Berlin Trip

Six hours, including one twenty minute gas, bathroom and dinner stop and we were in Berlin. We called our Landlord and he let us into the apartment building courtyard to park and gave us a tour through the apartment.

Thurs van

It was great. We found it on Homeaway.com and it fit our family and the Chugg family perfectly. 5 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, a Huge Living Room with super long leather couches, a big table, a little kitchen and four additional rollaway beds to fit 4 adults and 11 kids with room to spare. It was a great find. We brought in all our luggage, picked our rooms, put our groceries in the kitchen, got the little kids to bed, played some Dominion and went to bed late.

Friday morning we slept in, ate breakfast and got ready while Chris and Jared went off in search of Welcome Transit passes for our weekend in Berlin. When they got back we loaded up the strollers and walked down the street to the bus stop. The bus took us to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof… the main Train Station. The transit system in Berlin – with an S line and a U line -- was a little tricky to figure out. We made a couple of mistakes, got squished in the door a couple times trying to get all 15 of us in and got separated once but the guys did a great job getting our big group from place to place amid the chaos.

The Berlin Hauptbahnhof…

Waiting for our train…

Our First stop was Checkpoint Charlie… the famous border checkpoint between the American and Soviet sectors. The men here are dressed up as American’s just to re-create the scene.

The Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie was fascinating. A whole museum dedicated to stories of East Berliners who escaped over, under or through the Berlin Wall into West Berlin. We had spent several family nights learning about the end of World War II, the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. We watched History Channel segments on YouTube. We found pictures. We drew out maps to explain it (to me first) and then the kids. We even made a timeline of events… which Katie redid so that it would be neater. She and Emily then memorized all of the dates for each major event. One night Chris discussed the difference between Communism and Capitalism. He asked each kid what they wanted to be when they grew up and after they answered he said, “No, you can’t be that you have to be a garbage man… etc.” The kids kept asking really great questions and we had some interesting talks. I really enjoyed the research and the kids did too.

Early in our ‘research’ we were watching live footage of people escaping through the wall… some jumping out of 5 story buildings, some making a run for it through the early erected barbwire…. when Megan leaned over to me and timidly said, “Mom, are we going to try and escape?” The poor girl. I guess we had forgotten to mention that we were studying Berlin HISTORY. She was probably thinking, ‘why the heck are we going on vacation to Berlin? It looks awful!’ Oh, it made me laugh so hard.

Because of our family research the kids already had the foundation to really enjoy this museum. One of the first things we saw was a small car whose engine had been remade so that a small compartment could fit along side it big enough for one body. 55 people were driven across the border to freedom because of that one little car. Another interesting one was two suitcases side by side with the touching sides cut out so that one small woman or child could fit inside. Another lady fit inside a square speaker. When the musician drove his vehicle through the border with the speaker (and his girlfriend inside) the border crossing guy said, “Oh, I like what you have in the back” commenting on his nice speaker and then let him through. The musician nearly had a heart attack. Also on display was a homemade armored car and two small homemade flying vehicles. At the end of the museum was a car showing how a woman was literally sewed into the seat of the car to get her through. Everything was really interesting.

No photography was allowed inside but we did take a few pictures outside with a section of the Berlin Wall…

We saw quite a few of the pictures that we had already seen as a family in our research. The kids were excited to spot them. One of them was the one above the kids in the picture above. When the wall was put up (literally in one night) a Father and small son were on the East side of Berlin and the wife/mother was on the other side of Berlin. The man begged the guard to let his son go through to his wife. The guard looked both ways and quickly let him go through. He was seen and replaced immediately. Such a cool picture.

The Berlin Wall… Across the street from the ‘American Sector’ was when we first saw the bricked path showing us the actual placement of the Berlin Wall. Here’s a little ‘Berlin Wall’ review…

When World War II ended the Allies (USA, France, Britain and Russian) divided Germany into two halves, split down the middle by an 855 mile border, to help get Germany back on it’s feet. By 1949, Germany was officially two separate countries. Britain, France and the USA took WEST Germany and was democratic and capitalist. EAST Germany was a socialist state under Soviet control. They divided Berlin exactly the same way. Britain, France and the USA took WEST Berlin and Russia took EAST Berlin.

