Berlin + 2

Our second day out in Berlin was a busy one. We started off of course by devouring a large European breakfast. After filling up on a primarily carb filled meal, we headed out to the city center. Although we are not really interested in all of the major site seeing areas, Berlin was an exception. We walked down the streets remembering what they are by name association, and arrived at the Brandenburg Tor. This was the gate that divided east and west Berlin. This gate has been around since the 1700's, has been rebuilt and revamped numerous times and had it's statue that rests on top stolen by Napoleon. After walking through the gate to the west side of Berlin, we wandered past some of the older buildings such as the parliament building and city hall. We had a few site seeing goals today, one of which was the holocaust memorial. Not exactly sure what the memorial was, we were surprised to find about a hundred yards of various sized, concrete blocks. These blocks ranged in sizes from two feet high to towering well above our heads. When you entered the memorial, the blocks served as a maze and you would have to keep a watchful eye around the corners. After taking a few pictures we moved on to another must see of Berlin (at least for us), the Bauhaus Archive. The Bauhaus archive housed a variety of different Bauhaus era designs and literature and whatnot. We were supper excited, and were looking for bragging rights for when we see our designer friends back home. When we arrived at the door, there was a sign saying that the archive was closed until July. Unfortunately we couldn't see the archive, but their gift shop was open, so at least we get to say that we stepped inside. After our disappointing Bauhaus archive visit, we made our way to a large park. We were surprised to see that it was Christopher street day, which was the largest gay festival in Berlin. We were surrounded by great food stands where Kristen and I bought a half meter German Bratwurst. We continued down the street and came upon a parade that consisted of open top buses packed with people dancing to loud, booming electronic music. After taking a few interesting pictures, we made our way to museum island. Here we saw the Berliner Dom, which is the Berlin Cathedral. It was an amazing cathedral with details in every corner, and a giant dome in the middle. Upon exiting the cathedral, we realized just how much we walked and how exhausted we were, so we decided to make our way back to the hotel. We capped off our night with a nice Italian dinner in Alexander plaza and a couple bottles of German beers for our way back to the hotel.