November 28th

Happy Thanksgiving!  

The sun was bright this morning as we made it to the strip of remaining Berlin Wall. I’m thankful for the freedom that we have to travel to just about anywhere. One of the East Berliners said that he took for granted that he could go back and forth into the west until one morning it was taken away.

Moving through Berlin on the transit systems changed too. Many stations became “ghost stations” because the tracks crossed into the opposite side of the wall. 

Checkpoint Charlie, the famous border crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin’s American sector. 

Potsdamer Platz is one of the largest shopping areas. 

 Above is the Sony Center. 

Charlottenburg Palace was built in the 1700’s by Fredrick the Great. All of the rooms are very different, some rich gold and others silver. Most of it was damaged during the war, but it has been gradually redone. 

Outside the Palace is the Christmas Market. It is so much nicer than the markets that are in the downtown areas. We browsed around and had our Thanksgiving Dinner. 

November 27th

This morning we went to the Jewish Quarter. We found the Neu Synagogue next to a park. There were several Polizei officers around and it wasn’t clear whether it was open or not. Several places here ask you to walk up to the automatic doors and stand and wait until there are enough people to warrant opening to take you through security. That’s what happened today. 

We both learned a lot today reading about how this Synagogue grew to 3,200 in size, they even had to reserve a pew to go to synagogue.  Of course by 1938 times began to change. By 1943 it had been burned and bombed.  They had many accounts from Jews that had made it out of Germany, many went to Israel, Shanghai, U.S., and U.K.  They have created many videos of the Jewish families that survived and how they felt. It was fascinating to hear their first hand stories. 

Bryan and I both love our Allbirds shoes, so we made it our mission to go to the new Allbirds store here. There are only two in Europe and just a handful of stores in the US. We have only ordered them online. Well it took us two tries to find the place. It was in the Jewish Quarter, and once we found the shoe street it was easy.  We laugh at how organized these Germans are, they even organize their stores on the streets. We both bought a new pair of shoes. Berlin has it’s own shoe, that you can only buy here. Bryan bought those. LOL 

It started raining, so we trammed back to the hotel and did laundry. 

We finished off the day with a fabulous meal at PeterPaul, a tapas restaurant. The best thing was the ham and frothy kraut. It was Thanksgiving ham in the best way. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

November 26th

Hello Berlin!!  

We made it in yesterday evening and had a really good dinner close to the hotel at a restaurant called Umomi. 

This morning we had passes to get into the German parliament or Reichstag. The closest subway stop was at Brandenburg    Gate, which that alone is such an iconic entrance, but today it was full of protesters. There were huge farm tractors everywhere and angry farmers on a PA shouting words that we couldn’t understand. We found out later that they were wanting subsidies so smaller farmers could keep their farms and not have to sell out to the big farms. 

The Reichstag was built in 1895 and it nearly burned completely in 1933. After the wall came down it was renovated and the glass dome was added. It was officially reopened in 1999. The dome has a walkway ramp that lets you view the entire city. We were glad we took the audio guide, it pointed out all of the sights as you walked, the embassy’s, churches, museums, Jewish synagogue, checkpoint Charlie and many more. 

We had read that the restaurant had good food and of course the amazing views. So even though we didn’t have a reservation we thought we’d try. Surprisingly there was one table left!  This wasn’t the only bit of luck and surprise today.  As we started to eat we looked up to see Victor at our table. It was just crazy, he flew to Berlin and got a pass at the same time and luckily found us! He said he had looked through the crowd and came into the restaurant as a last resort hoping we might be there. Such a fun surprise that we will never forget!

We all went by the American Embassy, not a biggie, just a regular office building with our flag. 

Then we walked through the Jewish Memorial, 2,711 cold, gray pillars of stone. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the German History Museum. They organized all of the art and artifacts by date. We saw from 800 - 1945, it really let you see how time changed within the arts, cultural and religious. Also changes in rulers, types of rulers, war times and not. 

We ended our evening with dinner back near the Brandenburg Gate. Then we walked with Victor and saw him off at the train station. He had a flight back to Frankfurt and we will see him and his family on Friday. 😊

November 25th

It’s a Dresden day! 

I had purchased tickets in October to the green vault, a vault full of precious jewels and gold from royalty. I also bought the combo ticket to see the palace. Well they both were closed, there was a line at 10:00 and the lady, poor lady, had to tell all of us that they were closed. They said they would reimburse us. So...we had to find a plan B. We now know why the vault was closed, there was a robbery at 5 in the morning. Click here for the story. 

We went to the Catholic Church. Highly damaged in 1945 and rebuilt. 

Then we went to the Lutheran church, we saw the outside last night, so we looked inside today. Bryan went all the way up to the observation deck, I went part way up.  The basement was interesting, much of it was original to the building. They tried to keep as much of the original building material as possible. It was 2015 before the reconstruction was complete. 

Above photos are the Catholic Church

In and from the Lutheran Church, some beautiful views.

Volkswagen has a plant here for their electric vehicles. We took a tram there and basically had the place to ourselves. They have some retro looking concept cars and one called the ID3 that will be in production this fall. Up to this point they produce the Golf. The ID 3 will list at $30,000 €.  They don’t have any pickup trucks. 😩