Gütentag! I'm not sure that is the exact spelling, but I really wanted to use one of the unusual keyboard keys. Berlin is absolutely beautiful and after only a few hours started to feel very familiar. Today I even found myself giving directions to some lost tourists. I had the misfortune of learning the city extensively as I wandered around looking for the East Side Wall Galler yesterday. By the time I figured out where it was I had to head off to meet Jerry and Nickolas at the Pub across from the hostel. I will be heading over to the Gallery first thing tomorrow though before I head to the Philharmonic and Musical Instrument Museum. I should point out that I have been saying 'I' versus 'we' because I have only seen Krista for breakfast the last two days. She has been going on some guided tours to see the sights and I have been going it on my own with AudioGuides. I have found in previous cities that I HATE guided tours because you hurry from place to place and then at each location you pause in a large group of people while your tour guide tells you something and then you are hurrying off again. It makes picture taking very very hard, not to mention... I teach WWII in 5th grade American History and in 6th Grade World History. We spend a lot of time discussing Berlin. However I also must admit that Krista got one interesting fact that I didn't know. Apparently the hotel that sits next to the Brandenburg Gate is the hotel where Michael Jackson held the baby over the balcony. I did see the hotel but just didn't know its current historical value.

I should probably mention that we went to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was interesting and kind of depressing. It reallz gave an erie (I probably misspelled that too, but I'm tired) as you take the iconic march from the S-bahn down to the concentration camps gates. It was also really disturbing to stand in the roll call areas. I saw the execution trenches but couldn't bring myself to actually walk down into them.

On a more upbeat note to end this off... I had currywurst for dinner. It is basically a brat with curry powder and curry ketchup. I got fries with mine and they top the fries here with Mayo! It was definately my kind of dinner! Well I should probably go get my CLEAN laundry all packed up so we can move on tomorrow night towards Stockholm.

Love,

Jennifer