Deutschland Ist Wunderbar!

In the words of Chris Farley, for those of you who don't "spreken sie deutsch", "Deutschland Ist Wunderbar" is German for..."Deutschland is Wunderbar!" :)

Sorry that we are a little late on our blog for the last two weekends! So, here's our quick attempt to catch up!

Two weekends ago (Feb. 17th) we took the chance to go and see Germany. This was a first time for me and I thought it was GREAT! Jared got a call the day before to let him know that he would be working in Hamburg the following week. So, we hurriedly put together flights, hotels, and things to see--all in less than 24 hours.

We flew to Berlin Saturday morning and spent Saturday and Sunday there. We had a great time and saw a lot of neat sites. We loved seeing Brandenburg Gate. While we were there we watched some street performers and Jared got called out of the crowd to assist in the show!
He did a great job! I loved watching him perform! ;)

Later we walked to the Tower of Victory. AKA: Angel Moroni's wife -- At least that's what the missionaries in Berlin called it when Jared did splits with them back in the day! We hiked up to the top and both made guesses on how many stairs we would end up climbing. Jared guessed 847 and I guessed 543. We were both miserably off - we only had to climb 282 stairs. Luckily, it lead to a nice view and some really cool tiled walls on the tower.
Probably one of my favorite parts was Check Point Charlie. They had a whole wall of pictures and snippets of history that were easy to read through and easy to understand. It was nice to have a reminder of the history of the area since it's been so long since learning about it in history class.
We also enjoyed walking through town, eating bratwurst (if you can believe it or not) and doner kebabs, seeing part of the Berlin wall, and going to a German speaking ward (although I think we only understand a sentance or two of the entire meeting). We didn't really enjoy the freezing cold temperatures or the "sparkling mineral wasser" though. :)

Sunday night we took the train and headed up to Hamburg where Jared would be working for the week. I enjoyed going out for a couple of hours each day to see some of the sites. One of my favorites was the Hamburg city hall. It was a beautiful building! Jared worked really hard and very long hours this week so he didn't really see much more than the train station and hotel. (Too Bad.)
We flew back to London on Thursday and were glad to return to a more regular routine.