In 1948, Soviet troops blockaded West Berlin. The allies responded by airlifting food and supplies into the stranded city every three minutes. Amazing.
In 1961 the East Germans erected a 12 foot high concrete wall completely surrounding WEST Berlin… almost over night. The WEST (free democratic run by USA, France and Britain) was completely surrounded by Soviet control. The wall, therefore was built not to keep the WEST Berliners in but to keep the EAST Berliners (and EAST Germans) from getting in.
The wall had a 16 foot tank ditch, a no-man’s land (or death strip”) that was 30 to 160 feet wide, and 300 sentry towers. During the Wall’s 28 years, border guards fired 1,693 times and made 3,221 arrests.
There were 5,043 documented successful escapes (565 of these were East German guards)
On November 9th, 1989, East Germany unexpectedly opened the Berlin Wall
October 3, 1990 was proclaimed German Unification Day, and Berlin re-assumed its status as German capital in 1991… just 10 years ago.

It was pretty exciting to spot The Wall ‘pathway’ wherever we could. We continued down to Wilhelmstrasse to the Topography of Terror where there was a pretty good chunk of wall still visible.

Below this section of the wall was the Topography of Terror… which marks the site of the command center of Hitler’s Gestapo and SS. Because of the horrible things planned here, the rubble of these buildings will always be left as rubble. The SS, Hitler's personal bodyguards, grew to become a state-within a state, with its talons in every corner of German society. Amid the excavated foundation of the building, an exhibit tells the story of National Socialism and its victims in Berlin. It was both fascinating and heart breaking.

While we walked slowly along the wall and read all of the information, the little kids took a Pez break. I bought some new ‘Kung Fu Panda’ ones for this trip… (our vacation Pez collection is growing). ALL the kids think these are pretty great so it was perfect for this outdoor museum.

The City of Bears… Little did we know that Berlin is the city of bears. On our first night our landlord gave us a package of gummy bears and said, “Welcome to the city of Bears”. The symbol of Berlin is the Bear… it’s even on one of their flags.

“In June 2001 the ‘Buddy Bear Berlin Show” was launched. They wanted the people of Berlin and the visiting tourists to enjoy the painted bear sculptures. The raised arms of the upright Buddy Bears communicated a friendly attitude and optimism. Thus the bears created a positive atmosphere from day one, which was captured on camera by tourists from all over the world on a daily basis.”

We were hooked and determined to take pictures of any we saw. We found six on Friday and only one new one on Saturday…

Berlin Pedestrian lights…

“The Ampelmännchen, which in German means the little traffic light man is the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - EAST Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east.

The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, "enjoying the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed." After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.

There are three Ampelmännchen variations in modern-day Germany – the old East German version, the old West German version, and a pan-German Ampelmännchen that was introduced in 1992. Each German state holds the rights for which version to use. The Ampelmännchen on several traffic lights in Erfurt were changed through manipulation of the template, showing Ampelmännchen carrying backpacks or cameras.In 2004, Joachim Roßberg invented the female counterpart to the Ampelmännchen, the Ampelfrau, which was installed on some traffic lights in Zwickau and Dresden.”

Potsdamer Platz… “The ‘Times Square of Berlin’ and possibly the busiest square in Europe before WW II, Potsdamer Platz was cut in two by the Wall and left a deserted no-man’s land for 40 years. Today, this immense commercial/ residential/ entertainment center, sitting on a futuristic transportation hub, is home to the European corporate headquarters of several big-league companies. The new Potsdamer Platz was a vision begun in 191, when it was announced that Berlin would resume its position as capital of Germany. Sony, Daimler, and other major corporations have turned the square once again into a center of Berlin.”

Since we were in the neighborhood we thought we’d walk a couple of blocks over to the Potsdamer Platz.

After checking it out for a minute we ate another sleeve of Pringles and were on our way. Next stop…

Gendarmenmarkt -- “This delightful and historic square is bounded by twin churches, a tasty chocolate shop, and the Berlin Symphony’s concert hall. Wonderfully symmetrical, the square is considered by Berliners to be the finest in town. The name of the square – part French and part German – reminds us that in the 17th century, a fifth of all Berliners were French émigrés, Protestant Huguenots fleeing Catholic France. Back then, tolerant Prussia was a magnet for the persecuted. These émigrés vitalized Berlin with new ideas and know-how.”

We sat in the square for awhile. Some of the big kids rode their scooter around. We let the little boys out of the stroller to run around and we snacked once again. Megan and I walked around taking pictures and running back making sure to jump on only the light squares. On the left of the picture, the Symphony concert hall. On the right of the picture, the

Fri Twin Churches

We climbed the German Cathedral dome to check out the view. Matthew was determined to climb the 300ish stairs all the way to the top ALL by himself. He wouldn’t even let me or Emily (who is his favorite sibling these days) hold his hand. And he totally did it.