Berlin Day 3

Since we had a really late night last night, we are posting two blog entries today.  

Yesterday was our last full day in Berlin, and it was another full day of sightseeing and fun.  We started our day a little later since we did not have a real schedule to keep.  Our first stop, after walking along the Ku-Damm was the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) often referred to as Berlin's "hohler Zahn" or "hollow tooth" - the original church was bombed and destroyed heavily during WW2 and the remains of the spire have been turned into a Memorial Hall, while the new church is located directly next to it. 

After our visit to the church we went shopping (mainly window shopping😉) in the exclusive KDW (Kaufhaus des Westens). And since shopping causes "hunger",most of the students had their first Doner (turkish food - similar to a pita pocket filled with gyros and fresh vegetables) for lunch.  After lunch we took the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz and then walked over to the St. Mary's Church (Marienkirche) and the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom).  

 

After the climb to the top of the Dom through a quite narrow winding staircase, it was time for a relaxing boat tour on the Spree River which we enjoyed despite the hot sun - just sitting down for an hour after all the walking felt great. 

Since we all felt a little too hot and tired after the boat tour, the only thing that could give us the needed energy was another stop at an Eisdiele - ice cream shop

😊- Since we all felt the need for a shower, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then went back out for a yummy German dinner with Schnitzel, Currywurst, Flammkuchen and Spargelsuppe before heading back to the city center to experience Berlin at night.  We headed up the TV tower to see the lights of Berlin and then walked all the way from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate.  It was a pleasant walk, lot's of great conversations among the students and it was so nice to admire Berlin's beautiful architecture along the Unter den Linden Street illuminate by dimmed street lights.  We did not even realize that it was past 11 p.m. by now, since there were still quite a lot of tourists out and about.  Luckily S-Bahn and U-Bahn run all day and night and we returned to our hotel around midnight.