Getting up today was one of those slow, lazy mornings. We had a bike tour booked to go to, but despite the fact that we had an hour to find where-ever it was, we didn't hurry. We were close, but managed to find the place on time. Stacy, our tour guide, ran us through some basic things like staying together and if one gets lost, stay put.
The bike tour was awesome, definatly recommend it to people who want to see a whole lot of Berlin in style. We went from plaza to plaza. Or, platz, as they call them here. We saw the Fathers of Communisim, Humboldt University, and a great number of churches and cathedrals. We saw the zoo, ate excellent food at the zoo's restaurant, and visited Museum Island.
After the bike tour, we walked along some of the route we had biked, looking over things again.
There was one cathedral that I can't remember the name of, but I simply couldn't stop taking pictures of it. We wanted to go in and look around, but 1. We would've had to pay 2. The guy at the desk only spoke German, no English. Honestly, you work aorund tourists and expect to get away without speaking English? 3. Because of 2, we had great difficulty figuring out the price to go in. 4. When we eventually did figure it out, we decided it was too late and moved on. We saw lots and lots of carvings. You simply don't see them at home, it's so dull. We went to the Memorial for the Murdered European Jews. It looks really dull at first, but when you think about it, it seems to fit. The museum under the memorial was a sobering visit. I'm certain they desgined the entrance to feel like walking into a mausoleum. They had photos of families that had been totally destroyed, bits and pieces of letters from the camps, stories of survivors of the forced labour camps and the "cleansings". Some of the terminology that the Nazi command used is chilling. "Cleansing" has and obvious meaning: kill/wipe out. "Relocating" was used to talk about moving Jewish prisoners from one place to another. Scary, eh?
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