Berlin

After a 2-day stay in Poland, we came through Germany again, this time stopping in Berlin for a few days.  In the more orderly north Germany, we appreciated the expansive public transit system and made heavy use of the S-bahn and U-bahn trains.  During our stay there, we took a walking tour (one of our favorite things to do in each city we've visited), toured an underground nuclear bunker, learned about Germany's history at the Deutsch Historisches Museum, and surprisingly ran into two of my college friends!

The Brandenburg Gate - after Napoleon's defeat, the goddess on top was changed to Victoria and the square was named after Paris so that this monument could represent "Victory over Paris"

A remnant of the Berlin Wall that was never destroyed - where the wall was taken down elsewhere in the city there is a path of inlaid stone showing where it ran

This is a glimpse of the haunting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  As with most of the WW2 and Holocaust memorials, it is a solemn place, but I couldn't help but be annoyed by visitors eating ice cream on the memorial and jumping from stone to stone. 

What are the chances that we would come across two people in Europe that we know by sheer chance?  I saw Jason and Meagan Deaner at the German history museum and we got dinner together afterwards.