Berlin, Day 6

Well, today was kinda different. It looked like it was going to rain, and then it got REALLY hot, then cold and windy, then hot, and not just humid.... I don't get Berlin weather... but that's ok... we had an awesome full day here in Berlin... here's what happened...

First off we went on another tour with Uncle Dave's personal drive, Mike. He's awesome. He took us to teh East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall... which is the longest stretch of remaining wall, and has become a huge area for street art...

This is mom and Dave at the East Side Gallery....

I'm not sure why they chose to take a picture in front of this one... i don't get it.... at all... oh well, it's German... maybe I'm not supposed to get it... haha...
This was my favorite... it reminded me of Salvador Dahli.... but cooler...
This is us on the West Side of the East Side Gallery... this is a famous bridge, I honestly forgot the name of it, but it wasn't used during the Cold War... cuz it divided East and West Germany...
Uncle Dave and I at my favorite part of the East Side Gallery... just a cool cartoon of a scary real life experience... when a man tried to escape to West Berlin...

Here is a cool video from the wall... enjoy!!!
This is the 02 World Arena... Britney Spears is playing here on July 28th... She asked me to be the opening act... but then Cher got jealous of me switching shows... and then I remembered I committed to EFY...so I had to hold true to the old White and Blue... BYU!!!!

Then, we went to the Russian Memorial in East Berlin... a memorial the Russian's built... to themselves... and the soldier that died in the Battle of Berlin... this memorial was HUGE!!!!
The big things in the background remind me of a Soviet Pride Rock... kinda of...
There were like a bajillion stairs up to this monument... such a workout!! haha.. this is a Russian soldier stamping out the Swatstika... this guy is HUGE!!! I was rejoicing, per Mike's request, in the fact that I made it all the way up!!! VICTORY!!!!

After that we went and did a walking tour of the Soviet cites in East Berlin, and cites in the Cold War. I learned that at the height of the Cold War, there was one KGB agent for every 64 people... how crazy is that? That's basically one KGB agent for every 20 families... We visited some escape routes, and some checkpoints, and it was all so cool. It was kinda scary because they told us Putin was raised in the KGB agency, and that it probably still runs today, secretly. Anyway we got to see a portion of the 'death strip' that was still in tact...


This is a difficult picture to take, as we could only see the death strip through a crack in cement... and this is a walkway that guards would walk down, guarding the wall. Basically if you got past the first wall, you were dead.... and then there were like 85 back up plans on how to kill you... haha... seriously.... it was certain death....

But... I DID learn that over 20% of Berlin Wall Escapes were the actual boarder guards!!! Who would have guessed that the guards were the ones who were wanting to escape!!!

Anyway, there is a family line to get on facebook.... what's up with that? Anyway, tomorrow we grab some souviners, and then fly to LONDON!!! AAAHHHH!!! SO EXCITED!!! Talk to you tomorrow... live from the United Kingdom!!!

Love, James