Berlin Blitz

I have blitz-visited Berlin once before, as part of a class trip during my 2008 study in Bremen. We were there only a evening and a day, but I was impressed by its size, its freshly minted sparkle, and the rawness of the story it has to tell. It's changed since then, but only a little. Cranes still fly high over the skyline, but there are fewer of them in the city center. The wall is still crowded by tourists, but the people I met who are my own age don't remember a divided nation.

Train sunset over Germany

After my all-day train ride from Graz, I finally arrived in Berlin Hbf. A lady on the train has described it as "like a spaceport," and she was right. The sleek building with its glass-encased space trusses would be in place on coruscant. Stepping outside, it was pure Berlin.

"
near the Hauptbahnhof exit "here died the first victim of the wall, Gunter Liften, a memorial to him and all other wall victims"

 My walk to the groovy East Seven hostel took me through former east-Berlin neighboroods. The bars and restaurants were humming in the warm evening. Friends and couples occupied nearly every sidewalk table. When I arrived at my overnight home, I pulled up an Ayinger and a hammock, ready to relax and blog until bedtime.

After sleeping through a Skype date (sorry!), I old myself out of bed and packed up. The morning was consumed with wanderings from the parts of town I knew (Unter den Lindon to Potsdamer Platz) towards Alexanderplatz. I found the monument I'd visited before in Bibelplatz, discovered a new memorial to euthanasia victims, and enjoyed the sculpture park on Museuminsel. 

Potsdamer Platz

Section of the Wall preserved outside of
the Topography of Terror museum

I don't know who was having lunch at the Adlon Hotel,
but their escort was hanging out in Pariser Platz
   

An unobtrusive window in the ground in Bibelplatz
looks into a room of empty bookshelves. 

Berliner Dom

Alte Nationalgalerie on Museumsinsel

Sculpture in the park on Museumsinsel

The Fernsehturm (TV tower) at Alexanderplatz

Look what I found at the Fernsehturm!

By 415 it was time to get on the train and head to Schönfeld to fulfill my main objective in coming to Berlin: meeting Erin and John Wright!

They're here!!! (Erin's photo)

They arrived on time, tired and confused as to why they didn't have to go through passport control again (yaaaay Schengen!), but very excited to be in Germany.

Holocaust memorial (Erin's photo)

I subjected them to the same blitz tour of the big sights in Berlin: Alexanderplatz, U-bshn to Potsdamerplatz, the Wall, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial), Brandenburg Gate, past the Reichstag, and finally to the Hauptbahnhof.

The Reichstag (Erin's photo)

 We had time for a currywurst before boarding our ICE train to Braunschweig, where Anne and her mom awaited us...

"Sank you for travelling vis Deutsche Bahn" (Erin's photo)