Berlin

Well, don't worry, I found the wall in Berlin. Of course, visiting Berlin, it is impossible to miss the wall that has affected so much of Berlin's very recent history.  Here's a picture from the East Side Gallery that was painted in 1990 after the wall was first knocked down and refreshed in 2009, 20 years later.

This stretch went on for about 2 km and was painted by artists from all over the world. 

The thing about Berlin as compared to Edinburgh, or even the cities I have visited in the Netherlands, is that it's really cool, but in a different sort of way.  There is so much recent history that has affected the city and, while there are some awesome buildings, it's not the type of place that you just wander around and think about how pretty it is.  Rather, there are an infinite number of museums, landmarks and monuments dedicated to the history of WWII and the Cold War.  There is still a noticeable difference between the infrastructure of East and West Berlin because of the divide in the mid-1900s.

Here's one of my favorite places we went.  It's called the Berliner Dom and was built in the 1400s.  A huge part of the church and the crypt within it was destroyed by Allied powers during WWII and was rebuilt in recent decades.  It's beautiful inside and you can go all of the way to the top and get a great view of the city.

This is the field where the Berlin Love Parade used to be held.

  Here's a picture of the Holocaust Memorial or the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe."  It's hard to see from the picture but it goes on for a really long time.  The towers are all different heights and the ground continuously slopes up and down.  Apparently the artist never fully explained what the meaning behind all of it is but in his only interview said that the point is to make you feel disoriented.

This is Checkpoint Charlie, which is where people had to cross to get in and out of the American sector of Berlin after WWII.  There was a really cool museum there which talked about the history of the wall and showed a lot of ways in which people attempted to escape past the wall.

Here's Charlottenburg Palace, a little ways on the outskirts of the city.

The German history museum was a massive museum that gave the history of Germany's entire existence.  It's a lengthy museum but my attention was rekindled when I stumbled across this good looking lady...

Her name is Bertha Eichoff.    Now, I realize that's not exactly how you spell my last name, but it caught my attention, and my name is German.  We could be related, who knows?  Do you see the family resemblance? 

I'm really glad that we got to go to Berlin and we actually had a decent amount of time to spend in the city.  The perk of overnight buses is that get you where you want to go without wasting valuable daylight hours.  Of course, spending two out of four nights on a bus can be a bit exhausting, but when you're traveling on a budget and are restricted by the whole school thing, it's not too shabby at all.