Berlin

Here are some pictures from my trip to Berlin. I enjoyed Berlin, but I wish we would have had more time in the city. We arrived on a Wednesday evening, took a quick tour of the city, and then slept. The next day we had the morning free, so I took the opportunity to visit a few of the sites from the previous night's tour (which by the way was an exercise of torture, as the temperature hovered around 40 and a drizzle rain fell for most of the 2 hour walking tour... it's no wonder that so many of us were sick upon our return). Then we sat through 2 speakers and had the night free. The next morning we left bright and early for the Latvian capital of Riga. So a grand total of maybe 8 or 9 hours to myself in the capital city of Germany was clearly not enough. All well, hopefully at some point I'll be able to return. The pictures came out pretty well though.


This is a picture of me in front of the Brandenburg gate. It's the last remaining city gate. Napeleon actually stole the sculpture off of the top of the gate when he rolled through Berlin, but when he was defeated, they got it back





Down the road about 200m is the Reichstag building where the Bundestag (German Parliament) is housed. There's a huge dome on the top of the building. It's free to check it out, and the views are gorgeous. Naturally, I took a few pictures...











View from the top:




Next was the Holocaust Memorial. There are some 2700 stones of varying sizes arranged in rows. It's very humbling and intense and doesn't overtly preach any type of message. It worked best at night, especially in the rain. The sunlight brought a new view and outlook, and the memorial seemed to contain more hope than depression. Pictures don't really do it justice.







The last shot I'll leave you with is of the original Berlin Wall. I believe it's still in the original place that it stood only what, 20 years ago? I still have trouble believing it's all ready 2008.



Pictures from Riga to follow. And then some from Geneva. I'm so far behind...