Craig's Birthday in Berlin

For Craig's birthday we headed to Berlin to see the sights and check out the International Beer Festival. It turned out to be a great way to celebrate a 25th birthday! I am going to let our pictures tell the story of our day. The factual information, which you will find in quotation marks, comes from berlin.de--a great website to check out before visiting Berlin.

Craig looking like a tourist :)

Berlin is a huge city. Much bigger than where we live in Leipzig. We were really kicking ourselves for not bringing our bikes. We were exhausted from all of the walking by the end of the day.

The city of Berlin.

"Berlin is the national capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,416,255 inhabitants (as of December 2007)."
The Berlin Wall. "From 1961 until 1989 The Wall separated East from West."

One way to get around the city--four wheeler. And yes, we did see someone riding this on the street.

Picture from Checkpoint Charlie.

"Checkpoint Charlie, along with Glienicker Brücke (Glienicker Bridge) was the best known border-crossing of Cold War days. The sign, which became a symbol of the division of Cold War Berlin and read like a dire warning to those about to venture beyond the Wall – YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR – in English, Russian, French and German - stood here. It is today an iconic marker of territorial boundary and political division. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, it signified the border between West and East, Capitalism and Communism, freedom and confinement."

"The Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), completed in 1905, is Berlin’s largest and most important Protestant church as well as the sepulchre of the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty."

Craig posing in front of the part of the wall that is still standing.

These 10 dollar sandals from Payless have been all across the western United States and now in 5 countries of Europe. Unfortunately, they finally gave out. Here is a picture of Craig trying to duct tape my sandal back together on the sidewalk in Berlin.

Unfortunately, the duct tape on my sandal rubbed a horrible blister on my toe. So, we decided to duct tape my toe as well. Oh, and this is the only picture you will see of me on this trip because I was also sporting a horrible infection on my nose which I don't care to remember in the future through photos :). I am sure I was a sight to see.

That's one way to grill :)

A great "Birthday Boy" dinner at the Beer Festival.

This picture was taken inside a building on Potsdamer Platz.

Lego sculpture of Albert Einstein. Pretty impressive.

KaDeWe is a department store.

"Berlin’s most famous trademark department store is KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) – or department store of the West. It is the legendary, largest department store on the continent."

It is seven stories tall and has every brand imaginable including the really expensive (Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, etc.)

Yep, still in Berlin! We were taking a shortcut through the park.

We actually had no idea what this building was when we took a picture of it. After doing some research on berlin.de, here is what we have learned:

"Berlin’s Siegessäule - Victory Column - is another of Berlin’s monuments that has reinvented itself through the ages - from symbol of Prussian military victory in the 19th century to that of Berlin’s thriving gay community and favourite tourist spot today. Berlin’s gay city listings magazine is called Siegessäule and yearly events such as Christopher Street Day and the Techno Love Parade have culminated here. As US Presidential candidate, Barack Obama chose the Siegessäule as the alternative spot to the Brandenburg Gate for his speech to 200,000 Berliners on July 24, 2008."

On the train back to Leipzig.

**We hope that you have enjoyed looking at our pictures! Once again, to learn more about Berlin, visit berlin.de. If you have any questions please post them! We love to hear from our family and friends :).