Our Adventures in the South: Adventures Elsewhere

Last month, Newel and I went on a really, really, REALLY great trip to Europe. When we were there, we took A LOT of photos (1302 to be exact) and I kept a journal (really just notes I wrote on the backs of hotel reservations and maps/directions to places we were going in case the GPS wasn't working). My next few posts will be about the vacation which will really just be pictures and notes I took. Hope y'all enjoy. :)

We first landed in Frankfurt, had a short layover, then flew to Berlin. Here we are in the Frankfurt Airport about 9:30 AM their time, 2:30AM our time. Can you tell how tired we were? :)

At the airport, I kept thinking, this is the first step I've take in Europe, this is the first toilet I've used in Europe, etc. I just wanted to take everything in, and I couldn't believe we were finally there. I had my first European breakfast sandwich and it was incredible. Maybe I was just really hungry but everything about it was perfect. The freshly baked bread, the cheese, the meat, tomato and cucumber; so YUM. Okay, enough about the food. I think I'll write a separate post about the food. Then I won't get distracted from what we actually did which was way more interesting.

Once we got to Berlin, we rented a car and drove to our hotel which was close to everything we wanted to see. Newel did a really great job with researching the location of all the hotels we booked so we didn't have to do much driving/parking around the city. Anyway, the first thing we did was walk over to the Reichstag - a historical building that housed the Imperial Diet of the German Empire from 1894-1933.

Then we went to the Brandenburg Gate which is a former city gate turned Neoclassical triumphal arch and probably Berlin's most famous landmark.

Then we walked through the Tiergarten which I would compare to Central Park in Manhattan. It was a really big and beautiful park filled with green trees, people walking, running, riding bikes, and/or hanging out with friends/family. No people are in this picture but look how pretty it is!

Then we climbed to the top of the Siegessäule which is the Berlin Victory Column commemorating the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War. At the top, you get a really amazing view of all of Berlin.

From the top looking down the street.

After doing all of this, and having not rested from the flight, we were so beat and headed back to our hotel to sleep. The next morning we went to the Berlin Wall Memorial which ended up being one of our favorite parts of Berlin. It was really cool to see parts of the old wall and to think about what it meant for/how it affected the German people. The Berlin Wall ran just along a street right through the city, separating friends and family, dividing the country from 1961 to 1989.