Berlin

Well, here I am in Berlin!

It is 8 hours ahead here. The 8 of us went our separate ways. Greg F, Greg T and Ross went to Amsterdam to do drugs and pick up chicks; Jeff flew toWinnipeg; John went to Dublin and spent his birthday and St. Patrick's day day ion a pub; Sue and Guy went to Greece for their honeymoon and Kristin and Alex flew to London to visit family.
As for me, I hopped a train to Berlin.

I am staying in a really nice hostel in what used to be East Berlin. I got in yesterday evening on a high speed Eurorail train from Hamburg.

My hostel room!

The city is very easy to get around in, they have an excellent underground subway, above ground subway and bus system. I managed to navigate a Eurorail change as well as an underground change to my hostel with relative ease.

There are restaurants and take-out food stands everywhere and with so much competition between them you can eat a very good meal for 3-4 euros...lots of great food!

Berlin is fascinating! I wish I could have been here 15 years ago before the wall came down, or even 5 years ago for that matter! The rate for restoration, renovation and the buildings going up is unbelievable! I would imagine the debt run up is enormous.

You can look at pictures of what the street looked like, even a few years ago and they are unrecognisable.

I can walk around the corner from my hostel and since they are just beginning to restore the buildings here you can fine many examples of beautiful looking building right  next to buildings with bullet holes and bomb damage from WW2...a really fascinating contrast that won't be around for long.

Restored building on the right, WW2 damaged building on the left.

I went on walking tour of Berlin today. I had a great time! The guide grew up in London and went to work for the British embassy in Berlin in the 1950's...he has spent most of his life in Berlin and has seen all the changes first hand. He was a walking history book and told great stories about his life in Berlin over the last 60 years.

Remains of the Berlin wall...people pick away the cement...it's down to the re-bar!

Tomorrow I am going to checkout checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish museum and climb the tower at the parliament building.

I should probably figure out where I want to travel to next and try to book a hostel. I think I will head for the Rhine river...perhaps Bacharach or Heidelberg..Stay tuned!