Berlin, again.

Yesterday, we went to Berlin again. My neighbor's friend was visiting from Denmark, so we did largely the same things, but with some slight changes.
We started off the day visiting the East Side Gallery. In 1990 artists painted things on the Wall, and they remain to this day. I assumed that it would be a fairly small piece remaining, but I would estimate that it is about a mile or so long, maybe longer.
After that, we went to the Fernsehturm (Television Tower). It is the tallest structure in Germany and is used to broadcast all kinds of signals. One can somehow get up to the ball, which slowly revolves. I didn't bother to do that because it costs €10.50 (About $13, at this point). After that, we went to the Pergamon Museum. Due to the late 19th century and early 20th century being what they were, Germany came into the possession of a lot of stuff that you would assume would be in a museum somewhere else.

For instance, this is the Ishtar Gate, once a part of ancient Babylon. The entire gate is far too large to be displayed inside of a gigantic building like the Pergamon, so the rest of it is stored in boxes somewhere. This is just the inside, smaller part of it, and it is about 50ft tall. The constraints of the building and a camera's ability to take pictures make it nearly impossible to get it in one photo. I suppose that you will just have to go there and see it yourself.
In addition to the Ishtar Gate, this museum also has the former market gate of Miletus.
and the Pergamon Altar
After that, we went down to see Checkpoint Charlie. To get there, you need to go on Unter den Linden. I seem to recall mentioning that I would take a picture of the street when the trees didn't look dead, so here it is.

I didn't notice the McDonald's in the background until I put the pictures on my computer. I feel that it is somewhat fitting for the American sector's most famous attraction to have a McDonald's at it.
Instead of being at the Brandenburg Gate at sunrise, this time we were there at sunset. I figured the time change deserved another picture. After that, we were all pretty dead, so we took a quick stop over to Potsdamer Platz and then home. I thought that I took some pictures of buildings at Potsdamer Platz, but I seem not to have done so. It is more impressive than pictures can display, so I suppose that it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. I will just try to explain it, so that you can imagine the effect. There are a lot of really tall, new buildings in a fairly small area. We were also there after sunset, so maybe that makes it more impressive. There is also the Sony center, which is basically a circle lined with stores and restaurants and stuff and a big courtyard in the middle. There is a big fancy looking roof on top of it, on which they had bright colors displayed. After that, we took the next train home, and went to bed. 1:30 isn't a terribly pleasant time to go to sleep at when you have woken up at 5:30, but it works.

In other news, life is going pretty well. One of the bad parts of primarily having one teacher, is that you get bored of always going to class with them. One of the good parts is that, when the professor is sick, you get to miss all of your classes. As a result of that (and a holiday last week) I only had class on Thursday last week. This week, I will have basically the same schedule, but with one class tomorrow morning, since she is still sick. I feel bad for her that she is so sick that she needs to miss two weeks of school, but, at the same time, that is not stopping me from enjoying my time off. This doesn't really mean that I am doing anything important with my free time. My goal this week is to both start and finish my presentation that I will have to give on the U.S. Congress for English class. Since I don't actually present that until the middle of July, I feel that the odds of it getting finished are slim, but I am going to try. Also, I intend to continue my jogging regimen that I have started (going for about half an hour two or three times a week. Maybe I can use my free time to improve that.) Prior to beginning that, I definitely felt that I was much less active here than I have been in the past. Hopefully that will help. I don't feel that I am forgetting anything, but I probably am. Let me know if I forgot something important and I will try to change that. Gute Nacht Euch. Marc.