Thursday August 26, 2010

Visited Berlin on Saturday. Shopped on Kurfürstendamm, the most famous avenue in Berlin — full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants. Saw the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, destroyed by Allied bombing and preserved as a memorial. Went to the KaDeWe, the largest department store in continental Europe. Ate famous German sausage at Im Biss and visited what used to be East Germany and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Sunday we went to the 700-year old Wolfsburg Castle and St. Andreasberg which is the highest mountain town in the Harz Mountains and has the steepest roads of the region. Rode the summer toboggan run and viewed the electronic surveillance tower built as a NATO listening post on Stöberhai. This signals intelligence facility was used during the Cold War to listen into military radio traffic in East Germany.

Fred’s been taking pictures of construction sites….notice how small the dumpsters and job trailers are!

On Tuesday went with cousin Inga to pick up her new car at Volkswagen Autostadt.  We toured the Volkswagen plant and ate more famous sausage , "Currywurst" made especially by Volkswagen.

The Danndorf neighborhood where we stayed is immaculate and within walking distance there is a bakery, hair salon, biergarten, horse farm, lake, party store and more.  There is even a service truck that drives around and delivers fresh baked goods!

Flew from Germany to Kiev this morning. We moved to a bigger, nicer apartment, not so close to downtown. But the elevator is like a coffin.  Even though we are on the 4th floor, I will not get in the elevator. We have already done all the main tourist attractions and needed a change of scenery. Tomorrow we pick up the girls from Gorodyna, for good!