Guten Tag from Berlin!!!!

I am finally in Berlin after a 13 hour train travel from Amsterdam via Brussels. Fortunately, I got a good night sleep on a Class 1 Sleep Train. Superb and private...best of all, I did not have to worry about theft!!

I was a bit queezy about staying in Hostels, but this Hostel in Berlin is great...showers, kitchen, and best of all, FREE INTERNET!!! Upon arrival, I took a free-by-foot tour around the City, looking at most of the major sights that dealt with the origin of Berlin, World War II, and the Cold War.

Scene from the destroyed Brandenburg Gate at the end of WWII

New Jewish Halocaust Memorial - View 1

New Jewish Halocaust Memorial - View 2

Stepping on Hitler's Suicide Spot - dirt next to the entrance to the Jewish Memorial

Since the tour took almost 4 hours, the only museum I got to see was the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Very cool museum on the Cold War with all the stories and displays of the creative escape plans and equipment the East Germans utilized. But the downer was that right where the Checkpoint Charlie was, were all these street vendors captilizing on goods depicting the Cold War (including gas masks, hand-cuffs, etc.)...kind of sick, I think.


Cold War Victims Memorial near Checkpoint Charlie

I have met some new cool friends on this road trip. One was a Mainland Chinese student named Sam whom I travelled with from Brussels to Berlin...the other was an Australian girl named Emma who is staying in the same hostel as me. Tomorrow, Emma will be my travel companion to the various museums. Ah...not so lonely after all...=)

Ampelmann denotes this street was part of East Germany