Berlin- Part Zwei

Friday was once again cold and rainy. We headed to the outdoor exhibit called "Topography of Terror" which stands on the ruins of the Gestapo Headquarters. The exhibit is mostly photos but you can see a long section of the wall and the basements of the buildings, which is where the interrogations took place. It was interesting but very cold. After that we headed inside for some lunch at an American Diner themed place that had football on! After warming up we went to tour some old bomb shelters but when we got there we found out the English tours were done for the day. Then we wandered a bit - we tried to see the Berlin Cathedral but it was closed for some unknown reason. We headed to Alexanderplatz which was the main shopping area in East Berlin. We checked out the Galeria Kaufhof which is a huge department store and I got a cool new watch! We did some other wandering to see various buildings like the city hall etc then we went back to a huge new mall and wandered that for awhile. We really do miss shopping or just wandering a mall since we don't really have them here. We got some Jack Wolfskin items which we discovered is the "it" outdoor outfitter in Germany. Then we headed back to Potzdamer Platz for a quick dinner of leberkäse (yum!) and a movie in English with no subtitles. We saw District 9 and were pretty impressed.

Large section of Berlin Wall still standing at the Topography of Terror exhibit

Berliner Dom (Cathedral)

Jason with a Jeff Koons sculpture - we hate him- he ruined Versailles for us

Saturday we went back to the underground museum for our English tour. It was 90 minutes and very interesting. We toured one of the few remaining bunkers in Berlin as it was left in 1945 (and subsequently looted). The tour included several rooms and lots of information. I think it was one of the most interesting things in Berlin. After that we headed back down to the heart of town and had a nice lunch of the famous "Currywurst". Jason wasn't a huge fan but I thought it was pretty good.

Our lunch appetizers- beer and pretzels

After lunch we braved the line at the Reichstag - which was 90 minutes - to go up to the dome for a great view of the city. The views were nice but it had been raining so the pictures didn't come out very well due to the water on the dome windows. It was interesting for many reasons but the Reichstag is home to the Parliament and over 3 million people tour it every year since it is free to go to the dome. Can you imagine that happening in the US now?

View from the dome of the Reichstag

Later that evening we had a very nice dinner at Oscar & Co. Jason had an amazing potato soup I am going to try to recreate as some point. Then we went to see the Blue Man Group. It was a great end to our week.

Jason with a Blue Man - they even talked to him!