Berlin

July 29th On the Train to Nurenberg
The train ride to Berlin was relaxing and uneventful. We arrived about 9:30PM on Monday night, loaded our gear on our bikes and started biking east from the train station. The Garmin indicated a lot of hotels that way, and we found a decent one in five minutes. They wanted over 100 Euros per night to which I said "zu teuer" (too expensive). The clerk did his own little PriceLine negotiation right there in the lobby and we agreed on 85 Euros per night.
Got up the next day and decided to do the walking tour of Berlin that was recommended by Lonely Planet. The guide, Johanna, was an interesting young women who absolutely loved Berlin and its history. The entire tour was in the old East Berlin, which used to be controlled by the Soviets and East Germans. That surprised me until our guide told us that at the end of WWII, the Soviets had grabbed the important locations of Berlin, which were mostly in the East Berlin Sector. Many of the old important buildings and churches that were damaged in the war have been rebuilt, a lot of them since the fall of the wall in 1989. It is interesting that when rebuilding some of them, the architects left much of the old building facades that had pock marks from gunfire and shrapnel. I guess they wanted to keep a reminder of the war.
After WWII the subway system was administered by the allies. Several of its stations stopped in East Berlin. To prevent people from escaping to West Berlin, the East Germans closed these stations. They are still referred to as "the ghost stations" even though they are now open. Many people had daring escapes from East to West, but over 100 people were also killed trying to cross over.
The night life was quite interesting. We walked to Alexander Platz last night and had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant. There are many Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants here. The soup was excellent, but the rest of the meal was just average. It was about 9PM when we were eating, and Jordan noticed some oddly dressed young women walking to what looked like assigned positions on the street. I asked if she thought they were "working girls". At first she did not think so, but after dinner we took a walk and got a closer look. They were definitely hookers. They all had similar "unifroms"... very tight corset that propped the boobs up and tightly squeezed their butts, and knee-high leather boots with 2 to 3 inch heels. With boots, many of them were close to six feet tall. There was very much a dominatrix look to them. They would approach any man who was not accompanied by a woman. Being with Jordan kept me safe, Danke Gott!
General Impressions of Berlin... I was a little surprised by the amount of construction going on, but I really should not have been. It has only been 20 years since the wall fell. There are zoning laws which prevent tall buildings, so there did not appear to be any buildings over 10 stories tall. I guess I was expecting more of a modern city. Everything was much less expensive here than in Holland. I hope that continues in southern Germany. I thought the people were very friendly. I attempted to talk to them in my halting German, and unlike the French, they would respond to me in German. If it got too complicated I would ask "Auf English, bitte". A couple times, I was gl;ad that I spoke some German. When I bought the train tickets to Nuremberg, the woman knew very little English. It took a lot of searching to get a train that could handle us and our bikes. I told Jordan we need to buy our exiting train tickets as soon as we arrive in a town so we can get exactly what we want.
Our train left Berlin around 8:40AM and should arrive in Nuremberg around 3:20. We are going to try to bike a few clicks and find a camping site for tonight.