Berlin- Day 1

I added pictures to yesterday's Brussels post so check that out if you want! I'll try to put up pictures for this post tomorrow so you can just read it tomorrow if you want, things will make more sense with pictures.

Today was a great day! The overnight bus ride wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got some sleep and it went by pretty quickly. It was about an hour late so I got to the hostel around noon. I dropped my stuff off then headed out to see the city (Dustin and Alex weren't arriving til later). The weather was just perfect. Nice and warm and very sunny. There were lots of people out enjoying the weather and it was a great atmosphere.

I headed to Unter den Linden, the main street in east Berlin. It's a big wide tree-lined boulevard with lots of shops and stuff. I could see the Brandenburg Gate from where I ate lunch.

View from where I ate lunch (notice Brandenburg Gate) :

After I ate I walked over to see the gate.

Brandenburg Gate:

Then I headed over to the Holocaust Memorial, which is a bunch of grey stone slabs of different sizes. It was pretty cool to walk through, you could get lost in there.

Holocaust Memorial:

From there I walked down Unter den Linden, seeing the sights along the way.

Unter den Linden:

First was Gendarmarkt, which has two big churches (Franzosischer Dom and Deutscher Dom) and a concert house.

Concert House in Gendarmarkt:

Next was Bebalplatz. It has a church (St Hedwigs) and a memorial to a big book burning that took place there. It's a clear square in the middle of the plaza and if you look into it there are a bunch of empty book shelves.

Bebalplatz:

After Bebalplatz Unter den Linden crossed the river and entered into Museum Island. There are a bunch of museums and a lot of grassy areas, and since it was such a nice day a lot of people were out. I went into Berliner Dom, the big cathedral, and it was really incredible. I bought tickets for Dustin and I to go to a Good Friday organ concert tonight.

Berliner Dom:

Then I just sat outside for a while. I bought a giant soft pretzel (they're big here apparently) and just sat and ate it. Quite delightful.

Pretzel:

Lustgarten, where I sat for a while eating that pretzel:

I finally decided it was time to move on and I wandered up to Alexanderplatz, a crazy market thing. There was so much stuff going on there, like market stalls and tourist attractions and a little carnival and stuff.

Alexanderplatz:

Next to Alexanderplatz is a sweet fountain and church, so I sat there for a while too.

Neptune Fountain:

Then I went over to Nikolaiviertel, a pedestrian area with lots of nice little shops and the oldest church in Berlin (Nikolaikirche).

Nikolaivertel:

I decided to go back to the hostel after that to shower and wait for Dustin. He got here at about 5, so we went right to the service. I didn't really know what to expect but it was pretty cool. There was a guy and he read (in German, so we didn't really know what was going on) parts of the crucifixtion story, then after each part a piece would be played on the organ that was kind of like a musical score for the story. It was pretty awesome to see that kind of thing in a cathedral like that (see pictures above).

Then we wandered back down Unter den Linden, saw the Brandenburg Gate at sunset, and got some dinner.

Sunset behind Brandenburg Gate:

We went back to the hostel after that which is where we are now, and Alex just got here so we're going to plan tomorrow.