SATURDAY, 8/31:
Have you ever found yourself driving down a street in
Berlin, your tour guide’s rental car radio tuned to a classical station, when
all of a sudden Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” comes blasting out of the
speakers?
Nah, me neither. At least
until this afternoon, when the most iconic work of one of Germany’s most iconic
composers kicked off a very surreal few minutes that ended when we sighted
this—
Okay; enough Wagner jokes for one day (or one
lifetime). We started our Saturday the
way we start most Saturdays, by getting a little cardio work in, namely by
climbing Berlin’s Victory Column!
Before you start to think we hauled out the bungee cords and
climbing gear, rest assured that we climbed to the top of the 220 foot tower on
the inside (285 steps, to be exact), where we were afforded amazing views of a
large chunk of the city, including one of the car Tony rented (you know, the one that played Wagner)—
No, we’re not the Smart car.
I don’t think three people and three pieces of luggage could fit in a
Smart car. Heck, I’m not even sure if
three people and three pieces of luggage could fit into THREE Smart cars. Ours is the car in front of it, a Skoda made
in the Czech Republic. The car got us around to all kinds of places
throughout the day, even a few that had nothing to do with Richard Wagner or
his music.
Oops. I forgot I
wasn’t going to make any more Wagner jokes.
We went to a bunch of places today that dealt with both
World War II (a “terror” museum build on the grounds of the old Gestapo building)
and the Cold War (Checkpoint Charlie).
Another Cold War relic we visited was one of the last remaining pieces
of the Berlin War, which has now been turned into an art museum called The East
Side Gallery—
When the Wall was crumbling down people painted all over
parts of it, which is why they saved it from destruction. Unfortunately, the act of painting on
buildings and structures seems to have continued unabated since then—
There seems to be graffiti everywhere in Berlin,
a problem Tony says the city government has tried to deal with in the past, but
as soon as they clean it up something new appears. Think of our recent “Gerko” problem in Marquette,
multiply it by a thousand, and you kind of get an idea of what authorities here
are trying to do.
On another subject altogether, you know what we bought
today? Kudos if you said chocolate!
That’s part of one mere wall of the Berlin Ritter Sport store, an
entire store devoted one of Germany’s
most popular chocolate bars (a few types of which are available in the U.S.) The thought of an entire store devoted to
Ritter Sport even tempted Tony, an avowed non-chocoholic, to explore it, and
then walk out with five bars, which he promptly left in the car so he wouldn’t
be tempted to eat them in his room tonight.
As you can tell, we haven’t totally corrupted him. At least not yet.
A few more random
pictures to wrap up the day, the first an example of how they deliver mail here
in Berlin—
and no more than five steps from the Deutsche Post bike was
this—
That’s right—it’s a Euro Store, the equivalent to our Dollar
stores, and yes, we did shop there, if only because they have German Dr. Pepper
here, Dr. Pepper that tastes like Dr. Pepper used to in the U.S.
before they both changed the formula and started adding high fructose corn
syrup to it.
Yum!
Tomorrow we head from Berlin
to Leipzig the long way—with two
stops in Poland. Have a great night!
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