A tour guide named Jess

Yesterday was our first day going around Berlin, so we started the day off with a walking tour to get us oriented. We actually ended up arrive half an hour early, so we spent some time wandering around the market going on in the same square. There was some awesome stuff going on there.

Cool fountain? seen on the walk there.

Cheap pastries! Still don't know why they're green.

We got to our tour group and signed in. Our guide's name was Jess. He was actually from LA, and studied medieval history in Berkley. He'd been living in Berlin and studying for 3 years. He was really well informed and it was a great tour - we learned a lot and the 4 hour walk flew by with his dry humor. One of the best things about his tour specifically was some of his interpretations on the monuments. Berlin has some of the best monuments I've ever seen, and most of them are left up to the viewers interpretations. Jess left us to form our own opinions, but added quite a bit to the experience by providing his perspective.

Starting the tour!

Beautiful view of Meuseumplaz

The orange trash cans around Berlin are all hilarious. Thank you for the hot dogs.

The first place we went was the main square where Hitler made many of his demonstrations and speeches, and started many of his marches. The impressive Prussian building where he often stood is a museum now.

This beautiful building is at the south end of the square. According to our tour guide it's actually a lot newer of a building than it looks like.

Where many of Hitlers speeches were made

We then headed farther into old town Berlin - almost the entirety of this tour was spent in what used to be East Berlin - the communist side.

Interesting housing set up? Looks like shipping container projects I've seen sometimes. No idea what they are.

Right across from Humbolt University was a library square where book burnings were held during Nazi take over - started by students looking to get rid of any ideas that did not agree with Nazi ideals

Memorial to the book burning - the number of shelves are supposed to represent the number of books burned - supposedly they would have filled these shelves.

Learned a lot about stop lights here. Berlin seems very proud of theirs - we see figurines and stuff of them everywhere.

One of my favorite parts of the tour, if purely the way it makes me appreciate history and how fantastic it is, was the Russian embassy. Apparently they used to have a Lenin statue out front, and when a US president came to the city no one wanted him accidentally photographed with a Stalin statue in the background, so they asked the embassy to do something about it. They put a cardboard box over Lenin's head. Which I think is fantastic. I haven't confirmed this story, but it's a fun little tidbit.

Outside the russian embassy

Our tour then continued around old town. I'm not going to explain every little thing, but it was a really interesting tour.

Paris platz

If you can see the small stone line down the road, that's where the berlin wall used to stand

Lamppost where Ronald Reagan apparently gave his speech about the wall

Talks about the Jewish holocaust memorial

The blocks get intimidatingly tall the deeper into the memorial you go

Getting closer to Checkpoint Charlie

Yes the US is very proud.

Communist propaganda wall

reflective monument same size and shape of the communist propaganda mural, but showing people during the work strikes under communist rule

After the tour we headed back towards Checkpoint Charlie to had lunch

apparently this is Charlie's beach? 

We then went to the museum at the Topography of Terror and spent some time browsing through a very detailed and documented history of acts of terror committed during and leading up to WWII. When we couldn't handle the topic much longer we headed back through meuseumplatz, and saw some great views of the lit up buildings.

Same building as before - my camera doesn't much like the dark. Gerd will have better pictures.

Across the plaza

Finally we grabbed some food at an asian buffet (a kind of combination of Chinese and Japanese food I think).

Stuffed.

And back to the hostel for the night!

Dresden - Berlin

And we're off to Berlin! On the way our train stopped in Dresden for a transfer so we decided to stay for a few hours. We actually met someone in Budapest who was from Dresden, and we ran into her here!!! It was a fantastic coincidence. I realized 10 minutes after we parted that I should have gotten a picture of us together!! Such a shame. :(

Ate some of my fruit! Turns out what I thought was candied pineapple was actually ginger, so Andrea got most of that. Still don't know what the red stuff is, but it tastes good.

THE TRAMS IN GERMANY HAVE TICKET MACHINES ON THE TRAM. Like, ON the tram!!! So convenient!!!

Stop lights are fun. ^_^

Got some ice cream while wandering

I got cookies and cream, which is called something fancy in French here

Apparently one of the largest porcelain artworks in the world?!? Shows procession of rulers of Saxony.

I liked this clock tower. The clock has pretty colors.

Giant fountain!

Thought Anna would like this fish.

View into the courtyard.

We finally got to Berlin later that night, and made it to the Heart of Gold hostel, themed on Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. We went out to eat and plan for tomorrow, and Gerd was VERY excited to finally get some Asian food.

He's just so happy.

We decided we're doing a 4.5 hour walking tour tomorrow, and we have a few things we can do from there depending on where we end up. I'm really excited to learn some of the history here, and there is just so much to learn about, we won't have nearly enough time. But hopefully the tour will be good and we can soak up some learning!

Vysehrad

In our last day in Prague we decided to go south down the river to a castle/church area called Vysehrad. Apparently this is where the first pagan settlers settled down in Prague, and the area is full of history. I loved the museum and the grounds were fantastic to walk around. The walk was beautiful and the view was probably the best we've had in a city full of amazing views.

Random sculpture along the road on the way

More river pictures!

On the way we saw the "dancing building." We don't really know what it is or why it was designed that way, but it was really interesting and fun to laugh at. They were having an erotic comics display there as we were passing by....

And we stopped at a cat café! Of course. This was a pay by the hour place with four cats, and you get wifi, x-box, tea, coffee and cookies, and quality time with some adorable cat, so be prepared for a bunch of pictures.

We were greeted at the door

The café had some great decor

Coffee!!!

The owners personal assistant, Kenzo

The newbie of the family, Beatrice

They're all adorable, all of them.

We passed by a tiny farmers market type thing on our way, but had little change. It was still open when we came back, so I bought a bunch of dried fruit, including some roselle and kumquats!

vegetable stand, one of about 4 stands there

Made it!

We made it to the grounds and spent some time learning about the history, wandering around, reading placards and wondering about random things like when the statues were built and why there was a cleared area going down the center of the path. The cemetery in this area is a very honorable place to be buried, and is the final resting place of many famous names, including Alphonse Muchas and Antonin Dvorak.

Beautiful church

I just really liked this door??!

Probably our favorite view in Prague.

I really liked the statues. Couldn't really tell how old they were, though I think they're fairly new.

Stopped in the museum and learned all kinds of cool folklore and history.

After we'd had our fill we walked back up the river and through Wenceslas Square one last time. Bought my dried fruit and prepared for the next day of traveling.

Roselle, with and without sugar