Finishing my previous post

I didn't get a chance to finish my previous post, so here goes...

The public transportation is great. There are some cultural differences, such as personal space and level of congeniality with people you don't know, but it is all very interesting.

Cologne was a rather interesting place. I enjoyed the zoo, especially our "behind the scenes" tour. The food that the animals are fed is surprising like people food, and the giant beets that the elephants eat actually didn't taste that bad. I've wondered before how elephants are handled and cared for, and it is surprisingly similar to the way cattle are handled, just with larger equipment.

Seeing the wise men in the Kölner Dom was neat, and our city guide was pretty cool.

In Düsseldorf on Saturday, we had a free afternoon after morning lecture, which Nancy, Andy, and I spent by visiting Kaiserswerth, north of Düsseldorf, where there were ruins of an old fortress/castle built in the 11th century. It took a bit of thinking and map consulting to find, and in the process we stumbled upon a pretty cool hotel. Once we realized that we had initially gone the wrong direction, it wasn't too hard to find. The 'castle' was positioned next to the Rhine. While it had been blown up by the French when the retreated from the Prussians (I think), much of it remained. We were unable to go inside, but still got to walk around on the side and see a inside a good deal. Apparently, the Nazis made it a memorial during their reign, and there was a marker outside of the gate. We were not sure if the stone marker was put there after WWII by the town or before by the Nazis. At any rate, it was a nice excursion.

Nancy and I spent the rest of the evening wandering about town, strolling down Königsallee, marveling at the expensive, upscale store like Prada and Chanel. We stumbled upon a pretty church, Johanneskirche, that looked really cool at night. There was a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm and Otto von Bismark outside of the church, and I was proud of myself for recognizing Bismark, even though I couldn't place him. I'm getting better at German history!

I was kind of sad about leaving Düsseldorf since we had sort of figured out our way around, but I'm super excited to be in Berlin. There is so much to do here, but I'm not sure that we'll be able to fit everything in, even the shortened list!

So, we got started last night. The whole group went to see the Berlin wall at the East Side Gallery, and Carrie, Nancy, and I walked the whole kilometer's worth. Then the three of us visited the Brandenburger gate and walked around the outside of the Bundestag. we think we also passed by the Russian embassy and that of the UK too. New Year's Eve (today!) is going to be so crowded and busy down there. I sort of want to see the US embassy now.

We stopped at a couple of souvenir shops, and at one of them we saw cuckoo clocks. They are very pretty, but rather expensive. The smallest fully wood one was €139, which works out to about $210. Yikes! It would be risky business carting it around anyway.

The food here is also rather good. German food seems to have a good deal of meat and bread, just like Dr. Wasser said, which is good because I love bread! We've also eaten at an Italian restaurant, and the food there was awesome as well. Our waiter was also really friendly there, always smiling, very patient, and cracking jokes.

I guess that's all for now, can't wait until tonight!