a nice lady led the tour and gave us a brief history of berlin.
i really enjoyed learning about the city and what it meant to be standing in the places that i was.
so much so, that i don't have very many photos to share.
but, here are a few:
berliner dom.a protestant church that had a bomb fall right through the central dome.
thankfully, the bomb was a dud.
but, the nazi's, having an extremely difficult relationship with religion, refused to fix the building and let it sit with a hole in the roof for 30 years.
it is said to be one of the most extravagant protestant churches.
the former berliner stadtschloss (berlin city palace).where the former ruler of prussia lived.
surrounding the building is the lustgarten (pleasure garden).
the ruler of prussia intended this area to be a place for berliners to sit and enjoy, with trees and plants and flowers all around them.
when hitler came to power, the grassy area was cemented over and used as his command center.
he would stand on the steps and watch his soldiers practice.
holocaust memorial.the tour guide said that the designer of this memorial refused to write down what he intended it to mean, but that he wanted to leave it up to the individual to interpret.
because of this, it is one of the most controversial memorials.
along the tour, we got to see a lot of the berlin wall as well.here's a plaque to mark where the wall once stood.
checkpoint charlie.one of the checkpoints in west berlin.
there was a lot more, but i'll have to share with you all when i get home.
when the tour ended, we grabbed some lunch.
lang and i found some falafel and couldn't turn it down.probably the best food i've eaten since i've been here.
the sony center.at midnight last night, lauren turned 21!
we went out to a bar and got this amazing grapefruit beer.
a new favorite of mine.
probably because it tastes more like grapefruit juice than beer.
