Honeymoon in East Berlin, day one

I don't know about you, but for me nothing says romance quite like a weekend in the former bastion of all things grey and communist. I think this piece of the Berlin Wall appropriately sums up the mere thought of spending one's honeymoon in Berlin:A few weeks after we got married, Q fled the homestead for a two-0month work assignment in Rheine, Germany. I went to visit a couple of weeks ago. We were going to go to Prague for a long weekend, but that would entail too many train rides so we opted for Berlin instead. Note to readers considering a romantic getaway: Berlin should not be on your list.

Q had booked us a room at the Wall Strasse Park Place centrally located in former East Berlin on Wall Strasse (Wall Street). I'm sure you've all heard of the famous East Berlin Stock Exchange? Yes, they are right up there with NASDAQ.

So the hotel took it's location quite seriously. When we checked in there was a huge mural of men in suits catching U.S. dollars as they fell from the sky. We laughed and wondered how such a place got a four star rating.

After checking in we followed the stock ticker carpet (I am not kidding - it was grey with stock market abbreviations and numbers all down the halls) to our room where we found a lovely money theme waiting in our honeymoon suite. Check out the huge dollar bill rug. Again, nothing says happy honeymoon like walking across George Washington's face to get to the bathroom:
But wait, it gets better. The interior decorator really embraced the theme of money and added the lovely touch of having a quote about money written in four languages above the bed:In case you can't read it, it says "Buy stocks and go to sleep for a long time." Now if that doesn't put you in the mood, I don't know what will...

Enough on the accomodations, on to Berlin. We spent our first day walking around the entire city. I wanted to see Checkpoint Charlie, maybe even get a picture of myself running through or past it, right? News flash: Checkpoint Charlie has been removed. There is now a museum for it on the corner of the intersection that replaced it where you can see pictures of the Checkpoint and read about it, but that's it. It was pretty disappointing to see that the biggest crossing area had been dismantled and replaced by none other than a Starbucks (on the former west side, of course). Here's Q taking a picture of some tourists in front of the checkpoint museum while I take a picture of him taking a picture and the Starbucks in the back:Seemed funny at the time. Next we headed up toward the famous Brandenburg Gate, the former formal entry point into the city of Berlin:

Look closely at the picture. See that guy in the white jacket with a hat? See what looks like ears behind him? That's a guy dressed in a bear suit getting paid to take pictures with tourists in front of the gate. I guess he's supposed to be the Berlin Bear, which are sold everywhere but really just seem to be teddy bears in Berlin t-shirts.

The chariot on top of the gate is called a quadriga, and Berlin's is very famous. I zoomed in for a closer shot and think the horses on top look a little crazed if you ask me...Check out those nostrils and eyes!!!
We walked a bit more, using the famous Victory Column, with Golden Lizzy on top, as a guidepost and kept ending up back at the same place, in the middle of an intersection. The sad thing about Berlin is that most of it's historic stuff was destroyed during the war. Then it was all separated by the wall and one side started to restore while the other built over. This results in reconstructed historic buildings next to modern, or not-so-modern, high rises and kind of destroys the feel that you want in a historical city. Where was I? Oh yeah, here's the column:
Golden Lizzy kind of reminds me of Moroni of Mormon cultural significance. I feel sorry for the poor guy who has to polish Lizzy. Someone must because she sure is shiny. I think she should hook up with Moroni sometime:
Speaking of religion, did you know that Scientology is banned as a religion in Germany? Here's a quote from the Scientology vs. Germany website about it:

The German Federal Government maintains that Scientology is an organization which has primarily economical interests. This idea has been reinforced by a ruling of the Federal Labour court (which is not connected to the government in any way). After having reviewed several Scientology books, the judges concluded that Scientology is not a religion, but a commercial enterprise.

Furthermore, the German government maintains that Scientology tries to distribute its ideas as widely as possible, ideally leading to a society where humans life together according to Scientology rules. A closer look at Hubbard's writings shows that this is not desirable since Scientology is structured in a totalitarian, anti-democratic fashion.

No, I didn't know about this until I spoke with a German friend. He was surprised to learn that I had snapped this shot of none other than a multi-lingual Dianetics display at a bookstore just down the street from the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin itself:
Score one for the commercial enterprise that is organized religion.

Next up: Going to a German nightclub while pregant.