Berlin:
150 Things To Do
The Berlin Walll
Even though it seems like a big hulabaloo because of the Soviet Union, Berlin divided, The Death Strip, and all of that Jazz. But in Berlin ( And All Of Germany for that matter ), you get the idea that the German people are trying to forget about WWII. From Hitler's Bunker that is now an apartment complex, to the houses next to Sachenhausen Concentration Camp. The Berlin Wall is no exeption. It sits just randommly, sometimes with a plack reading information about the wall and sometimes not. There is always either a cafe, a shop, or a house next to it. Old mixed with the new. It's all very mixed. You can sit in a starbucks (Which we did) and look at the line in the road where the wall once stood. If you go to the East Side Gallerie, you can see 1.3 km of the origional wall. One interesting thing is that you see a lot of Free Palastine
The Brandenburg Gate
Despite the huge crowds of people, people dressed up as soviet guards asking you to get a picture with them or stamp your passport with an East Berlin stamp, or Mickey Mouse wanting you to hug him for money, people who are like you, just want to see the gate and take pictures of it without a million people in the way. We did get a good picture, walked under the gate, and took a ride on this cool bicicle where you sit in a circle and all pedal. The driver steers. It was all very touisty.
The Riechstag
The german parliment building is open for tourists if you do one of two things. You can either book online or stand in a long queque that seems to stretch a mile long. This is all to check to make sure you won't go in and bomb the place. We wen't twice. The first time, we left because of the line, and the second time, we had booked online. There is a huge dome ontop of the riechstag that you cn walk around and see the city. You can get a free audio guide so you can learn where the Embassies are and the size of the parks. It was pretty darn cool. It took a long time to get in because, if you booked online, you were required to bring ID and my dad had disregarded the email that told him that, so they had to bring out a police manager and we had a long affair before they took drivers liscense as ID and let us go in. But I think it was worth it.
Checkpoint Charlie
You are now leaving the American sector. You are now entering the touristic sector. Shops, hotels, pieces of the wall, museums, and in the middle of it all, a man dressed up like a societ guard, a tiny shed like re make of the original checkpoint, and a huge sign that is almost covered in kiosks.