It was our final day in Berlin, and we had a free day to do whatever we liked!

The emblem of Berlin is the bear, and there are bears like the one below all over the city. Libby, Aundrea, Josh, and I thought that the bear below best summed up our day as we spent a great deal of time on public transit, and sometime we, too, felt like shrugging emphatically. In all seriousness, we had a great time navigating the city on our own and seeing a few of the remaining sites on our lists.

We first took the 100 bus, which cuts through the city, from the beginning of the line to a point where we thought we could then get to Checkpoint Charlie. We got off the bus and were across from the churches and TV tower in the photos below, which were cool to see, but we realized we were really far away from Checkpoint Charlie, so we got back on the 100 bus and took it to the end of the line to Alexanderplatz.

From Alexanderplatz, we figured out how to get to Checkpoint Charlie. This was the spot from which people would travel between East Berlin and the U.S. quarter of Berlin.

Checkpoint Charlie is a bit of a tourist location now, but it was interesting to see where the two sectors met. The map below from a display at Checkpoint Charlie shows where Berlin was divided into four zones after WWII.

After Checkpoint Charlie, we went to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz since Gerd had advised us to check it out. I think movies may premiere here and there are several cinemas inside in addition to several shops. It is pictured below, and it is an impressive complex! This is near where we had Bavarian food on our first night in Berlin.

After leaving Potsdamer Platz, we returned to Alexanderplatz. Unfortunately, we tried to rush onto our train as it was leaving, and we were separated, and Josh’s arm was caught in the train doors! These doors do not open back up on their own as elevator doors do, so someone inside the train had to open them from the inside to free his arm. This was a close call.

Once we got to Alexanderplatz, we stopped for a coffee / hot chocolate break and also had some amazing strudel. Today was not a great example of healthy eating.

We shopped a little and then went to to the Hackesche Hof, which is a series of eight connected courtyards. These used to be the old Jewish living quarters, but it is now a collection of shops. One shop we visited in this area had many Jewish religious items and books for sale, and there were informational signs throughout the courtyards below, but there was not much evidence of how the area used to look.

We went into a shop that sold only Ampelmann-related items. The Ampelmann is the name for the pedestrian symbols on the crosswalk posts in eastern Berlin. In areas of formerly communist Berlin, the old Ampelmann symbols are used everywhere. These are the large symbols on the poster below. Communism was a part of Berlin’s reality, so they keep and celebrate this harmless part of their history from this time. This poster also shows different Ampelmänner from around the world.