Melting in Bearlin

 Hullo bears and not-a-bears!! Are you awake yet?? This is Sandy at 8:30 am (Berlin time) - when all of the North American crew is sound asleep! This morning we went on an adventure to the former East Berlin.

 We had to travel on the S-Bahn... and the U-Bahn and even some buses... and of course walk!

 Along the way Sandy saw some beary large hydrangeas which he said we had to photograph because Hammie and Gea like them. These weren't a very exciting colour though - sort of pale green.

 With one white one in the middle of it all... But they were beary bear large!!

 We also saw the Siegesaule from a distance (the road was closed to bus traffic - and it was too far to walk with all the other walking we had in store!).

 You can see it from 4 different directions... this is from the south!

 Sandy thought maybe we could also travel by bicycle... but this one wouldn't go very far I don't think!

 Between Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburger Tor, you can see a lot if interesting things. The bricks (two bricks wide) mark where the Berlin Wall used to be. And yet it does go straight under that building! They have done a lot of building since 1989...

 This is Sandy on the former Wall line - he thinks it must have been a beary skinny wall... but Mama says it is only a marker and that the real wall was much thicker!

 Then there is this intereeting park with all sorts of concrete blocks of various heights.

 It is a great place to play peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek.

 But Mam says it is also more serious than that - being a Holocaust Memorial.

 And far in the distance you can see... the Fernsehturm (the TV Tower)...

 This is Brandenburger Tor - it is in the centre of the city... and is beary beautiful...

 But as you can see, there are all sorts of trucks and tents in behind it (and a sporting event on the other side)... so this is the best we get for pictures!

 Oh and if you look through it... you can see the TV tower (again!).

 Between Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag is a memorial on a fence to people who died trying to escape from the East to the West. Most of them were from 1961 (which is when the wall went up - August 1961).

 It was beary hot today and we had to stop and have a Fanta in the shade. But even the shade was hot!

 So we went into some shops and bought some post cards and saw some mugs with the crosswalk guy on them!

 And every once in a while... in the distance, we would see the green umbrellas of a Starbucks and stagger over to sit in cool air conditioning!!

 Finally, we ended up in the centre of what used to be East Berlin. This is where the TV tower is!! There is a big plaza surrounded by old buildings... Mama was here for a visit in 1987 (before the Wall came down) and it looks very similar still!

 There was a fountain which was very tempting (even to a little bear)...

 And there were rubber duckies waiting to take a dip as well!

 But then Sandy spotted something in the distance... it was the name of this plaza - Alexander Platz!! Ahhhhhh!!! "Mama, quick take a picture of me!! Am I named after this plaza????" Uh - no... you are named after a great Canadian Scottish explorer named Alexander Mackenzie! But it was still fun for Alexander to have his pic taken in a place bearing his name!

 Oh and the train station is called Alexander Platz too! That is a very big "Alexander"!!

 And there it is... the TV tower from the bottom...

 Oh and of course we have to have Sandy in the picture too! By this point though, everyone is a melted puddle and Sandy is particularly toasty in his winter hat! So we toddle off and caught a street-car.

 Yellow of course... and learned that the temperature was 34 C (93 F)... and with the humidity it was 38 C (100 F)... ugh!!!