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First Night in Berlin

Just finished doing a quick round through central (?) Berlin. I walked from my hotel in Mitte up through Friedrichstraße (alt-S for all your Mac users) then went down Unter den Liden heading towards Brandenberg Gate, and from there to the Reichstag. I managed to get in the area about an hour before sundown so the Gate and the whole Pariser Platz was lit incredibly well and was georgous to take in. Behind Brandenberg gate was an outdoor festival with an some German band playing covers of American songs. And yes, I put the video on YouTube doing Lollypop. The whole area was full up in a very summer fair style, with various sweets and savory vendors and tons of beer vendors lining up the street. Pretty fun.

I went from the Reichstag via the S-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz. It seems that the S-Bahn rolling stock is shared between various lines. The cars have maps for multiple, non-intersecting routes, which must mean that they’re shared between various lines. It’s also impressive how clean the whole city and transportation system is. Much like Paris, the central parts of the city are spotless. Anyway, back to Potsdamer Platz: once you come above the station to the actual Platz there’s a great Berlin Wall memorial and segments of the wall preserved along with info panels across the area explaining where you are in relation to where the wall was. It’s amazing to walk around the areas and realize all the varied parts of history that have crossed the streets here in the last 60 years from Nazi Germany to the Cold War to today.

Tomorrow’s plan is to explore more of Berlin and mostly see as as many of the historical items of interest as possible.