Berlin...

We are staying in Frankfurt mostly, but we make day or 2 day trips accross the country or into others. We recently went to Berlin. If you have never been there, you should. If you have, you need to go again because you won't recognize it.

So much history has happend there. Both world war 1 and 2 started and ended in that one city. As a result, much of the old buildings do not exist. The ones that do are most likely rittled with bullet holes. Everything of real note happend in a short amount of space and traffic is horrible, so we took a walking tour. It was really the way to go.

We met up with a group and the tour guide took us to all of the important spots. It's a good thing we went with that plan, you can never see all there is to see without help finding it. First you walk through an insignificant looking park which is where the swampy farm village began. You walk to the old capital, you see the giant holes that Hitler had dug for his great momuments that never got built. He panned on making a building resembling our white house, only over 5 times bigger. He also broke ground on another site chosen for a new Arc de Triump that would be 49 times larger. That's stinkin big. We walked to the infamous Berlin Wall. Where ever the wall once stood, the government will have a line in brick or concrete to mark the spot. We walked along it and accross the once fortified terrain. We walked to where Hitler's bunker lay. We stood on the very ground were he ended his life.

There is no marking. There is no monument. There isn't even a plauqe. There is a sidewalk over it and cars carelessly parked next to it. Had you not known, you'd think it was a sidewalk like any other. The bunker has been destroyed, only 2 metal floorboards now burried remian. He shot himself down in that bunker, his freind carried him and his wife - both died of suicide. He of a bullet shot to the head, her of a poison, which was used two days prior on thier dog to make sure it would work. All three of the Hitlers (dog makes three) were brought up to the surface above the bunker and lit on fire. They were torched so well that they needed Hitler's own dentist to declare it them. The friend who burnned Hitler died just 4 months ago.

The spot is barren, by a dead end street. A fitting end to a dead end man.

Checkpoint charlie is now a spot for Indians to sell fuzzy Russian hats, and that is about it.

The city is now in a rebuilding phase. East Germany is still dark and drab. You can feel and see the dramatic change between the two halves even if they are politically one now. You see an old building with part of the Berlin wall standing, and a brand new one, all glass shinning accross the street. Old parts are being torn down or restored, new commercial is moving in. Things change so fast, even the tour guide was amazed, pointing out a building that was about to be destroyed here, and a hole in the ground Hitler had made, being being developed for good with a building going up next week.

Berlin is a dicadomy of itself. Old fighing new. If you want to see Berlin, never wait for the right time - changes faster than it can keep up with.