Last Thursday (8/20), Bruce and I met with two members of our travel group, Kathy Moses and Diane Rice. Diane is the German teacher who got the trip together for our Roanoke group. Kathy and her daughter, Perrie, know Reid! (perrie and Reid went to high school together!) Anyway, we met to reminisce about the trip and Diane suggested some movies about Berlin when it was divided. Please note, these are subtitled in English and German movies often have at least one sex scene.

"Sonnenalle", "Goodbye Lenin", "The Tunnel" and "Marx and Coca Cola" were all suggested by Diane. "Sonnenalle" is about a street that was cut in half by the Wall, "Goodbye Lenin" is about a son trying to protect his mother from learning anything upsetting after awaking from a coma. The Wall had just come down and he is afraid of how she will react! I can't remember the plots of the other two.

Day three, we travelled to Prague but stopped in Dresden to see a museum, the buildings and to have lunch.

Next post---Dresden!!

Day Two con't

After leaving the Brandenburg Gate, we went to the Berlin Wall and visited "Checkpoint Charlie". Above left is "Checkpoint Charlie" that Americans manned during the "Cold War" We visited the museum and learned many interesting and often moving facts about the successful and attempted escapes!

Of course, no visit to Berlin would be complete without a visit to the Berlin Wall and "Checkpoint Charlie". What's left of the Wall is used for art work. The men kissing is Brezhnev being kissed by the former East German Chancellor to "seal" East Germany's loyalty to the Soviet Union. Reportedly. Brezhnev was surprised by the intensity of the kiss!

This is our gang that went to the Berlin Zoo. Berliners love their zoos and this is the biggest in Berlin.
The Polar Bear above is Knut. he has become the

symbol of global warming as he was found as a young cub, floating on an iceberg. His mother allegedly drown trying to find food for him.

Leaving the zoo!

A bratwurst vendor on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin!

I am leaving the Berlin blog post with the image of "Ampelman", which means light crossing man, I think. He was used exclusively in East Berlin for pedestrian traffic. The West wanted to get rid of him because he was "not modern enough" (notice his hat) However, a study of school children revealed that they recognized these stop and go figures better than the regular man, so "Ampelman" prevailed. There are Ampelman stores that carry t-shirts and all other kinds of Ampelman products! Reid had to have a t-shirt!

Day Two Continued

The Brandenburg Gate was commissioned by King Frederick William II as a symbol of peace. Built in 1791, it was later used by the Nazis as a party symbol. Later, it was a symbol of the Cold War, as the Berlin Wall was built just west of the gate. Above, you can see us clowning around now as it is a symbol of reunification. Franziska, our guide, was born in a small city in East Germany and was 9 when the wall came down. So she had interesting stories to tell as we went to Checkpoint Charlie Museum. For example, books were a precious commodity and one usually had to know a shopkeeper to get a newly published book. And, people often ordered cars when they had a kid, because it usually took 12 years to obtain one! But, as she pointed out, since she didn't know any thing else, she never knew she was deprived!

Day Two in Berlin

The Jewish Memorial

We got early and rested! Really, we were! Our German breakfast (and our Czech ones) included delicious coffee and tea, assorted homemade breads, cold cereals with warm milk (Neal said he never could get used to that!). Rarely, did we get any fruit, but that was probably becasue they were catering to American teens and guessed they wouldn't eat it.

We went on a bus tour and the first stop was a Jewish Memorial to the Holocaust near the Brandenburg gate. The Jewish Memorial just looks like graves on a flat ground but once you walk in it, the ground has been dug out so some of the graves are really taller than most people. Todd and Reid went to a museum underneath, but somehow Bruce, Neal and I didn't hear about it and just went onto the Gate.

Here we are in the Berlin airport meeting our director. She is the one pointing. Franziska was a great guide! Enthusiastic, knowledgeable and pretty! All the high school boys were in love by the end of the first day! Our group was comprised of 5 adults and 10 students,ranging from age 17 to 21. We met two small groups of all adults from S.C. and Illinois and a high school group of all rising juniors and three teachers. Franziska handled all 48 of us with a mix of humor, firmness and fun!

This is the Kaiser Wilheim Church, built in the 1890's. It was badly bombed and burned in WWII by the Allies. A new section was rebuilt, which you can see to

side of it.

It looks very modern, doesn't it? Above is a picture of the inside of the older part of the church.

After visiting the church and the area surrounding it, we took the sub and then a bus to Schloss Charlottenburg, which was a summer home built by Frederick III for his wife, Sophie Charlotte. Construction started in 1695 and it was completed by 1699. It was beautiful and MASSIVE! There is a river nearby and the French style gardens were gorgeous. Serious jet lag was setting in for everyone and after this visit, mercifully we went to dinner and then took a sub and bus back to our hotel. Bruce took a shower and I was fast asleep when he emerged!

Our European vacation

Many of you have asked to see our European vacation photos. I tried to decide what would be the best format to do so, and decided to start a blog! OMG, I have really entered the computer age.(Maybe not, I don't have a facebook account!) This way , I can share some pictures at a time, add some history or commentary and not overwhelm anyone's mailbox with all our photsos. I will be adding photos at home tonight, I hope, but I will let you know when!