Berlin, Germany

Berlin is big. It has a lot of people, it has much to see, and it has a ton of history. We knew that we were going to be busy coming to Berlin. It was nice, though, to have another place to stay. Gudi's sister lives in Berlin, so we were able to stay with her for the duration of our time in Berlin. She had brochures and pamphlets for us and gave us a wonderful tour of West Berlin by car, since most of our sightseeing was in East Berlin. West Berlin? East Berlin? Yes, that is a reference to the past divisions the city was under due to the Berlin Wall. It was very interesting visiting a city and learning about what it was like to be, in fact, two very different cities a mere twenty years ago. We realized that with any of the major points of history throughout the past one hundred years, Berlin was smack dab in the middle of any of them. WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and the end of the USSR - Berlin starred in all of these. Berlin was also a hub for the old Prussian Empire. Lots of buildings have to do with that era as well. Walking around some of the city, we noticed some bullet scarring on a few buildings. We were told that we would only find this on 10% of the city. Why? Because the other 90% was destroyed during WWII, either during the Battle of Berlin or previous city bombings. So, we saw evidence of history: the Brandenburg Gate of the Prussians, the rebuilt Reichstag after Hitler burned it down and framed it on the Communists, the Luftwaffe (Nazi Air Force), Holocaust Memorial and Museum, the parking lot above Hitler's bunker, the book burning square, sections of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the list goes on. We could have spent weeks trying to see everything and learn everything, but even what we did see and learn was a lot. We got a sense of what this city has gone through and how it is still a city today.

The Zitadelle in the Berlin area of Spandau. This is where we stayed (Spandau, not the Zitadelle) with Gudi's sister Karin.

The Reichstag, where German Parliament is seated. It was burned down in 1933 supposedly by the Communists which conveniently allowed Hitler, the elected Chancellor of Germany, to imprison his political opponents and rule unopposed. This is how he became dictator. The Reichstag has a glass dome on top that the public can walk up into and get a great view of the city.

The Brandenburg Gate, one of the structures that survived WWII. The Berlin Wall ran just west of this centuries old gate.

The Memorial for Murdered Jews of Europe, constructed about ten years ago in the exact middle of the city. The boxes do not symbolize anything in particular. There is a free Holocaust museum underneath.

Hitler's bunker, the one he committed suicide in, is buried below this unsuspecting parking lot.

The Nazi Luftwaffe, where much planning occurred during the war. Part of the movie Valkyrie was filmed here.

A section of the Berlin Wall still standing. There were four generations of wall over the years. This, with the pipe on top instead of barbed wire, is the last.

Checkpoint Charlie. Extremely commercialized, but still an interesting place to read and imagine days gone by. This is where the Allied military checkpoint between East and West Berlin was. A big tank standoff happened here in the 60s.

Gendarmenmarkt. A German/French square established in the 1800s. Basically a typical Berlin square.

The Bebelplatz, the primary site of the Nazi Book Burning of 1933. Over 20,000 books, written by all those considered inferior, were burnt here on that night.

The Berlin Dom with the East German TV Tower beside and behind it.

Chocolate sculpture of the Reichstag made by a terrific local chocolate store.

Us in the Berlin area of Potsdam. Behind us is some Prussian king's palace. Potsdam used to be the royal area of the city and so every street is very elaborate with a Prussian palace or structure on almost every corner.

Potsdam tower gate.

Some beautiful houses in Potsdam.

East Side Gallery. The longest stretch of the Berlin Wall still standing. It is over 2 km long and has been refurbished and painted by artists from 21 different countries.



Victoria Park.

We are now just under a month in and we are finally feeling like we are well into it. We felt like we were at the beginning of our trip in the UK, but now that we are in Prague, we realize that we are no longer just getting started. So we are becoming seasoned travellers and it feels good. We are really seeing and learning a lot and it's interesting to see what shapes each city and how each is just a little bit different. We do a lot of walking (sometimes too much), but it's good to be on the streets with people of many cultures in a city like Berlin, experiencing life in Germany.

