East Side Gallery & A Walk through the Tiergarten

We're in Berlin!  We successfully arrived in Berlin in the late morning (with our luggage - yahoo!) with no problems.  After a late and traditional German lunch (sausage!), we hopped on the S-Bahn (the train) and rode out to the southeast side of Berlin to visit the East Side Gallery.

The East Side Gallery is this amazing outdoor mural gallery.  After the Wall came down in 1989, local and international artists painted murals on this section of the Wall about the current political situation as well other political statements or their artistic vision.  In 2009, the entire gallery got a makeover, so you'll see many of the murals with the dates 1990/2009.  I'm guessing that many of the original artists returned for the makeover which I understand was a lot about removing the public's additions to their work.

The murals are AMAZING! It was awesome to check them all out and to have some fun taking pictures with some of them.  There weren't a lot of people around - it was a rainy Friday afternoon after all - which was great.  We could easily take pictures with no one else in them or walking by.  I can imagine that gets very, very difficult in high tourist times or maybe even on the weekends. Below are just a few pictures, but you can see all the pictures I took at the East Side Gallery by clicking here.

He's got the whole world, in his hands...

I love this one.  What a statement.

Becca and Jeff

Todd, Jeff and Becca interacting with the art.

On the opposite side of the gallery, it's a graffiti free-for-all, but there is good stuff there too!

From the East Side Gallery, we headed to the Brandenburg Gate.  Although we'll be back in that area today for much more extensive touring, it was very cool to see the Gate and wander down the road through the Tiergarten (which was cordoned off for a festival) on our way back to our hotel...where we crashed early after basically being up for 40+ hours with a few catnaps on the plane.

On the "East" Berlin side of the Brandenburg Gate (aka Brandenburg Tor)

On the opposite side of the gate, the notation in the street where the wall used to be.

Snack time!  Nutella crepes....yummy!

The Barrantes-Humora family in the middle of the Tiergarten with Victory Column in the background.

Off for our tour of the Reichstag!