Berlin - Day 1

 We arrived last night at Apartments am Brandenburg Tor, the place we will be staying at for the next few days while in Berlin. We are renting a two-bedroom apartment not far from the train station and close to the Brandenburg Gate which is the only surviving historical gate was built in the 1700s by the Prussian king. Later it was was part of the division between East and West Berlin. It was inspired by Greek and Roman architecture and it pretty impressive.

It was a warm night and the apartment was especially hot with no fans or air conditioning, so we opened the windows as much as possible to try to cool everything off. Later in the middle of the night, it rained and that  helped lower the temperature a bit. The windows are interesting here. I haven't seen any windows with screens. The windows can swing wide open letting in lots of air as well as birds and bugs, or they can tilt back to only let in a little air.

Before we came, Joe had made a reservation for us at the Reichstag Building. This was also a historical
building that has gone through some destruction as a result of WW II, but  was rebuilt after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After reunification, Berlin became the capital of Germany again, and the German Parliament returned to the Reichstag. We attended a special lecture in the plenary hall since parliament is not in session this week. Germany is hosting the G7 Summit in Bavaria (where we just were). We learned about the history of the building and the German government including how Hitler and the National Socialist Party were able to turn a democracy into a dictatorship in just 5 short months and what the Germans have done to prevent that from ever happening again.

After the lecture, we walked up the Dome of the building which was pretty cool. The all-glass dome has a ramp way that takes you to the top. As we walked up the ramp, we listened to an audio guide that pointed out various buildings and landmarks as we traveled round and round to the top. The Dome has a cone in the center that is covered in mirrors. They reflect the light down into the building along with other cool engineering I don't completely understand, but the result is the building does not use any fossil fuels to heat or cool the building.

In the late afternoon, we met up with another GEM-mer who lives and works in Berlin. She is Zach's boss's boss or something like that. Her name is Kate and she has been with GEM for about 17 years. Her sister and family were visiting from Pennsylvania and they allowed us to join them on what Kate called a "ten cent walking tour." I thought it was great and told her it was more like a 100 Euro tour. She took us to a number of places zig-zagging around East Berlin where the Berlin Wall had once been. We walked by a large park (think Central Park in New York), a Memorial to the Murdered European Jews, many historical buildings, a number of cathedrals, Checkpoint Charlie, and we even stopped in a store to buy some German chocolate. It was three hours of fun and learning.

We said so long to Kate and family at a U-Bahn station that had a cool 24-hour clock showing the times around the world and caught the train back to our apartment. Dinner was a favorite Turkish food among the Germans called Döner Kebab. You see little cafes and restaurants that sell it all over Germany very similar to the many taco shops you find around San Diego. Right now, it's 10:05 pm and the sun is just setting. I hear the cars going by and people walking and talking through our wide open windows from our flat on the 5th floor of this apartment building. The city is still alive with activity below us, but I am ready to crash. 

Hopefully, my room has cooled off some and I will get a good night's sleep for tomorrow's adventure in Berlin.