Berlin

We got up early on Sunday, 9/18 and took the tram to the Bonn main train station. We met the students and Arianne (minus Callie, who overslept) and took a train to Cologne. (Callie's host mom drove her to the Cologne station just in time). There, we got on our train to Berlin. It was a nice 5 hour ride with beautiful scenery. The kids watched movies & played games on the iPad. Ben and I walked to the dining car and the waiter gave Ben a free Popsicle with pop-rocks on the top of it. I had him eat it there so that Lily wouldn't get jealous. Guess what he did immediately upon our return to our seats......... So then Lily and I took a walk to the dining car. She got Fanta instead. When we got to Berlin, we took a tram to our hotel and dropped off our luggage. Arianne got us an apartment which was great. It had a little kitchenette and a separate room with a door for the kids. We headed back toward the main train station in Alexanderplatz. There, we got our bikes and met our guide. Lily rode on one of those bikes that was an extension of Matt's. Ben rode in a seat on the back of my bike. We also bought them rain ponchos and tied them up because they were adult sized. It was sprinkling at this point. We took off and got a little history of the area. We then moved on to the statue of Marx and Patricia wiped out on the wet slippery path. I rode past her, afraid to stop and fall with Ben, and shouted, "I HAVE BAND-AIDS!" She was ok. We then rode on through Berlin, stopping at historical places and learning more about the amazing, yet very troubled city. Battles and wars started & ended in Berlin....only to start another conflict or political standoff. It was mostly destroyed and is now an eclectic mix of old, new and an attempt at a refurbished old-ish style. I loved it. I wish it wasn't raining so that I could have taken pictures. Lily was SUCH a trooper. She loved that bike and never complained about Matt's muddy "back spackle" (snigglet, look it up) flying at her. Ben was so tired and eventually fell asleep. He looked super safe with his helmet almost covering his face and covered in a blanket of plastic. Poor guy woke up when we decided to leave the group and head back. One of the students got a flat, so Arianne switched bikes with him and headed back. She showed us the way, then took the broken bike on a bus. We had and exciting ride in the rain, dodging giant double-decker buses, puddles & seeing some more sights. We made it back, took some hot showers & revived ourselves before dinner. We walked to an Italian pizza place. Seriously, Italians making pizza in Germany. Delicious! The kids devoured their pizza and we had a fun walk back under umbrellas. Needless to say, we were wiped out and went to bed.
The hotel had a great breakfast in the morning, so we filled up, kissed Matt goodbye (they went on a tour of the German Parliament building and the Jewish museum) and headed out to the zoo. It was a trek to get there, we took a bus to the end of the line & walked around to find the entrance, but we made it. We were amazed at the animals. There weren't really any exotic animals or ones we hadn't seen before, but they were so active. None of the animals were just laying around, they were all playing or running or just being awesome. It was really fun to see. It also felt like we were really close to the animals. The barriers between us are not like those in the States.
The pictures are all out of order, but they're uploaded!
I loved this guy!







Really excited to be on the top of the double-decker bus!



Lily & her favorite animal - flamingos!