Ich bin ein Berliner

I agree with JKF!!!!

Well, I HAVE to start off at the last before I forget it.....this evening after dinner I said "Let's walk down that way a couple of blocks, Mattias said it gets nicer and nicer the further you go"!! So we paid the bill and took off walking that way. Well after about two blocks there was nothing but row houses or shuttered offices and the street was starting to turn away from the way we needed to go to get back to our place and no street going to the left, so I said "here, let's cut through this parking lot (that was gated) to the other street"!!

So we walked through the gate and past the first building, then past a small street, small building, to the next small street, turned left...no way out yet to the other street. We continued to walk past one....two....three...buildings. John said "Are you CRAZY!!!" ....."I should never have followed you". We walked to the end, no outlet, made a "U" turn and started back...

John said "This looks like a mud house"....I said "MAD house?"....he said "NO a MUD house, can't you understand!!!". I said "What is a MUD house?"!!!!! He said "A place where crazy people stay!!!!!" I just laughed....then sure enough when we got back to the starting point it said "psychiatric clinic"!!!!!!

Ok....now for the day...no 'continental' breakfast this morning, but did have coffee (without creamer) and German pastry from the bakery down the street. We had decided to take the subway downtown and take one of the bus tours of the city. The station is only about a block from where we are staying, so took off for the station on foot. Once there we had to figure out which line to take, where to get off, and which train to change to to get where we thought we needed to go.

After doing that we purchased a day ticket and hopped aboard. After one change we made it downtown and started looking for a bus stop that the tour busses came to. After a couple of blocks we hadn't seen anything either of us could understand, so I asked a couple on the street. They didn't speak english but she took me to another bus that the guide did speak english. She said her driver lived in Berlin and would be there in about five minutes. So we walked around the block and checked out the sights there...the French and German twin cathedrals. Very nice. By then the driver told us to go to Einstiens Kaffe shop on the corner, that's where the tour busses picked up.

So off to Einstiens...a cup of kaffee, a carrot muffin, and a nice visit with the guy behind the counter. He said the busses picked up right out front, so we sat outside, had kaffee and waited.
In just a few minutes here came the bus...we got on to pay the driver and he was American, from Montgomery, Alabama - Named Willie Melton. (there's that connection again....Melton from Montgomery) He was very nice, said he'd been here 22 years since getting out of the Army. We visited for a couple of minutes then took our seats on top of the bus.

We made every sight in the city going from East to West, and back again. We went by all the embassy's, and as usuall the American embassy has blockades around it and armed guards. We went through the dull, gray buildings in old East Berlin...though many of them are being redone now and the dividing line is gradually being erased. Except for the double brick line that runs the length of the old wall to mark where it stood.

Most everything is new since over 50,000 buildings were destroyed in the war, but now and then there would be an old building or remains of old buildings that were left. We stopped at Brandenburg gate, took some pictures there. When it was time to go there was a guy selling tickets for the tour and our driver got off the bus and said "Not them, they are with me", he took care of the whole trip.















We went by portions of the wall left standing as a reminder of things past, went by checkpoint Charley, the new train station (from which we leave tomorrow), and the Reichstag. We passed the Holocaust Memorial, KaDeWe's, as like I said, all the other German places.








By this time we were back to the beginning of our tour so we hopped off and started looking for a lunch spot. First we stopped for Kuchen, then car shoping cause I knew Blake would LOVE this car. Then we found a little place that had Ducati signs (Old ones) so John picked up one for Jeff (his boss) and we asked the shopkeeper where to get some German food. He said go down the block past some pastry shop and on the other side of the street was Leopold's. Well we never found that, but did find a nice little place and the food was very tasty.


We then hoofed it all around town to visit the "Trail of Terror" exhibit that documented in writting and pictures the whole thing, and was on a spot that used to be one of the prisons. Was interesting. There was also a large part of the wall left there just as it was.

From there it was back to the subway and work our way back home. We made it back, took a short rest then out to dinner at the place we had lunch yesterday. Only today I said...anything German, so tonight we had "Spatzle und salat". Was really good, picked up pastry for morning and stopped to get cold drinks for tonight....well right before that was where I started..... ;-)

Oh...and Arthur....thought of you when I saw this. Now if there was just an AT&T here you all would be set!!!

Tomorrow.....







OH!!! Forgot this...doesn't this look like a real building???? Nope, all a picture......