It's about time!

Donald, our free walking tour guide

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The French Cathedral, which sits opposite its twin, the German Cathedral in Gendarmenmarkt

The Berliner Dom

The Neue Synagogue

Remaining piece of the Berlin Wall

Site of Checkpoint Charlie

The Jewish Museum

View of the Brandenburg Gate taken from the top of the Reichstag

On the 19th of this month, I found myself (1) still in Europe (2) with another block of days off (tough life, I know) and (3) with a last-minute opportunity to realize a long standing goal of mine. For what feels like forever, I have been trying to get to the city of Berlin. I have been packed, ready and on my way no less than four times, but fate has always managed to cruelly poo- poo my plans and send me reeling somewhere else. Based on this track record, when my friend, Diana, called to tell me that there was a cheap flight heading to Berlin in a few hours, I jumped at the chance, but inside I was cringing, awaiting the inevitable. The flight was going to be full, some union necessary to my plans was going to announce a strike, the city was going to declare itself closed for a few days...something was bound to happen. Yet, amazingly, nothing did. We got on a plane, we got off a plane. We were in Berlin!! Easy as that. Of course, as has become the norm for me this summer, I was grossly under-prepared. I had no guidebook, none of the detailed notes I had written out for each of my four failed attempts, not even a flimsy map. But I did have one thing, the information for what is quickly becoming one of my favorite things ever, a Sandeman's New Europe walking tour. This company offers free walking tours led by young enthusiastic guides who, over the course of 3 hours or so, provide participants with an always entertaining overview of the history and main sights of some of Europe's major cities. Having already done the Amsterdam tour three times, I had faith that they would be able to fill in the vast gaps in my knowledge as related to all things Berlin. And fill them in, they did. Thanks to our guide, Donald aka Awesome (not just a commentary on his story-telling abilities and all around savvy, but also what it said on the flip side of his nametag), we learned all about the history of Berlin, starting from the early days of the Kaisers, through to the Third Reich onto its unique position as the epicenter of the Cold War and lastly to the present day. He led us through the Brandenburg Gate; to the site of the Book Burning Memorial, a haunting window looking down into a sealed room full of empty shelves to remind the visitor of a time when books considered unGerman were burned in this square; to the site of the bunker where Hitler and Eva Braun commited suicide, which has now been turned in a park/ parking lot where, as Donald put it, people take their dogs to shit; to the site of the Reichstag or German Parliament, topped by a glass dome where the public can either take in a scenic view of the city or look down into the chambers of their elected officials to remind them that they are keeping an eye on them; to the abstract Monument to the Murdered Jew which, with its undulating ground and gray slabs of concrete of varying heights succeeds in creating a sense of disorientation and apprehension in those who walk through it; and finally to a park across from Museum Island, where Donald capped off the tour by telling the tale of how the Berlin Wall was finally brought down. It was a fascinating afternoon, throughout which I kept reminding myself, that finally, after so many tries, the impossible had happened...I had actually made it to Berlin.