Since I can't put all my pictures up on the blog ... I thought I would combine a couple ... The day we came home (Saturday), we only had about a half day to do anything before our train trek back to the airport ... so, I took the kids to Legoland while Darren went back to get the suitcase and backpack from the hotel. Legoland in Berlin is NOT an amusement park ... It would be great for YOUNG children, but my kids were only really impressed with the lego miniture of Berlin... Below is Checkpoint Charlie. We did visit the real Checkpoint Charlie and the neat museum that goes with it ... but, we visited at night, so we didn't get fabulous pictures ... so, here is a view of Checkpoint Charlie ...
On Friday (yes, I know the order is all messed up and not in chronilogical order! I still haven't perfected putting the pictures in the blog in the right order..), we went to a couple of museums. Darren's favorite museum, by far, was the Pergamon museum. When he and I visited Pergamon in Izmir, Turkey on our cruise, our guide kept telling us that, "HERE is the place that the temple of Zeus once stood, but it is now in a museum in Berlin, and you MUST go and see it". So, we did. I have to admit, it was still just as impressive ... but, I liked the sunshine and wildflowers and pillars in Turkey just as well ...
We started our touring on Thursday ... We began at the Brandenburg Gate, and wandered from site to site from there ... The Brandenburg Gate had once had the Wall in front of it, and it was a famous site for the day in 1989 when the wall came down. It is also the place where the trucks first rolled through, after the blockade ended in 1949 ...
We started our touring on Thursday ... We began at the Brandenburg Gate, and wandered from site to site from there ... The Brandenburg Gate had once had the Wall in front of it, and it was a famous site for the day in 1989 when the wall came down. It is also the place where the trucks first rolled through, after the blockade ended in 1949 ... After seeing the gate, we went over to the capital building (Reichtag) to see the cool mirrored funnel thingy inside ... that was neat...
Thursday we spent a lot of time trying to see sites that were important to Shelby's National History Day project that she is working on. This year, she and a friend are doing a documentary on Gail Halvorsen, the Berlin Candy Bomber. He was one of the pilots during the Berlin airlift. He had talked with some German children at a fence by the airstrip, and was so impressed that they only asked for flour. He have them the 2 sticks of gum that he had in his pocket, and then promised to drop more from his plane. He "wiggled" his wings so they would know it was his plane, then they dropped chocolate and gum in parachutes made from handkerchiefs. Anyway ... on Thursday, we went to the Allied museum (which had a nice display about Mr. Halvorsen), saw monument given to the city of Berlin from the United States (below), went to Checkpoint Charlie, and to a part of the Wall that is still standing... It was a long day, with lots of walking ... but, seeing all the information about the airlift and the blockade, and the Wall, made me very Thankful to be an American and to be able to enjoy the freedoms that we do.
Thursday we spent a lot of time trying to see sites that were important to Shelby's National History Day project that she is working on. This year, she and a friend are doing a documentary on Gail Halvorsen, the Berlin Candy Bomber. He was one of the pilots during the Berlin airlift. He had talked with some German children at a fence by the airstrip, and was so impressed that they only asked for flour. He have them the 2 sticks of gum that he had in his pocket, and then promised to drop more from his plane. He "wiggled" his wings so they would know it was his plane, then they dropped chocolate and gum in parachutes made from handkerchiefs. Anyway ... on Thursday, we went to the Allied museum (which had a nice display about Mr. Halvorsen), saw monument given to the city of Berlin from the United States (below), went to Checkpoint Charlie, and to a part of the Wall that is still standing... It was a long day, with lots of walking ... but, seeing all the information about the airlift and the blockade, and the Wall, made me very Thankful to be an American and to be able to enjoy the freedoms that we do.
