Berlin: Day 3

Kim and Ryan made it to Berlin!

Today we woke up bright and early for our last day of sight seeing in Berlin.  We walked down to museum island and looked at the amazing architecture of the buildings. The Berlin Cathedral was really impressive with it’s large, turquoise dome.  

Then we went into the Berlin History museum.  The museum detailed life from 1500- present day.  It was cool to see how European lifestyles evolved throughout the centuries;  as compared to American history museums which focus on American settlement.  

Then we went to Checkpoint Charlie.  This was one of the main border crossings between east and west Berlin.  

And they have a mock up of a soldier station complete with actor solders.  They take cheesy pictures with tourists for 10 Euro and you can get your passport stamped with the old East and West Berlin stamps.....

This had been an activity we were looking forward to, until we read an important piece of information in one of our guide books: Getting your passport stamped with these stamps, invalidates your passport, as they are not official stamps.  

So now this checkpoint charlie just seems like a tourist trap.  We took some pictures, spent 10 minutes looking around and left to see better things!  We took Kim and Ryan back to Brandenburg gate and to see the remaining stretch of the Berlin wall and then we headed back to our apartment to get ready for the soccer game.

It took us 50 minutes by train to get to Olympion stadium.  This was the site of the 193% olympics.  The German’s version of “tail gating” before a game is to stand outside the stadium and drink beer bought from vendors.  Once inside the game you buy beer in thick, plastic steins with handles.  You pay a 2 Euro deposit on each stein that you get back at the end of the game.  The game itself was incredible!  The fans cheer and chant and wave flags for the entire game.  They stomp their feet and sings songs in unison.  They have special chants for different parts of the game.  Everyone wears scarfs with their teams colors and they either eave them around or hold them up depending on whats happening in the game.  The most impressive thing is that NO ONE leaves their seat during game time.  And everyone stays until the very end of the game.  Berlin beat Koln 2-0, and the team paraded around the stadium after the game and waved at the fans.  After the game, people return to the parking lot to drink more beer from vendors. We walked around the stadium to see the olympic facility: swimming pool and diving pool along with the track and field facility.  It was a great way to end our time in Berlin!  Tomorrow we head to Prague! 

PS. WiFi in Europe is terrible.  I'll try and upload pictures when the WiFi is more better. 

Berlin: Day 2

Berlin day 2 was even better than day 1! For starters, it was much warmer today than it was yesterday.  Yesterday it was chilly, windy with scattered rain.  Today was sunny, clear and 70 degrees.  A beautiful day to sight see!  We started our day strolling to northern Berlin to do a “Berlin Underground” tour.  The tour took us underground beneath the city of Berlin to see bomb air raid bunkers.  Since Berlin was the center of Nazi Germany, it saw a TON of bomb raids.  This particular bunker was beneath a subway station.  It was a convoluted string of tunnels, which could hold 1,300 people.  The walls of the bunkers were painted with a special paint that glowed in the dark.  This paint served a good purpose because often during the bombings the power went out, and the paint provided an extra 5-10 minutes of glowing light before it went pitch black. It was crazy to think that the very bunkers we casually walked through, provided shelter and safety for panicked German’s only 60 years ago!  

Somethings we learned today:

• At the end of the war, the allied forces defeated the Nazis and decided to take over Berlin.  This is when Berlin split to east and west with a wall dividing.... The Americans and the allies occupied the west and the Soviet Union occupied the east.  The allies agreed to de-militarize the west and attempted to destroy all the bomb shelters made by the Nazis... this was not very successful as the bomb bunkers made by the Nazi’s were very hardy.
• There are still a TON of undetonated bombs in Berlin.  Bombs are found regularly and a bomb squad is called in to detonate them..... The most recent bomb went off in 1994 and destroyed a whole city block. 

Next we walked to Volkspark, a very green and beautiful city park, and walked up a huge hill that over looked the city of Berlin.  The hill was actually a destroyed bunker, filled in with rubble after the war ended.  The city of Berlin filled in all the old bunkers with rubble and made most of them into parks.  

