October 12 – Last Day in Berlin

October 12, 2016 – Last Day in Berlin
Carol and I split up for the morning, She went to the Zoo while I went to the former East Berlin railway border crossing now a museum. It is called the Palace of Tears because so many East Berliners were turned down in their request to go into West Berlin. It was a very emotional visit.
Next I went to the Ampelmann store. The man on crosswalks is different than in the US. He wears a hat and it is very obvious what he wants you to do. This store is only Ampelmann souvenirs like tee shirts, pencils, napkins, cups, sponges, key chains, and more. I bought a safety vest to wear when walking at night.
Finally, I went to the Kaiser Wilhelm church and memorial. The part of the church which is intact has gorgeous fresco paintings and tile floors. The new church/memorial has blue glass squares covering all the walls.
Carol and I met up at noon and after lunch at a place called The Butcher, we went to the German History Museum. This museum covers German History from the 1100’s to today. It would take more than a day to see it all so we rushed through the first 8 centuries and spent most of the time in the sections on the 20th century. The special exhibit was on immigrants in Germany.
We got back and paid off our hotel bills to speed things up in the morning. Carol has a taxi coming at 4:30am and I have one at 6:30am .
We had one last dinner together at a Vietnamese restaurant.
It was great having this part of the trip with a good friend.
No blog tomorrow. I’ll try to do a recap in a few days.
Thanks for following me. Next trip is the Holland America Grand South America cruise starting January 2017. More info on that in December,