Berlin Day 1

Happy fourth of July! It's just a plain old day here in Berlin.

Last night was a good first night here. We basically just hung out and drank some beer. I must say, German beer is quite good so far. Had a great Heff. The only problem with Berlin so far is that it's still raining. Hopefully it will clear up in the next few days.

Today we went on an awesome free walking tour (the guide is paid with tips and she definitely earned them... amazing). We saw most all of the major sites including the Brandenburg gate, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie etc. Berlin also has some really amazing squares. The architecture is very impressive and on a massive scale. I got lots of great pictures. The walking tour went on for about 4 hours with a small break for lunch. It was a great intro to the city.

Tonight we are thinking about doing a pub crawl, if only to get an introduction to the night life here and meet other English speaking people. It's about 4pm here and we're planning on just relaxing for a while until dinner. Not quite sure where we're going to eat yet.

So some general things I've noticed so far in Europe. Beer is sold EVERYWHERE. Like.... really... everywhere that sells anything pretty much also sells beer. Also, people smoke, a lot, and indoors though the UK did just institute an indoor smoking ban on July 1. An interesting thing about the toilets in Amsterdam and Germany. They all have two buttons. A small and a large one. From what I've gathered, the quantity of water is determined by which button you press. Kind of smart if you ask me since you'd only really need a lot of water for a *ahem* large load.

Tschüss!