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Published: August 6th 2008
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Today was my last day with Joscha and we decided to do some more "Touristy" stuff. We woke up ate breakfast, and went to take the S Bahn to the Berlin Zoo. When we got off the train we went down to the booking agent and also figured out my tickets for my trip to Dijon.
The booking agent told me that I could not go through Belgium to get to Paris without paying for an entire ticket through Belgium as well. Joscha told me that there was basically no way to not go through Paris to get to Dijon as almost all rail traffic goes through Paris.
Luckily the woman at the ticket counter figured out a route from Berlin Germany to Basel Switzerland/France and then through 2 train switch to Dijon. Not only would it be quicker than if had gone through Paris I would not have to make my way across town in between Gare Nord, and Gare Est. Not too far, but still difficult in the middle of the day when time is of the essence.
For 8 Euros everything was taken care of and I was ready to travel to Dijon.
After
we left the ticket counter we went to the Zoo. We saw elephants, birds, zebras, Lions, tigers, and bears O MY. It was a cool zoo laid out well and there were lots of different people to look and listen to from all different parts of the world. Berlin is the third most visited city in the EU so it is constantly filled with many different types of people.
We also watched a seal show along with hundreds of children and their parents. Part of me felt like a child again sitting amoungst the childrent clapping at the stupid seal tricks, but it was a pleasant experience and the ability of the seals to learn so many amazing tricks astounds me. But you would do tricks to if you were hungry and people threw tasty morsels to you.
After we went to the Zoo, we went and got Kebab. I freaking love Kebab! I have had it before in both Paris last summer and Vienna this summer, but everytime I eat it, it gets better and better. It is the fast food of this continent and it must be healthier than the fast food that we have back
home.
Walking along with our flatbread packed with shaved meat, lettuce, onions, and some "special sauce" I was in heaven.
We walked about 1 mile or so to this place called the Charlottenburg Palace. The palace is the largest in Berlin and was highly damaged during World War Two. I really couldn't tell because they did such a good job of restoring it. The palace was amazing, but as usual I was more impressed with the grounds the castle stood upon.
It reminded me a lot of Versailles but just not as big. I came to find out after reading about it later that the person who designed the grounds was highly influenced by the designer of the Garden Versailles. The carp lake was my favorite part about the entire palace. The water was sparkling there were ducks playing around looking for bread, a beautiful red bridge off in the distance and the sky was blue for as far as the eye could see.
We made our way back towards Joscha's house on the bus and the train. As we got on the train, Joscha head that our train was stopping prematurely and we would have
to ride another. The reason for this was because authorities had found a bomb in the neighborhood near the end of the line.
This scared me at first because I thought it was a terrorist attack like had happened in the subways of London or the train tracks in Spain or France. Joscha eased my fears by explaining that it was probably unexploded ordnance left over from WW2. Joscha told me that it was fairly common for someone to discover a bomb left over from WW2 because the allies had dropped so many bombs on Berlin from 1943-1945. It is estimated by munitions experts in Berlin that they receive over 900 calls a year for unexploded ordnance. This rages from small hand grenandes and cluster bombs all the way up to the large 500 pounders that can level a building and kill hundreds of people. These weapons are still intact and dangerous most times and people are killed every year handling them.
We finally got back to Joscha's house, ate dinner and went to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow so that I can catch the train. 5:30 is going to come mightly early.
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shelbyfiske
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that is not a very good picture of joscha's brother i miss joscha so much i also miss you