A Note from Berlin

We arrived´at our hotel in Berlin from Frankfurt around 1 P. M.  We had an hour to shower and then meet in the lobby to take a quick walk around Alexanderplatz and familiarize ourselves with the shopping, ATM areas, Internet cafe, as well as food areas.  A view of the Alexanderplatz area can be seen in the photo.  One has to be on guard while crossing the street.  You must watch out for the streetcars that run in both directions.  You can see the rails in the streets and the overhead cables in the photo.

We are to meet at the hotel lobby in about 45 minutes.  It is taking me a while to relearn the keys on the German keyboard (you might remember that from my Germany blog four years ago).  Not only are some of the keys in different locations, but the keyboard is split to the right and to the left where the "g" and "h" meet on our keyboard.  It is an entirely different experience to type this way.  It is like typing on two keyboards since the keys are several inches apart.

A bus (coach) ride around the city gave us an overview of the expanse of the city and its landmarks.  The building with the copper dome (photo on the left) and the other buildings around it are a part of Humboldt University.  Humboldt is the oldest university in Berlin and was used as a model for intense research by John Hopkins University here in the states.  Humboldt university has an impressive roster of alumni, including the Brothers Grimm, Bismark, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein, among numerous others.  The square in front of the university is where 20,000 books were burned by the Nazis because they were considered "degenerate" and in direct opposition to the state.  A monument to this tragedy (not visible) bears an inscription written by Heinrich Heine from an 1820 work which translates into English "That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people."  How right he was, both literally and figuratively. 

We are off to a restaurant for dinner.  No, it's not German food.  That will come later.  Tonight it will be Thai food.  I will let you know what it was like tomorrow if I have time to write.