Day 3 - Shoe Fail

One of the "souvenirs" that I want to buy here in Germany is a couple of pairs of shoes.  Since the ones I want aren't available in the USA, I need to get them either here or in Munich.  I looked at the manufacturer's "where to buy" page and made a list.  Susan and I set out early in the morning so that we could be back at the hotel to meet Sam for a pic nic.  So far, these shoes have been quite elusive.  And not just the model that I want, the whole brand.  The first place we went doesn't carry them (despite the manufacturer's website).  The second and third places only have their athletic lines, not the casual line that I am looking for.  Finally, the fourth place has either closed or moved.

But it wasn't a morning wasted.  This endeavor took us to Alexanderplatz, where we were able to get some cool photos.

It is difficult to capture just how large the Telespargel is.

This mural is on the side of the mall where shoe shop fail #1 occurred.

On a nearby office building:

This is the Weltzeituhr, or "World Clock."  It has 24 faces (one for each of the time zones), and rotates throughout the day.  It's pretty big too!

I have been meaning to get a shot of this guy for a while.  Certainly a sign of things to come.

Sandy Springs has turtles, and very appropriately, Berlin has bears!  We have begun seeing many of these all over town.

The Communications Museum

The Ampelmann!  The little man can be seen on the walk signals in the former East Berlin feature the following male figures, instead of the more generic ones found in the former West Berlin and most of the rest of Germany.  After reunification, the city decided to standardize on the ampelmann used in the west.  This sparked several protests and a successful movement to keep the East German ampelmann in place.  Now there is an ampelmann shop, restaurant, and a small museum!

After meeting up with Sam, we went over to the Potsdamerplatz area in search of a deli or sandwich shop to get food for our pic nic.

Berlin's Bierbike Tour.  Only if we had enough people...

After a lot of walking, we made it to the park.

We saw this really interesting bird that looked a lot like a crow, but obviously isn't like crows in the USA.  Turns out that it's a hooded crow.

After pic nic-ing, we went back through the Tiergarten on the way to the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial.  Even though there are no football fans here now, it may give you a better idea of how many people were there.

Each of these towers had a huge jumbo tron and two columns of speakers on each side.  There were five of these, each separated by maybe 1000 feet.

Then, at the front was the "main stage" with an even larger jumbo tron and larger speaker arrays.

Unfortunately, it meant we couldn't get a good shot of this side of the gate, but that's okay.

We then arrived at the Holocaust Memorial park.  Being there was very moving.  There are a couple thousand of these concrete blocks.  Even though they are all different heights (some are quite tall), they appear similar because the ground is not level.  It rolls around like small hills and dips down such that the blocks are much taller than me.

We did get a good shot of this side of the gate.

After another couple hours of unsuccessful shoe shopping, we walked over to the far side of Museum Island to Georgbräu for dinner.  It's a brewpub that serves local fare, which is very similar to what is found in Bavaria.

Another hooded crow.  This one found a treat!
 

The beer here (this is the dunkel) was actually quite good.  Some of the tables, including ours, were right on the river!

  

 

Some of the other seats were near this beautiful garden.

The stone work on the building across the river from the restaurant was beautiful!

We have always liked the ornate sewer covers!

This bombed-out church that was never restored is now an art space.

After dinner, we walked a little more, and found a place to get some eis!

We ended up doing just about as much walking as we did the day before, so we were really exhausted.  We didn't mean to, but thanks to my elusive shoes, we did.  I think we're both going to be really sore.