We arrived in Berlin yesterday after a two hour train ride. We then took a five minute train ride to Hackescher Market. We ate a delightful lunch. I learned from our waitress that women in Germany drink beer in one of three ways: Radler is beer with lemon aid or sprite, Diesel is beer with coke, and Alster is beer with Fanta. In Spain women drink wine with agua minerale. Interesting. Our waitress was beautiful , her mom German and her father from Mozambique. Our apartment was five blocks away. Wonderful to be able to unpack and wash our clothes. It has been unseasonably warm here not unlike our weather in California.
Our second day in Berlin is usually on the hop on and off bus but we needed some exercise after sitting so much yesterday. I have been having problems with my emails so we decided to walk over to Apple Store. Stu with a Berlin map in one hand and google map on his phone got us there the scenic way about 7 miles. Naturally they fixed my phone in less then 5 minutes.
For the next 10 days we will live in an apartment found on AirBnB. Hotels might be cheaper; however, we enjoy cooking the kinds of meals our bodies feel most comfortable with. Berlin doesn’t have an old central city core. It is spread out. We will add pictures each day lacking any correlation.
For instance the first picture is of Stumbling Stones indicating where someone was picked up and taken to concentration camp and died there. Check the birth and death dates. Sobering is not the word for it.
Through out i will have links for further insite.
Hunzingers ensemble is a group of sculptures in a park deplicting the women of mixed marriages whosehusbands were sent to Auschwitz. Hundred of women protested knowing they could go to prison.
Fernsehturm TV Tower
Marx-Engels Forum
Berlin Cathedral
Another monument we were drawn to is called a Neue Wache. It is the central memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is an empty room with a sculptor of a mother and her dead son. Buried in the ground is the body of an unknown soldier and the body of an unknown concentration camp prisoner They are surrounded by earth from WWII battlefields and from the concentration camps. Both very simple and yet very moving.
A card thrown from the window of a train car.
The girl died but the card was delivered
Berlin wall victims Memorial
They tried to cross the wall
Memorial to Politicians who opposed Hitler
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