Berlin, Germany

Easter Weekend we headed out and drove to Berlin. Since my dad and Dorinda had just flown in that morning it was a great way to keep them awake so they could acclamate to our time zone (at least that is what we told them :) ). Berlin was fasinating. The buildings weren't your typical European style. The city was basically destroyed in the war so everything was rebuilt and looks very modern.
Our first day we explored the zoo. We were told Berlin Zoo was the most amazing zoo in Europe. Well, since we've only been to two zoo's since being here we can't say yes or no but we can say the zoo was pretty cool. It's home to a famous polar bear named Knut. There was also a very cute Panda Bear. After the zoo we ventured to an church still standing that was bombed during the war. That was pretty impressive to see. From the Church we headed to see the Berlin Wall. There were sections of it still up around the city so we wanted to see it up close. The history behind the wall still amazes me and I'm glad we got to see it. The section we looked at they had kept exactly how the wall originated. We climbed a tower so we could overlook the wall to see how it all worked.
Our next stop was Check Point Charlie. Check Point Charlie wasn't what I had imagined but still pretty impressive. From Check Point Charlie we were making our way to the Brandenburg Gate when we came across a Holocaust Memorial. That was so neat. It looked like a bunch of cement squares but they were in different heights. The kids enjoyed wondering through them trying to find each other.
The Brandenburg Gate was our last stop for the day. It was very impressive. Along our walk we could see a line of brick going through the street, park, sidewalk really everywhere. Later we read the brick was where the Berlin Wall use to be. They have replaced the outline with brick so we could always remember what happened there. I thought that was a great memorial.
Day 2 in Berlin we hopped on the train and went to a concentration camp called Sachsenhausen. What a solemn experience. It is hard to put in to words the feeling that came over me during our visit. A huge pit was in my stomach the entire time. As we walked around we learned this concentration camp was one of the first and all other concentration camps were patterned after it. We also learned that once the Russians took over that part of Berlin they continued using the concentration camp and killing Germans. Horrible, horrible stuff happened between those walls. Everyone should visit a concentration camp at least one time in their life.
From the concentration camp we headed back to Berlin to see the last thing on our list, the parliament building. It had a huge glass dome on top which you could go up and have a great view of Berlin. It was a fantastic view and you could also look through glass and see where the parliament meet. At the top of the dome was open and rain or snow could come through. We found this very fasinating and the kids loved laying down and looking up to the sky.
Day 3 found us back on the road heading home. We loved Berlin and would place it up pretty high on our must do list.