Finishing Berlin by Touching the Brandenburg Gate

This morning after breakfast we walked over to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which was bombed out during the war.  A tiny sliver of the original church remains - including the tallest tower - and stands as an anti-war memorial.  A new church and belltower were built on either side in the mid-60s and are beautiful.  They are made of these blocks of blue glass, and the sanctuary has a huge floating Jesus.  I took only a few pictures inside the new church which are below.  The bombed-out church is currently covered in scaffolding, but you can see pictures of it by clicking here.

The sanctuary with the blue glass walls and floating Jesus.

The sanctuary floor is pretty cool too.

From here we jumped on the U Bahn and headed over to the Jewish Museum of Berlin, a museum that chronicles the 2000+ year history of the Jewish people.  While the museum and the history are very well done and very informative, the most amazing thing about this museum is the building itself.  I can't even begin to describe how the building, all on its own, tells visitors a story.  Here's a picture from the museum's website showing the building from above.

I only took a few pictures in the museum - these two are of the Fallen Leaves art installation of more than 10,000 metal faces which are in one of the voids.

I would encourage you to read a bit more about the building, the voids, the axes, the Garden of Exile and more by clicking here. 

After the museum, we had lunch at the Berlin train station, so Todd and I could check out where we would be picking up our train tomorrow morning to Prague.  It's good to be prepared!  After that we went back to the Brandenburg Gate for the third time, but now all the concert equipment which had been blocking it for 3 days was gone, so we could walk up to it, touch it, and walk right through it!

A sunny day in front of the Brandenburg Gate - finally!

Becca and Jeff at the Gate

Touching the Gate!

We'll touch it too!!!

I also had to get a picture of the walk/don't walk symbols.  The don't walk symbol is a little red man with his arms out facing you.  The walk symbol is a little green man with a hat facing sideways.  These seem to be pretty iconic Berlin symbols nowadays, so we got some souvenirs with the little men as well.

Little red man = don't walk.

Little green man = walk!

Two last impressions before we head back to pack and grab dinner.  I saw this statue on our first day and felt the need to honor it with my impression.  I'm sure the German drivers going by thought (ok, knew) I was a nutcase.  I called her The Shouting Lady, and she's just above my head in this picture.

And in his red jacket, Todd looks remarkably like the don't walk man which is just to the left of his head for reference.

Tomorrow, we're off to Prague! Thanks for a great visit, Berlin!