A Trip to Berlin

Last Wednesday I boarded a flight to Berlin, Germany -- perhaps the most historically significant city in the last hundred years. I was asked by the German teacher at St. James, a fella named Stuart Bridge, to accompany him on the trip and help look after the 12 students that were going. We arrived in Berlin at about 1 p.m. local time and promptly proceeded to a walking tour of the city. It was incredible to see Berlin and how the city had been affected by WWII and the Cold War. The first structure we saw was the Cathedral of Berlin ...

Next we saw the famous Brandenburg Gate, which was built in 1791 to serve as the symbolic end of the city of Berlin and the beginning of the German countryside. The German royalty would ride through these gates on their way to hunting excursions in the Tiergarten ...

Next we walked down Karl Marx Alley and ended up at Bebelplatz, which is quite a beautiful square in the city center but is probably most famous for being the location of many of the Nazi book burnings that were held in Berlin. The Nazi party wanted to have them here because the square is adjacent to Humboldt University, one of the best schools in Germany ...

We then spent some time at an untitled memorial for the deceased Jewish people from the Nazi era. The artist who was commissioned for the project did not leave a plaque explaining the design -- the goal being to leave it open for individual interpretation ...

We finished our tour at a still-standing portion of the Berlin Wall and learned about the many attempts made to cross it. The wall was 3.6 meters tall (or about 12 feet) ...

The following days were filled with museums and visits to other historical sites. Including the Victory Column, which was constructed in 1873 to commemorate the thrashings of the French, Danish, and Austrian armies in the many campaigns of the Prussian empire ...

 

A few of the St. James lads and I climbed the many stairs to the top of the 67-meter tower and were able to capture some amazing views of the city ...

 Of course I took a selfie at the top of this scenic monument ...

We exited the Victory Column and walked through some of the Tiergarten, which has been converted over the centuries from a royal hunting ground to a beautiful park. One of the kids I was chaperoning wanted to sneak into the picture -- so that's James below.

Later that night the St. James legion went bowling. The bowling alley was interesting -- almost like a nightclub. The manager hopped on some DJ decks and started mixing some pretty solid jams. I was impressed.

On our way back to the hotel I found a fairly blunt sign outside of a local pub ...

 

On our final night in Berlin we took the crew to a traditional German restaurant and fed them pork schnitzel, which was incredible ...

On the first day in Berlin I made a deal with one of the students, Caellum, to get a pretzel at every street shop we could find. Here we are at the airport with our last pretzels of the trip ...

I had some time to kill between seeing the boys off on their flight back to London and hopping on my train to Munich, so I stopped for dinner near the station. There was no room inside, so I was offered a seat outside with a blanket. Having experienced the cold winters of St. Louis, I happily obliged and took my blanket out into the elements and enjoyed a nice pizza ...

I am currently in Max's apartment in Munich, waiting for him to finish class for the day so he can show me around. We were able to share a meal last night and catch up. He's doing great. Many more adventures wait in the coming week with Max and the city of Munich...