Please stay with the tour

So, Tuesday, Carina had some time to take us around the town. But first, her friend Susanna invited us over for breakfast. I had actually met Susanna in Victoria during the spring, so it was nice to see her again.

We started out our Carina-guided tour with a trip to Alexanderplatz. This was a hub in East Berlin, and is now famous for the Berlin TV tower, and a clock that shows times throught out the world. Carina pointed out that this was a little ironic, as Easterners were only allowed to watch state television, and not allowed to travel.

From there we walked to the Brandenburg gate, taking in the sites along the way. This included the Dome, an interesting looking church, the university where Mark was going, a few museums, and the plaza where the nazis did alot of book burning. Unfortunately, I ran out of battery juice in my camera and ended up without many pictures. Fortunately, Tina had her phone to take some shots with. Once we made it to the Brandenburg gate, we had some lunch and visited a memorial to the Jews that had been killed in Europe. It was an interesting memorial, as it was large open area with large monolithic blocks spread out. They were slightly larger than a person lying down on their back, almost coffin like, and there was room to walk between them. As you walked more towards the center of the blocks, the ground between then got lower, and lower, and before too long the top of the blocks was over your head. Once you got down in among the blocks, it got a little erie. It kind of gave a sense of how something like the holocaust could happen. First there is just a little bit of drop, hard to notice, but after a little bit, it drops more and more, and suddenly, you're in deep.

After that we headed towards the German parliament, and the parliamentary library. From there we followed the Spree, a river that's more of a canal, past the unofficial representation of Western Germany in the east, to the Island of Museums. It is a small island in the Spree, and there are three museums on it. We needed a sit, and a beer. I tried what Carina decided to drink. It was a beer with Raspberry flavouring. It was okay, but what was funny was when we ordered, I said, "oh, I don't know, I'll have one of those."

The bartender then said, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, what the heck."
"Your really sure?" this time there was no doubt he was questioning my manhood from my drink of choice. I tried it and it was okay, but not something I have to have again.

From there we made our late trip back to meet up with Mark for dinner at a southeast asian place. The beginning of the week was a busy time for Mark so we were actually lucky to get time in to see him. After dinner, we took in a movie. This theater is in a park and they have beach chairs that you set up in front of a big screen, and next to a concession. We say an artsy black and white film that was in german with english subtitles, I can't really remember the film, so I can neither recommend or condemn it. Taking it in from a beach chair outside was great though. That I would highly recommend doing anywhere it is possible.