This morning we woke up (after a fairly late night) to leave for our morning tour of the Reichstag/Bundestag, where the German Parliament meets. The inscription on the front of the building translates as “the German people." (maybe Volke is where we get “folks").

We walked around inside the building and walked to the top of the dome using the encircling staircase you can see in the picture below. This clear dome was added to the most recent renovations to the Reichstag building after the Cold War ended. The dome is intended to hearken back to two key principles of democracy: transparency and participation (maybe participation is represented in the mirrored part?).

The view from the top of the dome is pretty good!

After our tour, Gerd took us to see a few more sights in Berlin, including a famous chocolate shop and the Gendarmenmarkt, which is the square pictured below. This square is in the former French quarter of Berlin. On the left you can see the Deutsche Dom, in the middle is the Konzerthaus Berlin behind a statue of Friedrich Schiller, and the Französischer Dom is on the right. The Doms were never actually used as churches according to Gerd.

While we were walking around, we passed the official Munich futbol team bus! Munich and Berlin played today (and Munich won).

Our group got lunch at a fancy French food court, where I had quiche and resisted eating all of the pastries. We then splintered into smaller groups, and Libby, Aundrea, Josh, and I walked around the French mall a little while. We then treated ourselves to a coffee break featuring hot chocolate and a chocolate croissant.

After leaving the coffee shop, we passed a parade that was protesting the use of geoengineering. Our next goal was to try to find a sports bar where we could watch the Munich-Berlin soccer game. I found a place on my phone that looked promising, and we were able to navigate there. When we walked in, everyone was wearing yellow and they turned to look at us. I saw that a different soccer game was on TV, and asked the bartender whether there was really a Berlin-Munich game today. He said yes, and I asked what time it would be and if they would show it, and he looked confused and just pointed to his shirt and said “Dort-mund" (Dortmund is another team whose game was on TV at the time). We had accidentally gone to a bar that exists specifically for Dortmund fans. So we watched that game until halftime and then wandered on. We affectionately refer to this place as Denk Mal because that is part of its name, but I think it has little to do with bars or sports.

Libby’s host mom had told her about a great Christmas shop in Berlin, so we made that our next stop. Through our navigating, we were able to do what I like to call accidental sightseeing. On our way from getting from place to place, we would come across really interesting memorials, including several pieces of the Berlin Wall, like the one pictured below. This happened often during our weekend in Berlin.

We also passed this monument, which I think is in the shape of the line formerly dividing East and West Berlin or Germany.

We made it to the Christmas shop after a long walk down what most be the most expensive shopping street in Berlin. Christmas is wonderful of course, so we had a wonderful time walking around in here and listening to Christmas music.

After this shop, we decided to meet up with Betsy, Gerd, Gerd’s friends from Berlin, and the rest of our group for dinner. As we were trying to find the meeting place, we ran into more accidental sightseeing with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the picture below.

We were trying to find Amico’s or Amigo’s Pizza to meet the group, and Google maps navigated us to the middle of a neighborhood. My phone died, so then we asked a couple (?) if they knew the place. They did not know the place, and emphasized that this was a looong street. The man we talked to had dressed up his dog in a layered sweater, vest, and scarf (see photo below), so that lifted our spirits some.

Feeling a little discouraged and hungry, we looked around for somewhere to eat near where we were, and we came across Who’s That Burger, which was really tasty! It had been a long day, so we headed back to our hostel for the night after that.