The Great Wall

Berlin was much more interesting than it was fun. So much recent history. The hostelboat was a lot like a tiny motionless cruise ship. It was located right behind the part of the old wall that is still standing. We shared our cabbin with two French guys who didn't speak English. We found a store with gluten-free things so I stocked up on much desried cookies and crackers. I'm loving them.
On our first day we went on a walking tour designed by one of the girls who worked at the hostelboat. She mostly put a bunch of lines and x's on a map and left us to figure out what they were. Even in two days we could tell there were massive differences between West and East Berlin. The East is covered in graffitti and looks like it is falling apart, while the West is clean and futuristic (kind of like the 5th Element).In the West we visited the Reichstag which has a huge glass dome that we walked up to see the views of the city. The West also has the Sony Center where we went to see The Good Shephard (cool because it showed London and Berlin in WWII times). In the East we went to the Berliner Dom and climbed to the top again. Seeing all of these cathedrals is tough, they all start to look like one big sotne and gold blob. The Fernsenturm , too, which measures in at 368m and Berlin's tallest structure. Its basically an ugly TV tower that the East built to show how technological they were. They needed the help of the Sweeds, though, and to play a joke on religous symbol hating East, they designed it so that when the sun shines on it, a crucifix appears (they call it the Pope's revenge). We went to the Jewish memorial where there are 2700 large stone slabs that are coated in an anti-graffitti material. Nice idea, but the anti-graffitti stuff was made by a company who manufactured the gas used in Nazi death camps. On our second day we went to the Olympic Stadium that was made by Hitler for the 1936 Olympics. Not pretty, but very powerful. That was kind of how I felt about the whole city-ugly, but with a lot of personality and made me think the most of all of our towns.