Berlin

What an amazing city!  We truly enjoyed our time in Berlin.  It left our heads so full of new information and still a desire to learn more.  It was just incredible.  So much history, so much to see and do.  We could have spent even more than our 5 nights here.

We stopped at a little pizza place near our apartment our first day.  I love these funny little smiley shots of my best girls:

We started to wait to get into the Pergamon Museum our first day.  The line was so long we decided to try again the next day at opening.  The girls actually had fun playing while we waited.

 We went to the German History Museum instead--no lines! Olivia requested this photo be taken.

O then insisted we take this one too :-)

After going through the museum for a while, the girls got bored and got out of their strollers to have a spontaneous dance party.  It made me laugh that they, of course, chose right under the Nazi posters for this dance party :-)

Yummy ice cream in rain ponchos

My loves at the Brandenburg Gate

This is the line to get into the Pergamon Museum right when the museum opened--our plan to get there early to beat the crowds obviously did not work out.  We waited in this line for TWO hours!  Our guide book had a way to skip the line that we tried (buying a ticket from another museum) but we found out that was an outdated tip.  At least the girls were still standing...my super troopers!

What was inside was quite impressive....almost worth the two hour wait!  

Olivia LOVES the audioguide and always insists upon it!

Love this photo of my sweet girl.  We sat in this lovely park while Eliza took a nap.  Berlin Cathedral behind.

We have a picture of Olivia at Subways from all over the world now.  Her absolute favorite thing to eat in the whole world...ick!

After Subway, we took a hop on hop off bus tour.  One of the stops was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  It is so very interesting to see.  It is large blocks of smooth concrete of varying sizes with varying levels of stone pavers.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.  The spire of the old church, damaged during World War II, has never been reconstructed, retained as testament to the horrors of war.  The newer building on the right is the new church.  Great symbolism of the entire city--history combined with modernism.  It was incredible to take note of all the reconstruction of the city following the war.

Checkpoint Charlie

The girls in front of what is left of the Berlin Wall.

So thrilled we got to spend some quality time with the newlyweds, Sarah and Kevin Knapp!  They are living in Berlin for Kev's music career.  This was outside this awesome biergarten they took us to.

 That would be Kevin Knapp pushing a stroller!!  Mr Cool Dude, DJ Man pushing a baby! :-)

Very intense games of Spades were played each night at our apartment after dinner :)

Mike found the coolest apartment in Berlin.  It was huge!  Great location and space.

Enormous tub!


Our last morning in Berlin before driving to Prague, we toured the Reichstag (House of Parliament).  Very very cool!  Also an example of a historical building that was rebuilt following the war with a twist of modernism.  Both of the next two photos are of Olivia on top of or inside of the glass dome.

 Her beloved audio guide

Now Mama and the girls in front of Brandenburg Gate

 We stopped into a souvenir shop to find a deck of cards and this old East Germany Trabant car was inside the store.  E loved it.

Mike and I both picked up a pair of Birkenstocks while we were there.  We saw them everywhere and ended up having to get a pair before saying goodbye to Germany :)