Europe! Complete with real pictures!

So like I said I literally have like 1500 pictures.  (Well 1200 now that I accidentally lost 300!  Long story I'm trying to recover them...)  Anyways- needless to say- it's a bit of a task going through all the pictures and trying to organize and remember where each one was and what not.

So here's a few from our day in Germany.  We took a train from the port town of Warnemunde into Berlin.  It was like an hour and a half train ride (with no air conditioning!  but the windows gave a nice nice breeze so it wasn't too bad... 

This is Dan and I at the Berlin wall in Germany.  There are a few lengths of the wall still standing.  This section has been maintained by the city and commissioned out to artists to paint.  Apparently the two people in the mural are two famous politician types from back in the day from like France and Germany or something and when they would meet they would give each other the "Brother's Kiss".  Apparently the photo this mural is after is super famous and tons of people have t-shirts and posters up in their homes of it...  I thought it was creepy and disturbing so I thought I'd make you all squirm by posting it on my blog.  :)

Just another cool mural section. But you can see a bit more of the wall itself. They taught us that the top of the wall was made of pipes they fastened to the top of the wall and then they greased it up with animal fat to make it harder for people to get over. My dad visited Germany during the cold war and said the wall was so scary looking and there was barbed wire everywhere and there was a section beyond the wall called no-man's land that was sand and barbed wire everywhere so if someone jumped the wall they could follow the footprints back to the nearest guard to where the person got over the wall and kill that guard right then. It was pretty intense to be there in person.

This is Checkpoint Charlie. One of the checkpoints to get through the wall from East to West Berlin during the cold war. My dad actually passed through checkpoint charlie when it was functional. Cool!

I don't know who the soldier is but this is us in front of Checkpoint Charlie. Maybe he was Charlie or something. But the photo is kind of iconic of the checkpoint I guess...

This is the Brandenburg Gate in Germany. I can't remember why it's special but it is... :)

And I can't remember the name of this place. I think it's a government building maybe- I obviously payed really good attention to our tour guides! :)

I have lots more pictures I'm trying to add more and more each day to my flikr. I have quite a few from this really cool museum in Germany called the Pergamon- it had awesome greek art from a huge building they uncovered somewhere and a recreation with actual pieces of the original gates of Babylon! It was really neat. Anyways- those are all on my flikr in my europe file... Go here if you're dying to see more before I find the time to post more! :)