Berlin Cathedral

As I had mentioned in my last blog I toured the Berlin Cathedral.  This was one of the best looking churches in Berlin.  It is located on or by Museum island.  There are 4 or 5 museums all in a very close vicinity.   This church looked very old,  I was surprised to find out it had been rebuilt many times.  Originally built in 1451 it was expanded, changed, burned, bombed and rebuilt.  It is one of the eye catching buildings in the area.

When you walk inside and the first thing that strikes you is the large dome ceiling. It has a big sitting area and the organ takes up one whole wall.

Then you can climb a bunch of stairs and when I say a bunch it was a lot to get to the top of the dome and walk around the outside to see the view of the city.

When you go to the basement you get to see all the caskets of the kings, queens, princes, and princesses of Prussia.  This was kind of creepy but interesting to see the dates on some of the caskets dating back to the 1600’s.

Berlin

This past weekend was a 3 day weekend for us at Durr.  Durr was having there shareholders meeting and they don’t want any employees there when they have it.  I didn’t fully understand that mentality but I wasn’t going to argue with it.  This did sneak up on me and I didn’t have much time to decide where I wanted to go visit.  I looked at a few place that were close by but then I decided I need to do something a bit bigger.  When I was back in the states a three day weekend was time for me to go and do things I wouldn’t on a normal weekend.  Just because I am over in German that mentality shouldn’t and didn’t change.  I decided to go to Berlin seeing it’s the capital of Germany and I have always been fascinated with the Berlin Wall.  This trip was a little over a 6 hour trip by high speed train.  This goes by fast and you can read, look out the window, listen to your ipod, and actually watch a movie on your computer.  I didn’t watch one because there was just too much to see. It was suppose to be a direct trip but when I showed up at the train station they said I would have to take the regional train to Frankfort and get the high speed train there.  Ok it was said just like that it was all in German and I had a slight panic attach until I found someone who worked at the train station that could explain it to me.  All was well though.  I arrived in Berlin about 3:30 found my hotel and decided to go for a little walk.  I had noticed there was a park and something on my map in the center of it. It is called the Siegessaule or  the Berlin Victory Column.  This   is 214 feet tall and was built in 1873 to commemorate the Prussian  victory in the Danish-Prussian War.

Then I walked down to the Brandenburger Tor or Gate built in 1791  is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany.

Another area in the city is Check point charley.  This is one of the ways to go from East Germany to West German and it was controlled by the US army.  This was interesting as it had the history of the Berlin Wall and what was happened during this time.  Its pretty commercialized but entertaining.

Then I saw the Reichstag building or the German Federal Building.

Then there was the Federal Chancellery which is where the Chancellor Angela Merkel works. I was told she dosen’t live here so its not quite like the White House.

I saw the Berlin Cathedral which has quite a history.  Originally built in 1451 then bombed in world war II rebuilt and finally finished in 1975.  I toured inside this and will share it at a later date.

Then there was the Holocaust Memorial is made up of 2,711 gray stone slabs that bear no markings, such as names or dates. The slabs undulate in a wave-like pattern. Each is a five-sided monolith, individually unique in shape and size. Some are only ankle high while others tower over visitors. The paths that are shaped between the slabs undulate as well.

I visited a section of the original Berlin Wall. 

Then I saw a section of the Berlin Wall that is about a mile long and they had artist come in and paint the wall.  This area is called the East Side Gallery.  This was quite interesting.

I will give a little more information and pictures of a few of these in the coming days.  I hope you enjoyed my trip as much as I did.  The train ride back was 7 hrs because once again the high speed train didn't go to Stuttgart.

Munich – Part three – The Deutsches Museum of Technology

On my last day in Munich I decided to go to the Deutsches Museum of Technology.  This was similar to the Chicago Museum of science and technology except it was a lot bigger. The building is 6 stories tall and over 500,000 square feet of space.  It was very interesting because every area of the 64 different exhibits went through the history of each subject.  It had the of everything including aeronautics with a full size Wright brothers plane, to a World War I plane, to a modern day fighter jet.

Another area they had was shipping / marine navigation.  This area had a full size old ship with a cut out in it so you could see the insides, tons and tons of anchors, replicas of ships, and even a German U-boat (submarine from World War I).

Some of the other areas they had were Power Machinery

Musical instruments

Textile technology

Ceramics

Photo and Film.  These items were the start of film.  The thing on the left had a bird cage on one side and a bird on the other.  When you spun the thing fast enough the bird looked like it was in the cage. 

I didn’t even come close to stopping and reading (most items had both German and English) all the information and even with just walking through it all it took me over 6 hours to do that.  It was definitely an overload of information.  Everyone said that you could be in there for days and they were right.  If your interested and want more information you can go to Deutsches Museum  I walked back through the town for one last time and got to the train station to board my train back to Stuttgart.  This was a very eventful and interesting adventure and I can’t wait for the next one.

