We did the usual tourist thing by taking a bus tour today, just to get familiar with Berlin and pick out some areas to go back and investigate over the next week. It was one of those open-top double decker busses, perfect for the nice weather we've been having. It's a fascinating city with incredible history, always at the center of something big and constantly changing over the past 750 years or more. Now with 20 years of reunification behind it, Berlin is once again a vibrant, booming world city of Europe with restoration of many of the most famous buildings completed and all sorts of modern architecture scattered throughout... some of it horribly stark, monotone and Bauhaus-ish, and others surprisingly wild and strange and even colorful. There continues to be a lot of construction, especially in the eastern side. A few sections of the old wall remain as a reminder of the once divided city, but most of the wall is completely gone, with only a strip of cobblestones left as a reminder of it's location. And there are many more reminders all around of the ravages of the war and the atrocities of the Nazis, like the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church) in the center of Berlin, which was left in it's totally bombed out state, with an ultra modern replacement built right next to it. We also want to go back to the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), a huge field of concrete slabs that looks very stark and strange and yet invites exploration. Then there's just the simple joy of having a beer here, especially when you're a teenager.
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