A little more from Berlin

I'm very sorry the blogging has been sparse since we arrived in Berlin - it turns out the only internet we have is down in their computer room, so it's not that fun to spend the usual hour or so I do on blogging down here (in addition to all the "work" e-mails I have to keep up on). Plus we really wear ourselves out with sightseeing in the big city and all we want to do at night is collapse, watch TV and read our travel books. But I hope to be able to get back on track in later cities, where I think we will have in-room internet access again.

But to quickly sum up, we had another really fun day in Berlin today. As you could see in David's photos this morning, it was very cold - but by the late morning the sky had cleared, the snow had melted, and it was sunny the rest of the day! That was pretty thrilling, and we tromped all over most of the city taking advantage of the good photography weather.

We saw lots of great stuff, including Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag (Parliament) and the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin's most famous landmark), plus several Jewish-related sites: the New Synagogue with its big golden dome; the Jewish Museum, which has some wild modern architecture; and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a very unique monument that consists entirely of concrete blocks. After hobbling home around 6:30 this evening, we had a fantastic dinner in the Vietnamese restaurant here in our hotel.

Here are some photographic highlights:


Still snowy when we caught the S-Bahn into the city center.


New Synagogue


Berliner Dom (Cathedral), built around 1900.


Brandenburg Gate (from the outside)


Reichstag


Checkpoint Charlie. This was a pretty fun sight, even if it couldn't be more touristy.


Me at Checkpoint Charlie


Famous sign at Checkpoint Charlie


Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This was definitely different and it's hard to see any symbolic connection with the Holocaust, but we had a great time walking through it and chasing each other around (we have to stay warm somehow!).

More tomorrow... or maybe the next day! :)