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Published: October 7th 2006
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The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Architect Peter Eisenman designed this memorial consisting of 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern with multiple elevations. Hello Everyone!
Finally we get a little rest and relaxation from running around and there probably isn’t a better time to be in Berlin than the final week of the World Cup! After taking a little nap, Daniel laid down his house rules. 1) You are required to sleep in (preferably past 11am). 2) You are not allowed to talk to Daniel until after he has had his first cup of coffee. 3) You can not do any work of any type before 12pm, absolutely no exceptions what so ever. I learned rule three the hard way…I did laundry at 10am one day, not a pretty sight 😊 I think we are going to like it here.
Our first day was devoted to relaxation, so we went swimming at a local lake, but by day two it was time to get down to business and get a city tour with Daniel, and a tour it was! I had been to Berlin about nine years ago, but there had been so much new construction since then that I had a hard time recognizing it. Daniel worked at the tourism office in Berlin for a few years and had to lead
Peering through the wall - A view of the death strip
The Berlin Wall - not one wall, but two - with the "death strip" in the middle - was heavily guarded and filled with mines, barbed wire, attack dogs, etc. The memorial is across from the Berlin Wall Documentation Center. The picture was taken between a small gap of concrete blocks. organized tours once in a while, so we had ourselves the perfect tour guide…and he has lived in Berlin his whole life, so he was familiar with just about every part of town. I won’t give you every detail of our tour, because I think it would take about 15 pages to explain all that we saw, but it was a great lesson of the history and future of Berlin.
We were able to view The Berlin Wall Memorial including a section of the Death Strip, the house where the first computer was invented, the building where the first atom was split, Potsdamer Platz with the new Sony Center, the new Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, Check Point Charlie, Berlin Cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag Building with it’s new glass dome, the Pergamon Museum which houses the Gates of Babylon, as well as 1,000 other things that we have pictures of, of course!
We enjoyed all the sight seeing, but it was time to get down to serious business, the World Cup finals. There were four games left, Germany vs. Italy and France vs. Portugal. The two winners would advance to the final game and the
two losers would play for the third place title. Well, it was a sad way to start the week for Germany because they lost, but we were also rooting for Portugal (I am not a big Italian fan), but they too lost their game. So on Saturday Germany would be playing Portugal and on Sunday Italy would be playing France…Viva la France!
For the third place game we decided to head down to what is called the Fan Mile. It’s a mile long strip of road, right behind the Brandenburg Gate that had two jumbo screens and a bazillion beer stands. There were about 1.5 million people that showed up for the game and a great game it was! Germany won third…wasn’t first place, but I think that game was more important then the final game that was going to take place the day after. After the win, the streets were flooded with the locals, horns were honking everywhere, and there was this incredible feeling of unity in the air.
The next day was the France vs. Italy game, which didn’t warrant us going to the Fan Mile, so instead we had a barbeque at Daniel’s parent’s house
The Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz
...and they are so kind to provide free wireless internet in the building! (Alexander and Christine) and enjoyed the company and food. We missed the first half of the game, but the best part was during the second half. One of the top five soccer players ever played on the France National team and his name’s Zinedine Zidane nickname Zizou (sounds like zee-zoo), and it was going to be his last game before he retired. Anyone that watched the game already knows what happened, but for those of you who missed out, here is a quick synopsis. France was losing the game and time was running low. A player from the Italian team looked as though he pulled Zizou’s shirt and then said something to him. Apparently, Zizou didn’t care much for what he heard because he turned around and, instead of punching the Italian player, he took the guy out as only a soccer player would. He head-butted him square in the chest and knock the player square on his ass!
Well, Zizou was then red carded and out of the game which created a lot of discussion around the world. Since it was his last game people wanted to see him victorious and probably give him a standing ovation, but
after the red card, he walked off the field never to return. I think that a lot of people thought it was a crappy way for him to end his career, but I’m sure a lot of fans also thought that it was the perfect way to go because no one will forget that blow for a long time!
As Americans, we really had no idea how large the World Cup was, but it’s probably one of, if not the largest, sporting events in the world. I know many people tune into the Olympics on TV, but I haven’t heard stories of millions of people from all around the world getting together on the streets to watch a game of Soccer on a TV screen…it was unbelievable. The greatest part was that we witnessed no acts of violence, but friendly sports fans. You can have a German fan next to a Portugal fan, and even though they were competing, everyone gets along. At the Fan Mile there were flags from every nation flying around in the hands of the fans, but what it really came down to was enjoying where you were and getting to know the people from
other countries…and of course enjoying some good beer and pretzels!
After all the excitement from the weekend Heather and I didn’t think it could get any better, but in just five short days there was going to be another large festival in Berlin called Love Parade. We decided that we had five days and we better use them so we decided to head towards the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) for a quick five day tour. So look forward to our next blog where we tell you about our time in Amsterdam (if we can remember what we did…he-he), making great friends in Brussels, getting lost in the catacombs in Luxembourg, and shaking our groove thang at the Love Parade.
Love Ben and Heather
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Julie Johnson
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! (a day late)
I hope you had a wonderful birthday. I still have your card, so if you ever are in 1 place long enough I'll mail it, otherwise it will be here when you get back. I love reading your travelblog and the pictures are fabulous Heather!! Maybe when you guys are done touring Heather should checkout a job as professional photographer! Love and miss you both! Julie