Here's what you are looking at from Berlin

The bottom picture under my Berlin post was the Bradenburg gate again. Above that is the Jewish memorial with all of the concrete squares. It was controversial because about one block away is the site of Hitler's WWII bunkers where he married Eva Braun and committed sucide. The site is only marked by one sign because they don't want his life celebrated. His body was burned in a bomb crater near the bunkers by his Generals.

Above that is the BMW headquarters. It was a Monday and the Deutches Guggenheim was suppose to be free but instead it was closed for remodeling. I was ticked but I walked half a block and there was a free exhibit in the headquarters of Chagall, Picasso and Dali. I went in and checked it out. It was an excellent exhibit. Considering it was raining out at the time, it all worked out well. The last picture is the square next to the Berlin Tech University, Opera house and Library. This is significant because it was the site of the Berlin book burning in 1933. It was a turning point in Germany. It was within months of Hitler's election victory and Nazi joined with students and professors to raid the library and create a human chain to empty all the undesireable books out of the library and into the fire. There was a small monument for the event, it was a glass tile in the square and inside below your feet there was a room with empty bookcases.

Berlin was a great stop. I had some interesting adventures. One of the nights at the end of a pub crawl, I was given bad directions and I ended up on the far northwest side of Berlin, miles from downtown and the trains shut down. I was staying in East Berlin. My knee still hurt from my injury days before. I was walking through all these neighborhoods in the middle of nowhere at 3am. It was actually cool. I eventually walked 5 or 6 miles towards downtown and made my way back to a major street. Then I jumped in a taxi and was home in time to get some sleep before I checked out.

On my last night in Berlin, I was at the Bradenburg gate and walked into the train station to catch a train to the Central station where I was catching an overnight train. I had over an hour until my night train left, so I thought I was fine. Unfortunately, 2 trains came and went going the other direction and after almost half an hour my train was no where in site. Most times you catch a train in under 10 minutes. I was beginning to get nervous because I still had to transfer once before getting to the central station.

Finally, I decided I wasn't going to get burned by the train system again and I took off. I ran out of the sub station and through the Bradenburg gate, through the Tiergarten, past the Reichstag and over the river to the Central station. It was not a short distance. I went up to retrieve my bags from the storage and nobody was at the counter. I kept ringing the bell and finally an old man came. He took my tickets and went in the back. He slowly came out with one of my bags. Problem was, I had two bags. It was like a movie when you're in a hurry and the slowest person in the world is waiting on you. Finally he came with my other and I made my train. I even had 30 seconds to buy some yogurt from one of the stands.

I had a great time in Berlin and things were definitely always interesting.

Luckily, I was the only passenger in my sleeper car and I was able to lay down and relax. I woke up across the Baltic Sea in Sweden.