Berlin, Berlin

Here at last! The flight was cosy and we arrived at the Berlin-Tegel Airport in time. We've been walking around the East side of the city today, spotting the most important landmarks and places there are. Must remember that this trip is an educative one, so we naturally have our official program like getting familiar with the history of Berlin and Germany, and of course using the German language in practise - jawohl!

It was strange to walk the tiles which mark the place where the Berlin Wall once lied. It was there just 22 years ago, when there were two Germanies and the Cold War. Since the Berlin Wall was broken on November 9th 1989, there were 360 concrete rectangles cut off the wall and sold around the world. Only four single units of that numbered series are still in Berlin, standing as a remembrance at the Potsdamer Platz where they were built to stand in 1961.

We naturally went seeing the Brandenburg Gate which Napoleon once marched through. The Brandenburg Gate stood on the border of West Germany and DDR, on the no-man's land, so nobody was able to go near it for about 40 years until the Berlin Wall was broken. The Gate is one must-see thing in Berlin, I think.

We also went seeing the Berlin Fernsehturm (TV Tower), which lies on the East side and rises over every rooftop in Berlin. As a 368 m tall building it is the fourth tallest freestanding structure in Europe, I heard. We'll also go up it later.