Wednesday 28 November 2012

Berlin, Germany

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday my family and I traveled to Berlin, Germany.  Living overseas we tend to travel over the long Holiday weekend and this year we decided we wanted to see Berlin. We still had a Thanksgiving Dinner.  Quite by accident one year we stumbled into a Hard Rock Cafe on one of our trips on Thanksgiving Day and found out they serve an American Thanksgiving Dinner at every one of their restaurants.

So we made a reservation at the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin on Thanksgiving day.  I was the only one who opted for the full Thanksgiving dinner.  The rest of the family ordered burgers:)

Love that everywhere had pedestrian side walks and biking paths (red brinks)

Throughout the city we saw these above ground pipes usually painted pink or blue.  My husband thought they might be sewer or water lines.  I kept meaning to ask someone but forgot:(
When in a new city for a short period of time we will often take the city tour bus to kind of get the lay of the land and see where things are.  Often these bus tours will allow you to get on and off.  This is the famous Brandenburg Gate  which is the symbol for Berlin.  It is on the East side of Berlin.

Jewish memorial, I am not sure what the blocks symbolized but it was an impressive site



The kids loved running thru the cement blocks and hiding

In East Berlin there is still lots of building projects going up.  The photos of the before and after pictures of East Berlin since the wall came down were striking.  

German President's home

We got very good using the under ground system.  Public transportation is so much better in European cities.   We were even treated to a impromptu sax concert on one of our rides.



I have several posts on our trip, we went to Check point Charlie, Berlin Wall, DDR museum (museum on East Berlin) , Sachsenhausen Concentration camp and to a German Christmas market.   










1 comment:

  1. That is interesting that they have red brick for bikes. I so wish things were more pedestrian friendly here! I wonder if the hard Rock Cafe's in the U.S. are actually open on Thanksgiving. We have stopped cooking Thanksgiving dinner and usually get Chinese food, but it would be fun to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for Thanksgiving, especially if you can order of the regular menu also! That would be gross if the pink pipes were sewer pipes and one of them developed a leak while you were under it! I did not realize that East Berlin was so undeveloped. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your photos. I've actually decided that the Little Miss and I are going to start studying German. I studied it in high school and college and have never used it. Lately, however, I keep wanting to read German blogs. I've retained enough that I can sort of make out what I am reading, but decided that I'd like to refresh my memory some.

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