A tourist in Berlin - what history

Did the touristy thing today (wait..don't I do that everyday?). Checked out Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) in Paris Platz. I was planning to walk down Tier Garten but as you can see from the photo of the Gate, people were creating some sort of ice sculpture for Silvester (New Years Eve) and blocked it all off. Instead I took a gawk at the Reichstag (Unfortunately, the queue was too long to go in and have a look at the city through the clear dome on top).

Since I was in the area, I walked towards Potsdamer Platz, the place where, for a long time was No Man's land. Just before Potsdamer Platz there was the construction of the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe'. To be frank, it looks like a whole bunch of uneven grey blocks. Apparently the designer wished it to give the affect that when you walk through it you were ment to feel lost and disorientated. There was a good picture of what the area around Brandenburg Gate looked like before the fall of the wall on 9 Nov 1989.

Potsdamer Platz when I visited, still contained the Christmas market with a huge man made (of course) snow slide where you can slide down on big tires. It was there I spotted a sign for the Christmas drink of mulled wine called 'gluhwein', the German equivalent to 'glogg'.

Oh man, the train stations may be old and grotty in Berlin but damn the system works well. I just have a map (which includes transport locations) and I feel like a transport pro already. Here you can pay €5.60 for a whole day pass for most of Berlin AND if walk 10mins (or less) in any direction and you can catch a train to anywhere in Berlin. I appreciated this fact at the time because the sun was popping in and out and taking into account the direction of the wind, it appeared that it may, for a short while at least, be sunny and a clear sky. If I wanted to see Berlin by day light from The Alex (ie. the Television Tower at Alexanderplatz), I would need to do it fast. So I just jumped on a train at the nearest station (Potsdamer Platz) and made my way to The Pope's Revenge aka The Alex.

Upon getting there, it appeared that a fair few people had the same idea so I had to wait in a queue for a while. A 30 minute while in fact. I really felt like a sheep. I stood at the back of this long line not knowing for sure what this line was for and simply assuming that it was for admission to the viewing level of The Alex. I would have been fine in my ignorance of being a sheep if I hadn't seen this woman in white coat dragging her friend through the crowd, into the outgoing 'ausgang' door (which, I might add, had a handle on the outside with 'ziehen', pull, on it) and heading into my intended destination much much quicker than I was. Anyway, much time later I was finally up there. Not a bad 360° view at all. Never mind that coming down into the tourist shop of The Alex there was a little machine that showed the same (albeit digital) view of the same thing. It even had zoom.

I bought nice walking shoes today as well as a pair of woollen gloves! Looking less and less like a tourist every day. Now if only I can find a good substitute for my really good wind cheating jacket that's PURPLE

Next stop Zoo. Hoping on a train or two I headed to Zoologischer Garten and viewed Tier Garten from train window. Zoo seems to be the shopping hub. I will have come here also on the 30th Dec and it was just packed! It kind of reminded me to Copenhagen city (near Kobenhavn H) where it was filled with huge neon signs. At Zoo there is in fact a Zoo...or that's what I was lead to believe with the large giraffe and arrow sign next to the word Zoo. There's also this great piece of Berlin history for the present world to see -- Kaiser-Wilhelm-Cedachtnis Kirche. It is a church that was bombed by the allied raid and it has not been restored as to act a memorial to the event. You can go in the first level and there's a sort of museum there. As you can see from the pic, there's a tall building to the left of it and also a small round building to the right. These are modern buildings. I only went into the one on the right and it's just a church hall but all the little windows are filled with blue stained glass and there's a large gold looming figure of some guy. I'd assume Jesus, but there wasn't a sign. The crowds were getting to me at this stage so I made my way home.

Berlin appears to be a town (and perhaps this is true of all of Germany too) that does not hide its past. It's full of monuments, memorials and museums.

Did you know that Berlin is one of the three city states in Germany?

Oh and you can get a doner kebap here for €2. They look a little different than the ones you get in Australia but taste just as good!