We then went to the Berlin Wall Memorial.  We saw the last remaining, in-tact, stretch of the wall. The wall is actually 2 walls.  One on the east side of Berlin and the other on the West, separated by 10-15 feet of sand called “no man’s land”.  During the Soviet occupation of Eastern Berlin, those trying to escape where shot and killed on site in “no mans” land. There a ton of memorials and stories of the people who perished trying to escape from East Berlin. It was amazing to see!  

After the wall we went to the Topography of Terror.  This is the site of the Secret German Police, who served Hitler and the German Third Reich.  Hitler’s police station used to sit on the site, and it was destroyed during the war.  The ruins were uncovered in the 1980’s and the remaining building remnants were preserved.  We spent 2 hours looking around and reading about how Hitler came to power.  We all gained a new appreciation for how Hitler came to power in WWII and how the German people were brainwashed.   He was a master of manipulation in persuading people into feeding into his propaganda. 

Tomorrow Kim and Ryan join us and we spend our last day in Berlin.... and we head to a football game!  

The weather in Berlin is beautiful right now! There are a ton of gardens setting out their flowers, and pumpkins and gords!  

Berlin Day 1 Pictures

Memorial for the Murdered Jews

Mauer Park

People watching at Mauer Park

Jill, our tour guide reading us tidbits from Rick Steves'

Street artists spray painting a portion of the Berlin Wall at Mauer Park

Berlin Day 1: "Life is too short to build walls"

Our first impressions of Berlin are fantastic!  It is interesting to explore and learn about a city recently reunited.  We learned a couple things right off the bat:

- DO NOT walk in the bike lane

- ALWAYS bring your rain jacket

We were up bright and early today to make our 10AM reservations for the Reichstag building. The Reichstag is the German Parliament building, most famous for it's glass dome. The dome at the top of the building is open to visitors and offers 360 degree views of the city.  The main parliament hall where the elected officials work can be seen from inside the dome. It was a great first day activity that allowed us to get oriented with this awesome city.

Next stop was to Brandenburg Gate.  It is a 18th century arch that marks the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an her Havel.   On 9 November 1989, thousands gathered at Brandenburg Gate which separated east and west Berlin and watched the East German Prime Minister greet the West German chancellor greet each other in peace and not long after the wall came down. The Brandenburg Gate was symbolic because it was such a large gateway between east and west Berlin. 

Next up was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  It is a touching memorial constructed by the country of Germany. They had a museum underneath the memorial which told the stories of the struggles endured by the jewish during WWII.  

After we left the memorial, we walked 2 blocks to Hitler's bunker.  After the end of WWII, Hitler's underground bunker was destroyed.  It is now a parking lot, with almost no acknowledgement or trace that he ever operated there. 

Our last stop was to Mauer Park.  It is a big park in the middle of the city where people can shop, eat and drink.  There were a ton of vendors selling local made art and crafts.  We relaxed, drank beer in Biergartens and watched street performers.  We had a great first day! 

PS

We walked past the Hotel Adlon, which is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby over the balcony.  It will be a nice thing to tell people at dinner parties. 

PPS

The wi-fi here is touch and go, we'll post more pictures when Berlin gets it's wi-fi act together. 

Bereit.... Satz..... Deutschland!

The day is finally here!  This trip has been a year in the making, and today we jet off to Germany!

Deb, Mick, Jill, Rick and I leave tonight at 19:40 from Phx and land in London tomorrow at 13:25. After a brief layover we jump a quick 2 hour flight to Berlin.  We land at 18:00, enough time to find our apartment, eat and sleep... before we wake up on Sunday ready to explore a new city! Da Hoffs (Ryan and Kim) will join this hooligan crew Monday night.

Here is some of our planned, organized fun we have in store...

