Berlin is nothing like I expected. There's not really that much evidence of the WWII destruction, it's been rebuilt almost completely. The buildings are a combination of old and new, with a lot of modern architecture. It's also a lot flatter and wider than I expected, there are only a handful of tall buildings, none of which are true skyscrapers. This city easily cracks my top 5 favorite cities, and I hope I haven't said that five times yet. Regardless, so far this is the city I would most want to live in, it's very clean, cheap, and alive. The Germans were very friendly everywhere we went in Berlin, maybe even nicer than the other places we've gone in Germany. Nathan said that he liked the Checkpoint Charlie area and he was right, it was one of the best exhibits we've seen, there was a lot to read and it was very detailed. We've probably soaked up more history lessons here than anywhere else, partly because of an eight hour walking tour we took the first day in the city. Tours aren't something we take very often due to money, but this one was definitely worth it, everywhere we went the guide explained the history behind the buildings which makes the sights much more interesting. We hit another jackpot with free museums, because all the museums are free on Thursdays after six, so we went to one of the expensive ancient history museums for free. Great decision, because I saw the best single exhibit I've ever seen in a museum; they have the actual gates of Babylon, from 700 BC. The gates are all blue with engravings, very well preserved, and are almost 50 feet high, and keep in mind this is inside a museum. They are absolutely huge and they have a lot of the original walls too which line the hallways The museum also had the entire front portion of a temple from Pergammon, which was also huge but not as impressive after seeing the Babylon gates.