europe 2010: day 4

day 4:

We had to laugh at this restaurant outside our hotel in Berlin...it was an Arizona Steakhouse.

After waiting for our tour bus for an extra hour because it went to the wrong hotel, we drove on the famous Autobahn to Dresden.

Dresden was an interesting city because it was completely bombed as a scare tactic. Everything in this city was destroyed, so they rebuilt the city to look as it once had.

This is one of the cathedrals there...I believe this is the Catholic one....

This is the opera house that was destroyed once before WWII, so now, it isn't in its original place. Many famous operas and composers performed here.

This is the statue in the middle of the square in Old Town Dresden.

This is part of the king's courtyard. He was also the king of Poland hence the Polish crown on the gate.

More of his courtyard...

Part of the palace...

This is the Lutheran cathedral there. This picture is too small to see, but there were some bricks that were black that were parts of the original building. In forty or fifty years, the entire building will be black. The black isn't caused fires or anything like that...it's from a process similar to oxidization.

Then we drove over to Prague, Czech Republic. We stayed in New Town. It's similar to Dresden in the sense that the buildings were built to look old, but that was the only reason. These are just that: new buildings. Nothing here is rebuilt...they were just built to look old.

This is just a museum in New Town....they did a good job of making the buildings look old didn't they?

europe 2010: day 3

day 3

our first stop was at the longest standing stretch of the Berlin Wall. here are some pictures of it:

this is a Soviet memorial...2,000 soldiers are buried here.

this is Mother Soviet who is weeping for her children.

this statue was really interesting...our guide told us what he had written on his arm. i can't remember exactly but it talked about how they are free in the Soviet's hands and how one day the Soviets will rule the entire world...that's a scary thought...the hill he's on is where the soldiers are buried.

here's a closer look:

here's our entire group

Here is the U.S. Embassy in Germany. We tried to get pictures of the one in France too but apparently someone was there so we weren't allowed to...

This is the Brandenburg Gate.

This is the Holocaust Memorial right across the street. We were told that when the architect, designer, whatever you call him was asked what the message that he wanted people to take from this was he said that there was no message because everybody knows about the Holocaust and it has impacted everybody.

Unfortunately I can't remember what these buildings are either...there are a lot that I can't remember... :(

This is Checkpoint Charlie...of course with the McDonald's in the background. We also went to the museum. However, since I was going to Potsdam, we only had about 10 minutes so I didn't get to read anything...BUT I am going to look it up because I heard there were a lot of interesting things. What I did see, however, was that were many exhibits that showed where people hid to escape the Nazis. At the very end, there was a car. A man hid his wife in there. It asks where she hid...so, to anyone who goes there, my question to you is: where did she hide?

This is Potsdam Palace. It wasn't very cool. It was basically just a cottage. There wasn't even of the furniture. I wish I had been able to spend more time at Checkpoint Charlie rather than go to Potsdam...

But, this is the absolutely gorgeous view from Potsdam Palace.

europe 2010: days 1 & 2

i wasn't exactly looking forward to doing these posts...considering they're going to be really long and lengthy. so, if you don't want to read all of them and just look at the pictures i won't be offended...

days 1 & 2:

this is before we even left for denver to start our long trek

at the denver airport, we found these everywhere...comforting isn't it?

even the bathrooms were tornado shelters!





we sat in the denver for 5 hours so we were so excited when we finally got to leave

these are some pictures from when we arrived in Berlin...unfortunately, i don't remember what they are...

notes...

while everybody was over on easter, randi left a nice little note on my ipod to blog. although i usually ignore that request, i actually had something to blog about.

this has been my all-time favorite show since the very first episode. i struggled for a very long time to find someone else who had seen this show other than my family. i finally found someone who had seen an episode of chuck this season and liked it. now every night after each new episode on monday, we have some very intense conversations on the chuck episode. we call ourselves the "chuckaholics" as a matter of fact. if any of you guys happen to be bored out of your mind on monday nights, i highly suggest this show! i don't know if i can wait for three weeks for the next episode! that's how exciting it is!