GERMANY!!!

We finally made it. It was a rough flight. I sat next to an over-weight

older man from Poland. He took up half of my seat and

jerked all night while he was sleeping. So needless to say, I

didn't get any sleep.

But we arrived on time and after a very hot bus ride we

found our hotel. We weren't able to check in since it was

8:00 in the morning so we left our luggage and set out

to tour the city.

We took the "S" train to the other side of Berlin to see the

remaining pieces of the Berlin wall.

Tom is standing on the "East" German side of the wall.

They allow people to paint the wall and there are some

pretty cool paintings.

I'm standing on the "West" side of the wall.

Here are a few examples of the artwork:

I wish I had a close-up of this painting. 

It is very detailed.

If you look really close you can see the radio tower

in the background. It's seen in a lot of movies like

Bourne Identity etc. It is huge.

After several more train rides we found where Tom lived

when he served his mission here. He said it had

changed a little but he didn't have any trouble finding it.

We tried to find some German food and were going to eat in

this park which is right next to his old apartment, but the

area has been taken over by Turks and Palestinians.

We couldn't find one German restaurant.

So I had to settle for a drink at McDonalds, BUT as you can

see they don't understand what a large drink is. This

baby size is their large and they cost 2.60 Euros.

No refills, what a rip!!!

We got back to the German side of Berlin and found a outdoor

cafe and had some real German food.

Brats, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

Tom was in heaven.

This church was one of the few buildings that survived the

bombings during WWII. They are slowly trying to

restore it. Tom said it hasn't changed much since the 70's.

The University building:

Our hotel is a small place off the beaten path. We kind of

took our chances with it. But it has turned out to be a

great place.  The guy who runs it is actually from NYC and

went to college in Raleigh and Wake Forest. Go figure.

The room is really cute BUT no air-conditioning.

Great bathroom

It's a studio so the bedroom,

living room and kitchen are all in one room.

But it is clean and has everything we need

(except air-conditioning)

Well I have not slept since 6:00 am yesterday so I am

 getting a bit trunky so I'm signing out.

We are taking a "bike" tour of Berlin tomorrow and will

post pictures after.

You can reach us by email if you need.