Saturday

I rode on a train from eight in the morning to four in the evening today. We left Holzkirchen via the Bayriche Oberbahn to Munich then took Deutsche Bahn ICE trains to Berlin. Trains are cool.

The ICE trains have a reservation system – most of the seating in 2^nd class is whatever you can find. However, if you pay an extra two Euros, you can reserve a seat. They do that by putting the name of the station you get on the train on a small screen above the seat. Before that station, people are free to sit in the seat but they have to get up when the train gets to your station. After that station, the screen goes blank, so the seat is fair game for everybody.

After arriving at the central station here, we came to our hotel via commuter rail and street car. It’s in a Holiday Inn in an interesting part of town – the building was originally quarters for East German workers. The neighborhood is pretty drab right around the hotel.

In a change of surroundings we went to the Alexanderplatz, which was kind of the central square of East Berlin. That’s where the big TV Tower is. It’s very active but is a bit uncomfortable.

There we had a dinner of Dönner Kabob and wandered a bit. Berlin has a very interesting feeling – it’s very big city. A lot like New York, even though there aren’t anywhere near as many people or tall buildings here.

The group then took a bus to the Reichstag building. We wanted to go up in the dome, but Security now makes everyone register ahead. That hasn’t been the way it worked before – so we did not get to visit the Reichstag.

We did get to wander around downtown Berlin for a bit, though. We visited the Brandenburger Tor and then the Holocaust Memorial, which I believe is built on the site of the Hitler bunker.

After getting some pictures there our official program ended for the night. The group stuck together and we walked down the boulevard leading to the Brandenburger Tor. Unter Den Linden Straβe which is an incredibly beautiful experience on a nice evening.