Berlin and Warsaw

We spent Monday in Potsdam beginning with a beautiful German breakfast in a lovely hotel and then headed to Frederic I 's palace and garden.  Unfortunately the palace was closed on Mondays and we got caught in a summer downpour, but stayed to enjoy the beautiful gardens and got some fun photos of the boys pretending to be statues. They have caterpillars that any contact with them causes a rash- I dont remember touching them but I must have.

We continued on to Berlin and took photos at the Brandenburg Gate and got on a double decker city tour bus which is a great way to get to know the city to begin with.  We visited the Wall Museum and saw how people escaped East Berlin in very creative ways- hard to believe it only just came down 24 years ago- the year I graduated high school.  We went to the old Gestapo headquarters which is a museum now- hard to read about all the atrocities that happened there.  We visited the memorial to murdered Jews and it was closed on Mondays as well, but still a powerful memorial site.  We took photos of checkpoint Charlie which was important because when Rich and his family lived there in Berlin from 1967-68 his parents crossed through the checkpoint to go Christmas shopping for inexpensive gifts in East Berlin.  Also we discovered that his birthday is a National Holiday here and the main street is named 17 June!  We also introduced the boys to doner kebabs (Turkish food) which they only sort of liked.   Turkish food is easily found all over Germany so it was fun for us to have them try it.

It was good to see the place that I have often taught about in my History classes.  A lot of tragic things happened here but they are rebuilding (lots of construction) and it was important for the boys to see.  Jake seemed to grasp the historic relevance and it seemed to fly right over the heads of the other two, which is fine- they are too little to understand/take in the human capacity for evil.  While tragic, it's important to teach future generations of past crimes so that hopefully they won't be repeated again.  Jake has a natural interest in politics, governments, dictatorships, and economics; for him it was a lesson about how far the totalitarian dictatorships can go in destroying people's lives and ethnic groups as a whole. 

On Tuesday, we drove from Berlin to Warsaw, Poland.  I love it here so far.  The people are so nice and the streets clean.  It reminds me of northern Italy.  We had a wonderful dinner with goulash and pierogi in Old Town and wandered around eating our ice cream cones (super tall) after dinner.  there were street performers and it was beautiful.  It was about 75-80 degrees and the atmosphere was amazing.  Our hotel was just outside of Warsaw and we got completely lost.  The names of the streets are really tough Polish names and they change like 3-4 times on the same street.  Our GPS in the rental car only works in Germany not Poland so it's a little tough with me navigating while Rich is driving but we are making it happen slowly but surely.  Lots of patience required, especially with 3 little boys in the back!  Tomorrow we head to Krakow and then to Auchwitz. 
g to be statues.  I also some how got a rash from the gardens- we happened to read about some infestation of caterp