Bremen, Germany

Gutentag! We apologize for the late post. It has been some time since we posted an update. We have just been enjoying too much German weather, sights, and people to concern ourselves with it. We are now in Berlin, but we will fill you in on our stay in Bremen.
Bremen was a great city to visit. We wouldn't have come to a city like Bremen except for the fact that we had some incentive. Ang's parents had a student from Germany stay with them for six months in 2006. That student was Carolin Müller and we knew that if we went to Europe we would need to go and see her and meet her family. We did just that. We spent five great days with the Müller family and enjoyed time sightseeing (with Carolin as our guide), playing Wii, and getting a chance to see what life in Bremen is all about. Bremen is a great city and, since it isn't a super popular destination in Germany, it wasn't too crammed with tourists.

A big ol' windmill in one of Bremen's parks

Bremen's Main Square



Bremen Town Musicians (The Protectors of the City)

St. Peter's Cathedral (The Dom)

Inside the Dom


The Schnoor - A section of the city with small streets and small houses and small pathways

Tiny little Schnoor with tiny little door

We spent Saturday up the Weser River from Bremen in the town of Bremerhaven. This is a port city with a lot of great boats and museums. We went to one museum called the Deutschland Auswanderer Haus (German Emigration Museum). It was a museum about the millions of people that left Europe for life in other worlds. Seven million people left Europe from this port and the museum gave us an idea of what it would have been like for some of them. It was a great day where we learned a little bit about something our own ancestors had to face at some point.

Bremerhaven Harbour

German Emigration Museum - Waiting to Board

German Emigration Museum - 12 Weeks of Boredom

Saturday was a full day because when we got back to Bremen, Johannes (Carolin's dad) took us to Weserstadion and managed to scalp us some tickets for the sold out professional soccer game between the local Werder Bremen and FC Köln. It was an unforgettable experience to be two of 45,000 in an atmosphere like that. When Bremen scored the game winning goal with a minute left, the place went crazy and it was unreal to be a part of it. We will always be fans of this team now that we had this experience.
All in all, Bremen was a great stop. We are really glad we decided to visit. Johannes and Gudi, along with Caorlin and their son Lukas, were great hosts and we were blessed by their hospitality and generosity. We hope to be back to visit again.

The Müller Family - Lukas, Gudi, Johannes, and Carolin

We Escaped!

Hello all. We are writing this from Bremen, Germany after managing to break free from the hold the ash cloud had on us. We are currently staying with family friends, Johannes and Gudi Mueller in Bremen. We arrived this (Thursday) morning after 31 hours on the move. We left Belfast at 4:00pm on Tuesday by bus. We took a ferry to Scotland and then got a bus to London. We got there at 3:45am. We booked train tickets to Brussels, Belgium (through the Chunnel) for 2:30pm, which was the earliest we could get. We then arrived in Brussels by train at 5:45pm. We quickly boarded a 6:30pm train bound for Frankfurt and arrived there at 9:30pm. Then, finally, we hopped on a train bound for Hamburg and got off in Bremen at 6:00am. We slept in a bed this morning for a few hours and feel a lot better about everything now. The last couple of days have been, shall we say, less than ideal, but we are excited to be here, in a house with great people, for a few days.

Still... Here

So, we are still in Belfast. It's Monday evening here and we were originally supposed to be gone Saturday afternoon. Our rebooked flight for today got cancelled, believe it or not, and so we are still hanging in there. But, we are taking action instead of sitting around biding our time. We were able to get a bus from here, across the ferry, to London. From there we will catch a boat or train to Belguim and then on to Germany. We are going to Belguim from London instead of Paris because we found out that the rail is on strike in France so we will avoid it now and maybe see it later. We leave here (hopefully) at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon and arrive in London at 6:00 the next morning. Then we will see how long it takes to get to Germany from there. Fun, I know, but we figure it's better than hoping the planes will somehow become faithful again. We'll take the time and go by bus, even if it takes an eternity. We should have done this right off the bat, but, of course, we were still very optimistic at that point. See you on the other side of this whole thing.

