Berlin - Part I

I was a bit disappointed with Berlin the first couple of days and quite whinny!  I feel bad that Aman had to put up with me!    It just reminded me of a big city, like NYC w/o it being as interesting. Plus it was such a huge city and not really walkable. Of course I was spoiled by all the gorgeous architecture in Cambridge and Amsterdam. 

But I started to appreciate the city when we did a walking tour.  I finally saw the old European buildings I expected.  I knew the basics of history with the World Wars and Nazi era but having it presented during the tour made me appreciate that a majority of city HAD to be rebuilt as it was bombed multiple times! 

We started the tour at the Brandenburg gate.  This is at Paris Platz.  After Napoleon's was defeated and during the Prussian occupation of Paris, the gate was a Prussian triumphal arch; the goddess, now Victoria, was equipped with the Prussian eagle and Iron Cross on her lance with a wreath of oak leaves

Around the corner is the memorial to the murdered Jewish people of Europe.  It is a 4.7-acre site covered with 2,711 concrete  slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The designer did not explain his vision of the monument, the visitor is to draw their own conclusion.

Back in the day this used to be Berlin university and before the Nazi era Einstein taught here.  Now it is the law school of Humboldt University.  This was one of the squares where the Nazi book burning took place. 

Now there is a memorial where a glass plate is set into the cobble stones, giving a view of empty bookcases It is meant to be big enough to hold the total of the 20,000 books burnt burnt by the Nazis.  There is a quote from Heinrich Heine engraved on a plaque that says  (1821), is engraved on a plaque inset in the square: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." I looked this up in Wikipedia as I only remembered the English translation which is : "That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."  This was said in 1821!  Students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year to mark the anniversary.

One of the museum's at Museum Island.  We didn't go to this particular museum but it was a lovely building!

On the way back from the museum (I think) Ama saw a bit of a reminder of home and was quite excited about it...

This is currywurst.  First time was at a cafe and we later realized completely overpriced.  It's a sausage with a tomato type sauce and the fries are sprinkled with curry powder.  I wasn't a huge fan of the sausage.  It reminded me of a chicken sausage.  We later tried it at street stand much cheaper, tasted loads better, but the same sausage so I still wasn't a huge fan.  But bratwurst...now that was delicious!