I'm a Jelly Donut! (Part 5) (Berlin Day 2)

After the "Beer Garden", we went to see the Golden Goddess. We didn't actually go up in the tower, but I came back to it later. After the Goddess, which we didn't really stay for THAT long. We traveled down the road a short while till we got to the river, passing the Presidents House along the way. (We didn't stop there) Once we got to the Presidents House, we stepped up the gear to 3rd, and zoomed down the river squeeking our toys at the folks that were doing the river tours. :-) (A lot of tours in Berlin) :-)

Well, we fly past the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt", which I heard was nicknamed the "Pregnant Oyster", once again not stopping, till we get to a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river "Spree". We had to get off our bikes at this point (till we crossed the bridge), just because there were just too many people to ride across. So we get across the bridge, and behold, we are across the river from the train station that I came in from (#60). Too be honest, I don't know what #61 and #62 are, diplomatic buildings... maybe? I'll have to look those up again. (Well, found out that it was actually the German Chancellery (aka Chancellor's Office)

It's at this point that we are getting close to the end of the tour. Right after we had crossed the bridge, we get to the Reichstag, the parliamentary building that had burned down initially right near the time of Hitler's coming into power. Everyone believes that the Nazi's burned down the building, but no one could prove it. It was the burning of the building that allowed Hitler to step up into power the way he did. If you look carefully at pictures #63 and #64, you would notice the glass dome on top of the Reichstag. This was a fairly new addition, and its the main attraction here at the Reichstag. So much that you can see the line that is waiting on the front steps, I come back later for some more pictures here. Once again, I forget exactly what #65 through 68 are buildings wise, I can only assume that they are diplomatic buildings, but I'm not sure. I'll have to verify these again. (Yeah, 65 still the Chancellor's Office, 66 & 67 is the Paul-Löbe-Haus (aka Parliament Building), and I can only assume that 68 was the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus)

Well, we get to our last stop in the tour, which is a little square that has two museums on two sides, and the Berlin Dom on another. I forget which museums, I didn't have a chance to go into any of them, so they never stuck. But I'll find out later. (Altes Museum & Pergamon Museum)

So we head on back, turn in the bikes, give our tour guide a tip for a job well done, and we all go our separate ways. At this point, I didn't want to rent a bike at where I got the tour at, because I wanted to head back to the hotel, sightseeing along the way. And well, if I rented a bike, I would have to have backtracked. So the first thing I did, was go up into the "Pope's Revenge", did I mention that little tidbit? I don't think I did. Well, the tower of Fernsehturm was constructed by the Russians showing the world how technological they were. Well, as Randall put it, they were also ahead of their time by putting up the first disco ball. There was only one problem. As the sun hits the tower just right, it creates a little cross right on the tower itself. And seeing that the USSR LOVED christianity, they tried all they could to get rid of it, but they weren't able to do it. So Randall said that the nickname for the tower was called "Pope's Revenge" to spite the USSR. Not sure if that's exactly true, the nickname, but I could understand it if it was.