My new favorite city: Berlin!!
I took a very spontanious- and solo- trip to Berlin for 3 nights and it was possibly the best trip and the most wonderful city yet. As an avid German history enthusiast I instantly fell in love with Berlin, as it is pretty much the Rome of German history.

I arrived around 4, checked in at the hostel, and then went immediately to the Reichstag. I'm going to restrain the history geek in me right now, or this blog will become way too long. The Reichstag is the parliament building and it's had a rough history...

You can go up to the roof and get some great views of the city. By the time I made it up, however, the sun had set- so no pics, sorry.

The following day I took a train to Potsdam (about 20 minutes away) to see Sans Souci, which was Frederick the Great's summer palace. The grounds are enormous and the landscaping is world famous. And, as Frederick the Great is one of my favorite historical figures, and I've studied him so much, I got a little emotional. Of all the times I've seen pictures of the palace, to actually be standing there was just amazing.

This is a famous view of the palace- if I had been here in warmer weather the terraces up to the palace would be covered in beautiful flowers and plants.

I spent my third day seeing all the sights in East Berlin. The Soviets lucked out in the division of Berlin after WWII and had most of the big historical sites in their sector.

Here's Brandenburg Gate, as viewed from the east. Again, another site with a tumultuous history.





This is a view down Unter den Linden, a famous street that runs through the former East Berlin.
I so want to break out into a full-fledged historical digression right now. Restraining myself, fear not.

Ok, I'm making an exception here. This is Humboldt University and the square in front of it, on the spot where I'm standing, was where the Nazi's organized a mass burning of over 20,000 books in 1933. Works by people like Einstein...

There is now a window in the ground looking into a room with empty bookshelves as a memorial. Also, next to the window is a plaque quoting Heine who said in 1820, "When you start by burning books, you'll end by burning people" His books were among those burned.

The Berliner Cathedral

Checkpoint Charlie: now filled with ridiculous tourist traps like "Snack Point Charlie" in the background.





This is the "Topography of Terror." It's an exhibit on the Holocaust built on all that remains of the foundation of the SS Headquarters that once stood here. The area where the building stood will always be left as rubble. That is all that remains of the Berlin Wall standing over the exhibit, and the building behind that was the Luftwaffe Headquarters- it managed to survive the war even though everything around it was destroyed.

This was a cathedral that Frederick the Great's father had built. All but this piece was destroyed in the war and they opted to leave it as it is. It's an amazing reminder of how new this city actually is...

The Siegessäule- victory column, on former royal hunting grounds

And here are a few pictures from Munich- I went a couple weekends ago to visit my friends that live there. Every time I go to Munich I try to do/see something new, and this time I climbed to the top of Peterskirche and got some wonderful pictures of the city...

The Frauenkirche- a famous church

The Rathaus..

Such a beautiful city!

And on the 29th I'm leaving for 9 days in Greece!!!