Day 3 in Berlin

After a very long 23 hours in the air we arrived in Berlin on Wednesday morning. Thanks to a very efficient public transport system we quickly reached our hotel.

Wednesday afternoon was spent exploring the quiet neighbourhood around our hotel. Late afternoon Anthea and Andrew arrived in Berlin after their quick trip to the UK.

We spent two days of busy and intense touristing and managed to see the Brandenburg Gate, the 500m stretch of the Wall still standing, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, the Pergamon Museum (fantastic antiquities from the middle east and Turkey), The Jewish musuem ( thought provoking and harrowing in a confronting archtectural style) and the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum (devoted to very modern art and best described by Milton as my comments may not pass the censor).

This afternoon we went on a boat cruise down the River Spree which was very relaxing and a good way to see some of the sights. The "City Beaches" are particularly interesting - sand is bought in and people stretch out, make sand castles and generally behave as if they were at the seaside instead of on the river bank. It is in the mid 20s today but worries of skin cancer do not seem to concern the sunbathing Berliners.

Anthea and Andrew are going to Hamburg tomorrow to visit Jörg - they come back late Tuesday and then fly out to Ireland early Tuesday morning so tomorrow morning we will have breakfast with them and say goodbye.

My school girl German is holding up well - helped by the fact that many people speak excellent English.

Impressions so far are of a clean city with helpful friendly people. Beer and sausages are sold everywhere and food comes in large servings but people generally appear trim and fit. The public transport system is terrific - we have been hopping on and off trains using our weekly pass. I have managed to avoid both the beer and sausages so far - we have eaten Syrian, Asia and Italian for dinner and for lunch and breakfast have visited some of the great bakeries near our hotel.

We are still recovering from jetlag and our feet are just coping with all the walking but over all we are doing fine.
Andrew is currently giving Milton a lesson in uploading photos to the blog so we should have a ew up soon. Unfortunately are having troubles with our Flickr account so I will remove that from the links.