Tuesday, May 06, 2008

 

Berlin by Bike



Gramma on the Diamler-Chrysler Observation Deck on Potsdamer Plazer, Berlin

May 5 - Berlin

Neil Cameron was our guide on a tour of the central city by bicycle. Five hours of riding her and talking about the history and significance of each peice. An artist painting his story as we went. He was from Manchester and graduated from Manchester University and moved to Berlin in 2006 but had spent the last several months living with a girl friend n Akron Ohio.

[when traveling I get a profusion of ideas on many topics and writing brings them back]
we visted with a head master of a Denmark public school on Sunday who was on his way to Iceland for meetings. His school is in a rural area west of Odense that has about 600 students K-12, ,many who live in rural areas and ride buses. They are working on a summer program where students would ride a bicycle or walk to school. The rural roads are not considered safe and I discussed with him the concept of Safe Routes To School where there are walking and bicycle buses. An auto of 4 wheeler with the saftey sign and a one sided trailer would be just the ticket I think for the USA and Denmark.

We started the five hour tour about 11:00 and concluded about 16; with a beer. Highlights included Beber Platz (book burning), Stadt Opera House, Humboldt University, Brandenburger Gate, Postsdamer Platz (Daimler Chrysler Building Observatin Deck) lunch, remaing wall museum, parking lot that covers Hitler Bunker, Reichtag that was burned as a pretext for Hitler's rise to power and is now the German parliment building, Tier Garten.

Later we got on bus 100 at the Opera House/Cathedral and rode the double decker to Zoological Garten for a bit of time on the Europa Center Platz then returned to Alexander Platz for ice cream where we catch the U2 back to the Alcatraz. It was a long and magical day desipte all the dark history of this place that displays the ill feelings between the French and Germans over the centuries.

Two retired Canadian secondary teachers were on the tour with us. Wayne and John and the rest of the information is in the data base, but one thing is that Wayne was a math teacher were a large number of NHL stars went to high school. I remember Eric Lindross was one of his favorite students. I think in was Hamilton High School in Toronto.

Comments:
Hi there, haven't posted in a while, so thought I'd say hi and tell you how awesome your trip sounds. Berlin is such a gem and right now I'm reading the Rise/Fall of the Third Reich by C. Shirer (Martin calls it my light night time reading) so all the locations, etc history is right where I'm at. You guys come home in a week and I can hardly believe it, so much you've done/seen and more to come. We're all doing fine and very busy. Talk to you soon. Love,C
 
You're spot on as far as history is concerned. Neil suggested we watch the movie, "The Downfall" about the last 12 days of Hitler.
 
Another movie Neil recommended was, "The Lives of Others."
 
What a great day! Interesting stuff, more interesting people. Lucky you.
 
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