Still Here

Hey, just so y'all know, we are still in Belfast. We were scheduled to fly out to Paris today (Saturday) at 1:35pm, but we got bumped until Monday. So we have a few more days of Northern Ireland. It is annoying because it throws us off and now we'll have less time somewhere else. Belfast we were kind of done with as well; we've basically seen all there is (it's not very big). But there are some positives. We do have insurance with our Visa cards that reimburses us for hotel and meal costs. Needless to say we're taking advantage of that. We are staying somewhere tonight that costs roughly two hundred dollars more than where we stayed last night. I'll take it. So we are enjoying that. We also are planning to go to Robin Mark's home church tomorrow and maybe take a tour of the Titanic shipyards. So, all is not lost. We'll keep you posted. Cheers.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Belfast. This was kind of an interesting stop because we knew that we really wanted to see the north coast but we really had no idea of what the city had to see. The truth is it didn't really have a whole lot. Don't get me wrong, it did have a few nice buildings and a few things to see, such as the Titanic shipyards, but nothing compared to a Dublin or an Edinburgh.

We arrived on Wednesday morning by bus from Dublin. The bus trip, by the way, was a good decision - cheap, easy, and beautiful. Traveling on the ground in these parts is the best way to go - so much natural beauty. Once we got to Belfast, we had most of the day to explore and plan our next two full days. We went around the popular areas and walked down the river just into the shipyards where the Titanic and its sister ships Britannic and Olympic were built. The day was nice as we were able to walk and see and enjoy the uncommonly beautiful spring weather.

Belfast City Hall - built around 1900.

The Belfast Wheel


The Albert Memorial Clock Tower. It actually does lean four feet off the perpendicular due to the Farset River flowing under it.

The two Harland and Wolff shipyard cranes used in their day for building some of the biggest ships in the world at that time. Built in 1969 and 1974, Goliath and Samson stand 315 and 348 feet tall respectively.

The next day we hopped on board a tour bus that took us along Northern Ireland's north coast up to the Giant's Causeway. This was truly a great day. Apparently the Causeway Coastal Route is one of the top five coastal drives in the world. It was evident. The pictures we took are merely a glimpse of what it was like. We drove along the coast, making some stops every once in a while, for about three hours before we made it to the causeway. The Giant's Causeway is basically rock formations that were formed by flowing lava a long time ago. The rocks somehow are all hexagonal and are different heights and sizes. Very cool. We hiked along the top of the cliffs overlooking this part of the coastline and then went down along and into the rocks. We loved the couple of hours we spent here, taking dozens of pictures and just exploring and enjoying the wonder of it. It was really a fun and incredible experience; a great way to finish the UK and Ireland off.





The Giant's Causeway from the cliffs above


The causeway's pillar-like rock formation





Dunluce Castle. Built in the 1200s, it was struck by lightning in 1641, which gave it its crumbled state.

The Carrick-a-Rede ropebridge. 60ft long and 90ft high, it has been used by salmon fishermen for over 350 years.



Our last day in Belfast, we kind of bummed around, going into some stores and walking down the touristy streets. We then hooked up with a free Belfast tour in the afternoon. It was a good tour. The guide told us a lot about what Belfast was like in the past and what they are still going through today. We were somewhat familiar with the conflict that has happened, but this gave us a greater understanding of what it has been about. The division between British Unionist Protestants and Irish Nationalist Catholics was very clear and very intense. Twenty years ago, instead of walking down all these streets with people and shops, we would have been security checked going into the ghost town city centre and avoiding car bombs walking down the streets. Belfast was a scary place filled with people with a lot of anger and hatred. Our guide was clear to point out that it still exists today, to a certain extent, even though it has improved drastically.

According to us, our time in Belfast is done as we plan to fly to Paris tomorrow (Saturday). According to Mr. Volcanic Ash Cloud, we might be required to spend a little bit more time here. We're hopeful, and it's looking positively, that we will fly tomorrow. It's weird, though, that the UK is done. There is a clear division between what has happened and what is to come since now we are away from first language English speakers and relying on trains as our primary means of transportation. I think we're up for it.