Berlin

A couple of days ago Chris and I went to Berlin. We had to go so I could drop off a visa application at the Austrian Embassy, and so we took advantage of the trip and saw the sights as well. It took most of Sunday to get to Berlin, and then another hour or so just to get to our hotel. The directions from the Hotel's website forgot to mention there was major construction in the city and many of the subway and bus stops had changed. Luckily I had looked at the Berlin city train site and got a different set of directions to the hotel. We finally got to the hotel and settled in a bit and then started the search for the internet connection. The website said that we would need our own Wlan cable, but that there was internet in the room.... LIES!!!! So for the next two days we were internet free, excepting the 30 free minutes we got in the lobby the next night, just to let our families know that we were still alive.

On Monday, Chris woke up sick, but he decided to fight through it so we could go see the city. We got lost, I think 3 times, on our way the the Austrian Embassy, but eventually we got there and I got my papers turned in for my visa.
Then we were off on our city tour. :)

We saw the Großer Stern und Spieglesaule,

stopped for tea at Angela Merkle's house (she didn't end up inviting us in),

 took silly pictures in front of the Reichstag, made new friends by the Brandenburger Tor, 

wandered through a stone forest, and took an hour eating crepes (they wouldn't just let us pay and leave, we had to keep waiting).

 We partied with Celebs at Madam Tussauds, and walked along Unter den Linden, 

before we rested a bit on the lawn in front of the Berliner Dom,

meandered around a statue in front of the Rot Rathaus (red city hall) to the Fehrnsehtor (tv tower), 










took a quick trip on the subway to the East Side Gallery (a real section of the Berlin Wall),

another quick train ride to Checkpoint Charley, and got really angry at the attitude of the guy holding my flag. Then we ate dinner at McDonald's, just to make sure we were still American and back to the hotel. 















Tuesday we woke up early again and took the train out to Potsdam and wandered around Sansoucci Park. We saw the Promenade and Neues Palais,

 Sansoucci, and the "guest palace", 

the windmill,

  the Orangerie Palace, 

fabulous gardens, 

the Roman Baths,

 the Chinese Gate, 

Charlottenhof Palace, where we stopped for a quick model shoot,

 and the main gate to the park.

Then we made our way back to Berlin. We stopped by the brand new Waldorf Astoria, to see if we could take a peak inside (it isn't finished yet, so that was a no),

and we checked out the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedänknis Kirche (memorial chruch). The old tower that the memorial church was built to honor, was under restoration construction and completely covered. Of course that was the part I wanted to see, but it was the only building
construction we ran into this trip, so I guess that is
ok. We were still able to go inside and there are some of the old frescoes on the wall. 

And then we went to the Zoo and saw lions and tigers and bears oh my. Not to mention the the panda and giant orangatangs and a hippo and elephants and giraffes and lot of other things, and I mean lots! 

Caution! Lions spray urine through grate.

The bricks in the road represent
where the wall stood

By that time we were pretty much exhausted, but made our way back to where we had crepes the day we before and got a burger next door. It was delish and we didn't have to wait 45 minutes to pay! Then it was back to the hotel.

We made our way home on Wednesday, and on Friday we got our scores for our E-test.... WE PASSED!!! Yippie for not having to repeat a semester of college. The next trip on the list is about four days in the Hamburg area! Super excited. Now that I am done with school I will work on film a bit more!