Germany Trip - 21Sept23 through 02Oct23 Part 1of3

In late 2022, I signed up for the Berlin marathon lottery just to see if I would get in.  Well, I did.  That being said, I did not want to lose my opportunity to run in Berlin, so I began planning a trip to Germany!

 First City: Berlin

This was the house that we stayed in.  We had the entire upstairs.  It was a super cute house and easy access to buses and trams to get us to the city center

Cut balcony overlooking the yard

                                                                    Cute little kitchen in our VRBO

Picking up my number at the expo

The Berlin Marathon Expo was held in a defunct airport.  This airport was one of several that were used during the separation of East and West Germany.  They could fly supplies into Berlin since Berlin was this 'island' inside of East Germany.  Once Germany was united and the wall brought down, a lot of these airports went out of business.  It's weird to see that the ticket counters, luggage carousels, and flight boards are still there.  It's like the airport is trapped in time. 

After attending the expo, we took the metro to Check point Charlie.  Because Berlin was an island within East German, there were all these check points to get in and out of the city.  There was a Check point Alpha and Bravo, but Charlie was the most utilized crossing I guess.  Now it is a very touristy area, more touristy and less history then I would have imagined.  There are tons of restaurants in the area, street performers, museums, etc.  They have left the buildings in that area alone so that you can visually see the difference between the Russian buildings on the outside of Berlin and the German buildings of West Germany.  It is a very odd area.   The guard shack is there for you to take pictures at too.  This is a replica guard shack.  The real one is in some museum.

It is very ironic that a KFC sign is prominently displayed right by the sign telling you that you are leaving the Allied part of Germany.

Later in the evening, we met up with my friend Heiko and his partner Marina.  I first met Heiko when I worked with Bose Germany several years ago.  We have stayed in contact ever since and it was amazing to meet up with them!  

Ok I admit I don't know much about this world clock, but it's a big deal for some reason.  I guess it is showed in a lot of movies.

I had to google what these beers were called.  This is some kind of Germany invention.  They were really good!  They are called Berliner Weisse (White): the green-tinged woodruff (waldmeister) syrup, based on the sweet-scented bedstraw plant, and a pink raspberry syrup known as himbeersaft.  

The next day, Gary and I had some time before we were going to meet up with Heiko and Marina again. So we went to the Berlin Wall memorial site.  This area seemed to be the most preserved section of the Berlin Wall. 

This metal path runs the entire length of the Berlin Wall all around the city where the wall once stood.

This grassy area is the area between the inner and outer portion of the wall.  If someone was able to jump over the wall, they were not automatically in West Germany occupied Berlin.  They would have had to run across this grassy area and then jump over another wall.  This is the area where most people were killed.  If you were able to scale the wall and get over it, you most likely would land hard on the ground.  They had these spring loaded daggers that looked like bed springs just under the surface of the grass.  If you landed on one, it most likely stabbed you to death.  Even if you survived the drop to the ground, there were guard towers constantly watching this area and shooting at people.

When they built the wall, they really did get it build over the span of about a weekend.  It was really that fast.  And they plowed that wall through everything.  The picture above was right through a cemetery.  They claimed that they moved the graves, but.....who knows if they just moved the headstones.  Also, because of the city wide metro stations, some stops crossed that East / West line.  So what they did was brick up the exits / entrances that went from the metro to the East side.  The above picture shows what it looked like before and after the wall.

I found this hostel that had a shrine to David Hasselhoff.  It was basically a hallway in a basement, but still pretty cool none the less. haha

In the afternoon, we met up with Heiko and Marina to visit the Reichstag building and go on a tour.  This is basically their capital building where all the government elected people meet.

There are multiple walls inside of the Reichstag that still have Russian graffiti on them when the Russians took over the building in 1945

Across the street from the Reichstag building is the Brandenburg Gate.  Such an iconic structure in Berlin!

This is the sign describing Hitler's bunker.  They really try to preserve what history still remains, but they also have to be careful of Nazi sympathizers visiting the site.  The Germans would take down anyone very quickly who tried to glorify Hitler here.

Hitler's bunker had been totally destroyed by the allies.  It is now what you see in the picture above.  Just a parking lot and some land.  The bunker is where Hitler supposedly committed suicide and eventually they collapsed the bunker in on itself. 

There is ONE guard tower left in all of Berlin.  And it just so happened to be under construction when were were there!  UGH! Heiko still tried to go through the rotating door to see if he could get in.  They have completely boxes in the guard tower for renovations.  Total bummer.

Topography of Terror - former site of the headquarters of the Gestapo, SS, and Reich Security Main Office during the Nazi regime

This place had all these crazy German cars.  You could even rent them or go on tours around Berlin in these cars.  Produced without major changes for nearly 30 years, the Trabant became the most common automobile in East Germany

Me, Marina and Heiko (Gary taking the picture) at this Mediterranean restaurant in the Check point Charlie area.  It was funny because we ended up sitting right next to a group of people from America.  A couple of people from the Chicago area were there to run the marathon as well.  It was fun chatting with them.

Heiko told me that in Germany they don't 'cross their fingers' for good luck.  He said that they 'press their thumbs' for good luck.  So here he is pressing his thumbs to wish me luck on my race!

Waiting for my wave to start!

I found out later from Heiko that two things happened during this race.  1) the world record for a marathon time was broken.  It was cool knowing that I was running the same course at the same time. 2) some climate protestors tried to stop the race by throwing orange or yellow paint on the front runners.  I do remember that when I got through the starting gates, there was paint all over the street and we had to run around it.  Heiko said it was from the protestors.

I just thought his shirt was funny.

I'm in the middle of this picture.  This was the most awesome, amazing part of the entire race.  We got to finish running through the Brandenburg Gate.  The last 2km or so I kept waiting to turn the corner and see the gate....finally, that last turn and there it was.  I audibly heard everyone else who was running near me gasp..just as I did.  It gave me goose bumps to see this structure in the distance and know that I was going to run through it.  It was the coolest thing I have ever done!

I finished!!!  Sadly, I was hurting pretty bad during most of this race.  For the first 13 miles or so, my right leg was killing me.  But I didn't care.  I was going to finish no matter what.  After mile 13 it kind of went numb and I didn't feel much pain anymore.  And it wasn't nearly as painful as the year before when I ran in Norway.  After Berlin I did start physical therapy and it has gotten a lot better.

Last dinner in Berlin before we headed off to Munich!  It was sad saying goodbye to Marina and Heiko, but we will be sure to see them again soon!