Berlin

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Thursday, June 5 we're off from Dresden to the Berlin Airport where we'll stay overnight and fly out the next day for Glasgow. Chris, our No. 1 son, has a meeting in Berlin and has kindly agreed to drive us. It's about a 2hr drive on the A13. We had arranged a bus service, that would go directly to the airport, but it's far nicer to be chauffeured. It's also an opportunity to spend more time with Chris.

Chris has a Volkswagen electric car; a company car. It's modern, new, fast and a comfortable ride on the motorway to Berlin. Chris demonstrates how fast the car will cruise on roads where there is no speed limit. I recall riding with Martin around Frankfurt/Nierstein and him demonstrating the same. 

We arrive at the airport around noon, Chris heads off to his meeting and we drop our luggage at the IntercityHotel Berlin Airport. It's too early to check in but they stow our bags awa. Kate persuades me that we ought to take the train into the city center and see some of the sights.

Kate has been to Berlin several times over the years to GENACIS meetings. I had always refused to go — work and winter travel got in the way. She has fond memories of the city and thinks I ought to see some of it while we're here. There's also a scheduled KBS in 2027 so we might be back.

We find our way to the underground train station (Flughafen BER) and struggle with the ticketing machine. We get some help from some UK travellers and we all have a chuckle, after getting our tickets, to discover that there's an option on the screen to set the language! And of course nobody looks at our tickets getting on, off or during the 20-30 minute ride there and back. I guess it's really just an honor system.

At the Berlin Central Station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof) we find a cafe on the square (Washington Platz) for Kate to hunker down and wait for me as I explore the city with the Brandenberg Gates as my destination. Around the train station, and across the river, there's lots of very modern archictecture with the occasional bit that survived the war and/or has been rebuilt after the war. There's also quite a bit of green space and many government buildings.

It's a reasonable walk I have planned; about 20 minutes or so each way. I pass by Capitol Beach on the Spree River where beach chairs line the water and folks soak up the sun (there's no beach proper); there are largeish boats cruising the river; the Reichstag Building (Reichstagsgebäude, the German Parliament) is an impressive older turn of the century building (where the Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire to stage their coup); and likewise the Brandenberg Gates is also a turn of the century structure.

Nearby is a monument to the Jews killed by the Nazis in WWII. It's a park of about a city blook that looks like a unadorned graveyard of tightly packed simple bare mausoleums. Quite impressive. On the way wandering back I bump into a Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. That's in the Tiergarten across from the Brandenburg gates. These gardens are quite wooded with quiet lanes to wander. I bump into a statue to Goethe (1749–1832 what do I know about German literature) and another of a lioness that has been killed, while the male lion stands over her protecting her body and baby cubs wrapped around her.

Back at the airport, we get checked into our hotel and have a dinner with Chris before he heads back to Dresden. We fly out to Glasgow tomorrow.

It was a real treat to visit Chris, Amy and their children in Dresden. We hope to see them again, they are kind generous family for us.