Munich – Part two -Neuschwanstein castle tour

On the second day I signed up to take an all day tour to the Neuschwanstein castle tour.  This started off by meeting the tour guide and the rest of the group at the train station at 9:15 in the morning.  It was interesting to talk to the people seeing this was an all English tour.  The majority of the people were college kids that were in one of the study abroad programs where they spend three months or so in a foreign country studying and seeing the world.  The all said there classes were very easy and they were having a great time.  There was 25 people on the tour and they were from places such as Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Florida, Italy, and London England.  The tour guide was from Texas who graduated from college with a degree in German.  He said he packed up a suitcase and moved here.  So the trip started off by taking two trains and a bus to get to the castle.  It took a little over two hours to get to the castle and it was in the Alps.

Once we got there we spent a little bit of time at the lower level and the guide gave us some history about the king and the two castles that were there.  One was the smaller older castle that the king used to watch them build his new castle.

When you looked up at the big castle it was quite a ways up the hill.

 We had to climb the hill to get there.  We decided as a group if we wanted to take the long flatter way or the shorter steeper way.  Of course all the kids wanted to go up the shorter steeper way.  This ended up being quite the challenge.  The good new for me was that I made it and I wasn’t the last one.  I did beat a few of the kids up the hill.  Once up there the view was just great. 

 We toured the inside of the castle  which was interesting.  The castle was built over a 17 year period and the king only lived in it for 178 days before he died.  There was a lot of carvings one was part of this bed and they said it took a team of four carvers two years to complete.  There was a bridge that you could get a view of the castle.

Then we climbed down the gorge along the water where it was interesting to find out that they build a water way to the castle so it would have running water for the sinks and a flush toilet.  

On our way back the guide wanted to finish the story about the King but we weren’t able to get all in the same train car.  So he said if we wanted we could go to a beer garden and have dinner and a beer and he would tell us the rest of the story.  There was only three of us that took him up on this.  I think the majority of the people were just tired seeing it was after 7 pm at this time.  So we went to the beer garden had some food of the area which was a pig knuckle and some local beer.  He told us the rest of the story and we traded stories about what brought us all to Germany.  By the time I got back to the hotel it was after 11pm and I was exhausted.

Munich – Part one City tour

This past weekend was a four day holiday in German we got Good Friday off and Easter Monday.  So with the help of one of my coworkers he set me up on going to Munich.  He printed me off where to stay, how to get there, and a list of things that I might like to do.  He said it would be a shame for me to waste this long weekend by staying in my apartment the whole time.  I agreed and set up the train ride from Stuttgart to Munich.  It’s the high speed train called the ICE.  It makes only limited stops and gets there in about two hours.  I left on an early train and got to the Munich main train station and found my hotel.  It was located only about 2 blocks from the train station and they had my room ready so I could check in early and unpack my bag and only take some of the essentials that I would need for the day.  Then I decided the best way to see the city in a fast open air double decker bus tour.  This turned out to be great.  I got to see:

Konigsplatz

Palace of Nymphenburg (this was less than 1/4 of the actual place)

Olympic Park (This is the stadium, it was built to look like the Alps)

English Garden and people surfing on the river

Rathaus mit Glockenspiel (New City Hall)

Then I ended the day eating at an outdoors restaurant, having a beer and people watching in the Karlsplatz (pedestrian zone shopping center).

The second day brought on another big adventure going to the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Fed Cup Tennis

I am finally back on track to keep up the blog.  I have many stories to tell since the last time I wrote.  I have been back at home in the USA for two weeks, then off to China for two weeks, and now I am back in Germany.  Over the next few weeks I will update you with all that has happened there but today’s blog is going to be on what I did this weekend.   I was made aware that the Professional Tennis players were going to be in Germany this week but before that there is a tennis match that is called the Fed Cup tournament.  This consists of teams playing each other by country and by the end of the year there is one country that can be called the winner.  There are a few  matches that go on throughout the year and they consist of winner brackets and other matches where the teams are positioning themselves for the next year to try to be in the main draw to try to become the overall winner.  Ok enough said about that.  This weekend Germany was playing the USA in Fed Cup matches.  This consisted of two singles matches on Saturday and three matches on Sunday, two singles and a double.  I have been to a handful of tennis tournaments but never to a fed cup match.  I decided to go to both Saturday and Sunday’s matches.  This was being held at the Porsche Arena.  It took about 45 minutes to get there by train and a short 5 minute walk once at the train stop to the arena.

The stadium only holds about 5,000 people and at best it was 1/3 full.  I got tickets that were in row 6 and at the base line.  Not bad at all.  The USA was the underdogs and had two very young players.  They tried but ended up loosing both matches on Saturday.  On Sunday they played again and lost.  There were moments that they looked really good and then there was other times when the wheels looked like they were coming off.  The doubles we were favored to win but in the end we lost that too.  So for the five matches we were 0-5.  During the intermission between the matches I was able to go watch some of the qualifying matches for this weeks tournament at the same place.  It was interesting seeing some of the players I have seen play in Miami.  I will have to see how this week goes and maybe see if I can get back there to watch some of the matches for the tournament to.