In the former East German part of the city was this really cool statue of Marx and Engels. Obviously, we couldn't help posing with them:
A couple of views of the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe":
Potsdamer Platz, where we stopped to have lunch:
Sophie making silly faces at lunch:
Later that day, we were able to take a tour of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building. This is the main entrance (from the inside):
This is an art instalation in the Reichstag called the "Archiv der Deutschen Abgeordneten" (or "Archive of German Delegates") by Christian Boltanski. It has old-fashioned file boxes (kind of like the old library card catalog system) from 1919-1999, when the country was ruled by a democratic parliament. Each box has a delegate's name and dates of service on it. 
If you look hard in this picture, you'll see a missing box. The black box represents the time period (1933-1945) when Germany was not democratic.
This is the tunnel arsonists used to set fire to the Reichstag in 1933:
The inner portion of the parliament:
Where the parliament meets:
I love this picture because I don't think that Ian is posing...
There are two eagles here, one on each side of the glass. This side is known as the "smiling eagle," while the other side is unsmiling.
The flag of unification in front of the Reichstag:
When the Russians moved into Berlin at the end of World War II, many of the soldiers wrote on the walls of the Reichstag. They preserve part of this wall inside the building today, even though not everything on there is pro-German.
The top of the Reichstag is a really great place to see the city from (and has really interesting architecture).
This is me trying to be artistic. :-) Those are the students and Ian as seen through the mirrors of the Reichstag:
1 comment:
Yes, that's definitely Dr. Wilson's normal "I'm listening and being all serious" stance in the picture where he's not posing.
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