Berlin, 10-11/06/2010

We all met at our normal meeting place on the corner and headed to the Hauptbanhof(Berlin’s major train station) and we were meet with a very detailed model of the train station.
Then we split for lunch and I had my first Döner Kepab, a turkish sandwich with shaved chicked meat and fries, with a vegetable and a salad all rolled into one, quite tasty and fairly cheap too.
After that we made our way to the river and walked along the banks of the Spree viewing the major government buildings. We stopped and saw Police/Fire station which was covered in these window shades of green and red and all the colors in between. I found the windows and curved corner glass to be pretty neat and very different.





Then we headed around the Spree some more to the Reichstag. This area is kind of like Germany’s white house and congress place. Very clean and proper.







The next day we started just half a block from our apartments and viewed the British Embassy and continued around the corner to the American embassy, French embassy and the DG bank. All the time the Huge Brandenburg Gate was at the end of the block with a presence of this old 200+ year old gate.



We then made our way closer the apartment and viewed the Holocaust Memorial, the one that we can see from our windows! It is this huge landscape of perfectly straight blocks all of different heights with the ground floor also being wavy and uneven, but a really cool place to hangout for everyone.



Next on the list was the Philarmonie, a huge orchestra house built in the 1960’s(heart of the cold war) and filled with strange and really awesome shapes and made to look like a ship almost. Or for it to have ship like features. There where these huge columns of concrete that looked like wood and all the handrails and staircases looked like they belonged on a cruise ship.





Then we made our way to Linkstaße which is this huge group of buildings made for housing and some offices, with a neat small mall in the middle of the block. With many restaurants and shopping stores there is no need for these people to travel much of anywhere else… kind of neat but you never leave home this way. I don’t think it’s a great idea.
Then off to an art exhibit. On the ground level it was a huge empty glass building with only two staircases leading down, It was misleading at first but then we went down the stairs and found some great art pieces. I am not much on art but most of the pieces that I found interesting were from the 1930’s and confiscated by the nazi’s and classified as “degenerate art”.