Getting our passports stamped at Check Point Charlie with East and West Berlin stamps.

Going to a football game at Olympian Stadium to watch Berlin play Koln.

Visiting Hitler's underground bunker under the city of Berlin.

Going to the Reichstag Building (Germany's "white house").

Going to see an Opera in Prague.

Riding bikes through an Eastern European forest to a 800 year old Czech Republic brewery.

Going to a Nazi concentration camp.

Going to a small beer festival in Munich called Oktoberfest.

Visiting Neuschwanstein Castle (The Cinderella Castle).

After Munich, our crew splits off to divide and conquer:  Jenn and Rick are heading to Garmisch- Partenkirchen, while Deb, Mick, Jill, Kim and Ryan head to Heidelberg and Frankfurt.

We've been waiting months for this moment!  See you all in Berlin!

Cave Tubing and Zip Lining

Today we went cave tubing and zip lining and it was amazing!  

We woke up at 5:30am to chilly cloudy skies and rain.  Which made for an interesting boat ride over to the main land!  We got picked up on the edge of our dock by the tour company for the one hour and fifteen minute commute into Belize City.  We were dressed in swim suits and tank tops, which made riding in a boat in the rain going 35mph a cold, uncomfortable experience.  The rain drops felt like tiny cold daggers.  Once we got closer to the mainland, the rain let up and we were able to relax as our boat cruised up the Belize river.  To everyone’s surprise, a bottle nose dolphin was hanging out in the river doing jumps and flips!  We were lucky to catch him in action:

From the river, we boarded a van to drive an additional 60 minutes into the jungle.  We learned some interesting things on our way:

1. The state animal is the Tapir.
2. We passed Belize’s only prison, housing 3,000 inmates. 
3. It is illegal to cut the mangrove trees in Belize

The zip lining was SO MUCH FUN!  Everyone agrees it was one of the coolest things we have done here.  There were a series of 6 zip lines, which took you across the jungle canopy and rivers.  It was beautiful!!  We caught it all on our GoPro strapped to our helmet.

After a quick lunch of chicken, rice and beans, veggies and potato salad we hit the river for tubing.  We were given a tube, head lamp and life vest that we had to haul through the jungle for a 20 minute hike.  Our guide took us through dry caves where we saw stalagmites and stalactites.  She explained the jungle plants and how the Mayans used them, and how most locals today still use them for medicinal purposes.  The cave tubing took us through extensive cave systems which took 20 minutes to float through.  Without the head lamps, it was pitch black.  It was spooky to turn them off and float in the dark with the bats!  

It was a looooong day, but a really fun day!  (We didn't take many pictures because of the rain)

Belize Day 2

Day 2 had a lot to live up to... but it was just as amazing as day one!  We went snorkeling today on the Belize barrier reef, which is the second largest barrier reef after Australia.  The first stop was a reef called Hol Chan, a protected marine reserve, where we saw sea turtles, spotted stingy rays, tons of fish and nurse sharks.  Rick wore the GoPro and as soon as we figure out how to upload the video to the blog, you can see our snorkeling adventure!  Our second stop was to Shark Ray Alley, which is a spot on the most south end of the island where the fishermen clean their fish and throw the chum into the water.  This attracts nurse sharks and sting rays to feed on the chum... and snorkelers who want to swim with them!  It was amazing to swim with 8-9 foot nurse sharks and sting rays with a 6-7 foot wing span.  There was an abundant sea life, with beautiful coral.  Some of the best snorkeling we have ever done!

We had lunch at a beach side bar called Aji.  They had a picturesque dock that we could not resist taking pictures on!  The breeze and clouds made for a great photo shoot!

Jenn and Rick

Lindsay and Adam

Debbie and Kyle

This afternoon we took a sunset cruise on a catamaran around the island.  The buttery light made for some great picture taking!  We had dinner at a great local place in town, and we made it an early night since we have to be up at 5:30 tomorrow morning for zip lining and cave tubing!