Bye-Bye Berlin

Well, we had a really great time in Berlin. Staying in East Berlin was definitely interesting. As Rick Steves says 'Graffiti is just their way of saying hello!' There was a noticeable difference visually between East and West Berlin, but all in all Berlin is just a big city. Coming back home makes Munich feel like a small town. Unfortunately, I did manage to lose my sketchbook while I was there - I tried really hard to explain to the people at the photography museum in my extremely broken German that 'Yesterday I had a bag with a paper book and 5 pen. Today I have not a bag' but, alas, no luck - a real bummer. Before Kyle arrived I visited several museums including the Bauhaus Archive Museum which was really good to see. They're actually planning on majorly expanding in 2010. Berlin is definitely in a building boom!
We visited the Jewish History Museum which was designed by Libeskind, the architect who won the original site plan for the World Trade Center site (which has been much changed since his original plans, and not necessarily for the better). The photo above is of the stairway.
We also visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The information center below the site was quite moving and sobering as they had many personal family accounts representing what had happened. The photo below is of Kyle in the Memorial - it can be quite disorienting when you're walking on an uneven surface among all of the stelae, some quite tall.
We also visited this wonderful chocolate shop that has over 250 kinds of chocolate truffles, pralines, and other assorted yummies. I had a really hard time deciding which few to get. And those that I did buy didn't last long!
Meanwhile, Christmas season has started to appear in Berlin. In Potsdamer Platz there was a huge artifical snow hill which we slid down on innertubes, with some tasty gluhwein (spiced warm wine perfect for the holidays) at the bottom of the hill. Though I was hesatint to go up at first, it was quite fun!