Christmas in Berlin: Tuesday - The Berlin I Remember

On Tuesday I'd arranged to meet my parents early at Brandenburger Tor for a day of sightseeing. The first place we headed was the Reichstag. Because we arrived there early we beat the queues and were inside within 10minutes. We took a lift up to the roof and then walked up inside the dome getting a full 360 view of the city. The view of the city was amazing and the dome itself, stunning:


Also on the roof, next to the dome was a rather nice, although inevitably expensive cafe where we had a morning cup of tea. It was nice to just sit and chat with my parents, even if a large amount of it was about me getting a job. I also realised that I had the same feeling of awe about the city which I had felt back in February when my sister brought me here for Berlinale. That's not to say I don't find living here a blast, because I do, but I just haven't experienced the same feeling of being blown away by it all.

After the Reichstag the next stop was the Jewish memorial. This is a collection of various sized slabs on stone, which essentially gives it the feel of a graveyard. Below the memorial is a museum about the Holocaust. In one of the rooms it gives the estimated numbers of Jews killed from various countries, some of which are just astonishing.

Next, after walking past the British Embassy (I really need to go there with my passport at some point so I can see the inside) we headed to Checkpoint Charlie and from there towards Potsdamer Platz. On the way to Potsdamer Platz we stumbled across the 'Topography des Terrors' (Topography of Terror). There was a small section of wall but teh main part of the outdoor 'exhibit' was the information about the old SS headquarters that previously stood in the square but had been demolished and nothing had even been built over it.