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Published: November 14th 2007
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Checkpoint
This is Checkpoint Charlie. That little white house. Hello crew. I am currently on a train in the Czech Republic traveling through a snowy countryside. But I’m not here tonight to tell you about my second trip to Prague, I’m here to tell you about a city called Berlin. After Prague two weekends ago Mom and I headed to Germany to visit the site where it all went down 18 years ago. Berlin as a city is quite the opposite of Prague. Throughout history Prague has lucked out and arrived in this day and age pretty much unscathed by history. Berlin however was basically demolished and as a result the new buildings and architecture reflect a more modern world. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it’s actually a very interesting city to walk around in. Throughout downtown Berlin, where mom and I stayed, there was a strange combination of a tragic history and a modern landscape. Throughout the city along the course the wall used to run there is a strip of pavement that doesn’t match, a constant reminder of what used to stand there separating two halves of the city. Walking down the street you can step freely from one side to the other, it’s incredible to
The Wall
This is part of the remaining section of the Berlin wall. think this wasn’t always so simple. Visiting the museum at Checkpoint Charlie demonstrates the lengths people went to, within even my lifetime, just to cross that very same line.
Mom and I arrived at night; we stayed at the Marriott downtown right next to Platz Damerplatz (I’m sure I misspelled that, but that’s what it sounds like). This Marriott was really nice, and we had the same arrangement that allowed us to have hors d'oeuvres and drinks as well as breakfast every day. Looking out the window of the hotel we had a view of the modern cityscape.
The next morning we got up and headed out to hop on a tour bus. We rode the bus through the entire loop before we got off anywhere so we could get a lay of the land and learn a little more about the city’s history. After one loop we hopped off at Checkpoint Charlie which was the stop both mom and I thought would be most interesting. We purchased the guided tour thing which was just a handheld thingy that explained stuff. This was DEFINITELY worth it, however, we would have been fine purchasing just one and sharing since they were
Berlin Bear
This is one of many many bears that are around Berlin. They have all kinds of painted bears. Mom liked this one alot. loud enough and you could replay things as well.
The museum had many different displays up explaining the history of the wall and various events that occurred there. There were also many displays explaining different attempts (and many successes) to get past the wall, these included many of the actual devices used as well as the stories behind them. It was very interesting. There were many stories of families torn apart by the wall, and of the desperate attempts to reunite them. The museum was so interesting and intriguing that by the time mom and I grew tired and decided to leave the tour bus had stopped running.
We walked back to the hotel and along the way stumbled across one of the remaining sections of the wall. We decided to come back the next day a little earlier to explore it.
Day two in Berlin mom and I explored the city on foot. We walked back to the wall where a sort of museum has been set up. The wall itself is just a small segment of the actual wall without any of the extras such as the dog run, (there were portions of the wall that had a
The sign
This is the actual sign that used to stand at Checkpoint Charlie. That is mom standing next to it. fenced area running along it where they released angry German Shepards). The museum thing there is actually a temporary display that is up while they are building the real museum/monument.
After the wall mom and I headed towards one of the main streets (I cannot remember what it was called) that passes a variety of different statues and buildings that had been pointed out on the tour.
For dinner we ate at a very nice restaurant that had been recommended to us. It was amazingly delicious German food. We split a pork dish and some schnitzel. Soooooo good. All in all it was a really fun day just walking around the city with mom looking at all the different things and just exploring. Mom is such fun to hang out with.
Day three was a half day before our flight to Rome and we decided that the best way to uses what was left of our time was to go to the Berlin Zoo. I don’t know if any of you have been keeping up on your international animal news and know about the polar bear Knut…but I do, and he lives in the Berlin Zoo, so we were off!
Photo 1
This is a famous photo taken a few days after the wall first went up. That is a soldier jumping the barbed wire and escaping to the west. He made it sucessfully. The zoo in Berlin is amazing! It was well worth it! It is absolutely beautifully set up with all kinds of statues and plants and things. The enclosures are of the sort you wouldn’t find in the US. Had I held a death wish I could have easily climbed in with some elephants.
Knut the polar baby (did you know that the word for polar bear in Hungarian translates into English as ‘Icy Bear’?) was asleep when we got there, and proceeded to sleep the entire time. We kept coming back to check on him but he must have stayed up late cause he was sure sleeping in. Kids.
He was so dirty he looked totally brown, the only clear white on him was his eyelids. And he was dreaming and twitching in his sleep. So very very cute.
We also saw some penguins. They were some of the funniest things I have ever seen. They kept swimming around shaking their butts. One of them was swimming laps, he would get going to fast he would shoot out of the water into the air like a dolphin. I would have taken pictures of them but the sun was shining directly
Photo 2
This is another photo taken shortly after the wall went up. This is a soldier in East Berlin passing his child to the babys mom on the other side. He was later taken away for the offence. on the water and none of my shots turned out. But, the coolest part of the penguins was that their enclosure had a moat that was kind of like a fishpond, that you could reach into (probably not supposed to, but you could) and the penguins would swim right up by the side.
So I touched one. That’s right, I touched a penguin. SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I touched a few penguins actually. And then later we found some more penguins and MOM touched one! SO WORTH IT!
After the zoo we headed to the airport where we sat around for a few hours cause our plane was delayed.
Then, Rome!
I would like to acknowledge that this post is quite late, and I still have to write Rome and Prague 2. I am trying my best, sorry for the delays!
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