ich bin ein berliner too!

Day 2 and we are all set to go on a free tour of Berlin but yet again we are running late. We get to the met stop just in time to see our metro go past. James kicks a bollard and I stifle a giggle, southerners are funny when they are angry heehee! All is not lost as we realise we are still in time for the free Alternative Tour which explains the meaning behind some of Berlin's street art and provides facts that you wouldn't hear on a normal tour. It was a good tour (especially for free) but we felt cheated when it was explained that street art is usually painted on to paper and then pasted on the walls to save time and reduce the risk of  getting caught by the graffiti police, grow some balls Berliners!

                

Little Lucy - different ways
to kill a cat

Street art outside the
 Anne Frank museum

Owls and dogs

We walked along the East Side Gallery, looking at all of the brilliant artwork  on the longest strip of the remaining wall. My favourite was the Pink Floyd art obviously!

All this walking has made us thirsty so we find a cool bar to chill out in and look forward to our trip to the top of the Reichstag later...oh wait...we're running late again! We get to the building just as the door is being closed, doh. Maybe the lady will let us in on the next tour if we're lucky? 20 minutes later and a few smirky looks from the security guards we decide to give up. Walking around the corner we see the actual Reichstag, we'd been waiting at the wrong building. For those who have seen the Reichstag you know that it is impossible to mix it up with any other building but we somehow managed it. No bollard kicking from James this time though.

The next day we have a stroll down the Ku Damm Avenue and then make our way to the memorial on Bernauer Street. The houses on this street were the border houses which were used as escape routes through the wall. Once this was discovered the first few floors of the buildings had the doors and windows bricked up forcing people to move. We watched some footage of people jumping from higher floors into the street below which just shows how desperate they were to escape. Upsetting stuff.

Next to the memorial was one of the remaining watchtowers which was still in between both sides of the wall so we got a peek of 'no mans land'.

 It was then time for our turn to visit the Reichstag (the actual one) which is a very impressive building with great views of Berlin.

Inside

Outside

Inside out

We've heard that Berlin has a great nightlife so we find a very cool bar called Kptn which is full of locals, perfect! After that we moved on to a bar called Kunsliche Beatmung, heehee silly German name. We wish we could stay for longer but Munich beckons.

Berlin is awesome.