A Day in Berlin

This was Kory’s day. He’s been wanting to see Berlin longer than I’ve been alive, I’m sure. Since he lived through the history of the Berlin Wall and has been intrigued by communism in general, this was the place for him. I’m sure he could stay here a week, but a day was enough to hit the highpoints and satisfy his curiosity about many things.

We took the tram into the city this morning. They have the public transportation system down to a science. I’m so jealous of the tram system because it’s efficient, cheap and extensive. We asked at the hotel how we pay for it and the woman just said “insert the coins and push the button” so we thought it would be easy. What we didn’t realize until we got on was there were at least 20 button options and all the information was in German. Fortunately a guy on the tram helped us out, but he also suggested we just play “dumb tourist” and not pay at all. I got the feeling many people ride the trams for free as I only saw one other person buy a ticket and no one swiped a monthly pass card on the scanner.

The last stop on our line was the TV tower in the center of Berlin. It was built to show off Berlin’s technological abilities but I guess the Swedes had to help them design it. As a little “thumbing the nose” at the communist system here, the Swedes designed it in such a way that when the sun shines on it, a cross is visible. Too funny. The view from up top can’t be beat. We then marched our way down Unter den Linden street – some famous road cutting through both East and West Berlin – and arrived at the Brandenburg Gate (see photo). Kory had to have the obligatory “Hallelujah” photo of him standing under it and of course, he couldn’t help but scream it out as well. There were a lot of police just hanging out at the gate as there were some mild protests going on in front of it. One guy in a chicken suit got arrested, for what, I don’t know, but it was pretty funny watching a half dozen young cops trying to cram this guy in a chicken suit into the paddy wagon. Kaleb and I had a good laugh thinking about his mug shot and what might happen if he tried to escape.

The whole downtown area is quite manageable on foot so it was an easy walk over to Checkpoint Charlie. There is a large section of the wall remaining near there, which satisfied Kory’s desire to see it in place. They’ve also set special stones into the streets and sidewalks around the city showing where the wall stood. The city has been completely redone in the last twenty years and it’s one of the hippest cities in all of Europe now for young people to be. There is a lot of nice new areas and some of the older buildings have been restored and it’s a wonderful blend. I didn’t know what to expect, but it felt clean, safe, and very alive. Tower cranes are everywhere so the recession hasn’t yet hit this town as construction is going on in every corner of the city.
At the intersection where Checkpoint Charlie once stood there is a sort of outdoor museum with placards and photos all along the sidewalks. We read them all and learned a lot, but Kory wanted to go to the Peaceful Resistance Museum near there so Kaleb and I found a place we could access the internet and I finally posted my blog (and photos) and Kaleb played on his favorite websites while we waited for Kory. (Kory was a bit surprised there was no mention anywhere that America and/or Ronald Regan contributed to the destruction of the wall.) We met back up then decided there was time for Kaleb to check out the Lego Discovery Center so we walked over to the Sony Center – an impressive piece of architecture – and Kaleb and I went in that “museum” while Kory walked around outside. The Lego place was like a children’s museum but everything was Legos. Kaleb loved it. I thought it was overpriced, but a good way to sit down and get out of the hot sun. Kory enjoyed checking out the car exhibit going on nearby with many high priced vehicles for sale. The city is definitely impressive with so many new buildings with whacko designs, it made for an interesting walk no matter what street we were on.

We have only one rule when we are on vacation – ice cream every day. Today we made four stops for ice cream because it was so hot. Thankfully the buildings are tall and provided enough shade while walking around, but we were all were fairly exhausted by day’s end. We spent about an hour sitting in front of a fountain after dinner, just to cool off. Kaleb found a dog to play with and a band was playing in the distance. Hundreds of people were lying around on the green grass taking in the warm summer evening. It felt like Southern California. We sat there watching the sun dip down out of sight, satisfied with all we saw and experienced today. Kaleb said he felt lucky to get three “unexpected pleasures” today – the Lego place, a nice park, and a dog. We all felt lucky.