Since my computer is so iffy, I feel as if I'm posting these pictures out of order, but hopefully the captions will help. Seth and I did 4 days in Berlin, one day in Nuremberg, and 3 days in Munich; therefore, I have the most pictures of Berlin since the history there is so rich and there were so many places to see.
<--Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church: This is the church located by the Zoologischer Garden U-Bahn (their underground subway system). It was bombed during World War II and it's one of the buildings in Berlin that they chose not to reconstruct as it serves as a reminder of war. The building stands in the middle of the modern city so it's pretty cool.
This is the inside of the church. It's a beautiful archway and there's interesting sculptures. Since it's a free memorial, it's pretty crowded and there's lots of people looking at the relics. The memorial displayed the use of the church during the monarchy and it was a beautiful church in its original form.
More Reichstag pictures:
This is Seth waiting in line at the Reichstag in order to go to the tour at the cupola. It was a warm day and he was wearing lots of black. I had gone to the store across the street to buy water. There were these Canadian sisters sitting in front of us and we started chatting with them so it made the wait go a lot faster. One of the sisters was studying in Germany just to study..she was already done with college. I was really jealous and her sister was visiting her for two weeks. Of course, Seth chose to bring up healthcare with them in Canada and it was interesting to hear the comparison between the two. I love meeting people from all over the world during travels. It's interesting to hear people's viewpoints and see how they live. I believe that it's only through traveling the world in which you can understand humanity's pitfalls as well as its triumphs.
When you get to the top of the Reichstag via a fast elevator, you can walk out onto the balcony to see the city prior to walking up and around the cupola for the city views. It's pretty neat that the Germans have this set up for public viewing and there's even free audio-guides that you can get to guide you through what buildings you're looking at around the city. Seth and I didn't use the audioguide because I just wanted to race to the top.
And what makes this piece of architecture so cool is that in the middle of the cupola is this huge tower of mirrors. So, as you're walking up the winding cupola, there's always these mirrors reflecting the city. Seth and I stood at the bottom and took this picture staring up at it.
It's currently about 8 am here and of course I'm wide awake typing away on my blog. Seth is still asleep. We're staying on a street called Schillerstrasse in Munich and it's a long street with lots of hotels...and a few strip clubs. The funny thing is that the hotel we are staying at, Hotel Royal (http://www.hotel-royal.de/pages/hotel) is highly recommended on trip advisor and the location..with the exception of the strip clubs is awesome since it's next to the train station. We are also within walking distance of the main city center, Marienplatz, where there's lots of shopping and the buildings are awesome. Here's another thing I constantly have to remind myself of: Just because it's not familiar to me doesn't mean that it's not good. Seth keeps calling this place sketch, but it's because we're American and we're not used to having a hotel next to a strip club. This hotel, funny enough, was also included in our Top 10 book that our friend lent us, as one of the top 10 budget hotels. At 150Euro a night, we'd hardly consider that budget in the states since you can get a nice hotel room for $120 in most places, but things are just different in Europe and of course, it's peak season.
Last night, after having dinner and after the Hoffbrauhaus, we passed by Marienplatz on our way home. There was a band playing on the square and a crowd of people watching. I love street performances and it was great to have the European backdrop.
Oh, and of course the coolest fact that we learned yesterday is that Munich has the best tap water in the world. Seth loves this since I am not really a big tap water drinker, but now that we know it's the best in the world, I can drink it and stop spending 2.50 Euro every few hours buying bottled water from convenience stores. The tap water is what the breweries use in their beer!
Well, till next time!
<--Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church: This is the church located by the Zoologischer Garden U-Bahn (their underground subway system). It was bombed during World War II and it's one of the buildings in Berlin that they chose not to reconstruct as it serves as a reminder of war. The building stands in the middle of the modern city so it's pretty cool. 
This is the inside of the church. It's a beautiful archway and there's interesting sculptures. Since it's a free memorial, it's pretty crowded and there's lots of people looking at the relics. The memorial displayed the use of the church during the monarchy and it was a beautiful church in its original form.
This is Seth waiting in line at the Reichstag in order to go to the tour at the cupola. It was a warm day and he was wearing lots of black. I had gone to the store across the street to buy water. There were these Canadian sisters sitting in front of us and we started chatting with them so it made the wait go a lot faster. One of the sisters was studying in Germany just to study..she was already done with college. I was really jealous and her sister was visiting her for two weeks. Of course, Seth chose to bring up healthcare with them in Canada and it was interesting to hear the comparison between the two. I love meeting people from all over the world during travels. It's interesting to hear people's viewpoints and see how they live. I believe that it's only through traveling the world in which you can understand humanity's pitfalls as well as its triumphs.
Seth and I at Marienplatz in Munic. I just love the buildings here.
This is the view from the top of the Reichstag. I loved it!!! Poor Seth is a little bit afraid of heights.
Here is Seth with her..she's SOOO cute!!
This roadtrip is certainly exposing me to the heartland of the states. I think that roadtripping is really fun and I can't believe that I've driven from Virginia to Wisconsin and now from Wisconsin to Arizona. We drove through four states today! Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. I had the honor of seeing the Mighty Mississippi and the Mighty Missouri today as Seth likes to call it.
The weather started out beautiful today and then it just rained all through Kansas. However, the heartland was not as flat as we thought it would be. There were quite the rolling hills and it was nice and green. Can you tell that my theme is looking at greenery since it doesn't seem like there will be much in Tucson? At least our apartment complex has greenery. =)
Another funny sight that we saw in Iowa was this casino called the Terrible Casino. I just liked how it was this large cowboy..it was quite entertaining to see something like this in Iowa after just driving through farmland. It's funny because no matter how many fields of cows I saw today, I still thought that they were really cute and I loved seeing calves in the field also. I asked Seth if he would ever want to have a farm and he said that it's a lot of work and I asked him if we could just have farm animals for pets. He didn't answer me....
And of course, the milestone of this trip is that my Toyota Camry hit 100,000 miles!!! I've put a lot of miles on my car over these past two years and I can't believe that it's over a hundred thousand now. We made sure to take a picture of this momentous moment for the Green Hornet, Seth's nickname for my car.
And of course...the boot of Essen Haus!!
I am writing this blog while I am at the airport and I decided to just snap a picture of Seth with his one leftover breadstick from Sbarro's. I love the episode of the Office where Michael is in New York City and he says that he loves this awesome neighborhood pizza place and he walks up to a Sbarro's. I decided to pack my own lunch as I have been eating pretty poorly lately and I packed a PB&J sandwich, strawberries, and veggie booty..which reminds me of Cheetos, but they're smaller and supposedly healthier.
