drivers license.  They told us since it was a flight within Europe he wouldn’t have to show his passport in Copenhagen.  So at least I knew I could get him that far. 

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