Reichstag

Today revolving around our noon appointment at the Reichstag for which we needed to arrive 30 minutes in advance. We tried a different coffee shop where the coffee was better than yesterday, but the food was not. Due to lollygagging around, we left their immediately for the train station and found the long line and waited.

Once inside, there was more waiting before our guide arrived. At two minutes after noon, he started even though more people were scheduled for the tour. I guess they didn’t get there 30 minutes early as instructed!

We started in the main room where they hold plenary sessions. He showed us a map breaking down the parties’ representations which is color coded. The room is modular so after each election they re-arrange the seats. The color of all the seats is NOT the color of any party—it is a copyrighted color that is called Reichstag Blue (Blue is intentionally in English). Unlike US meeting chambers, there are no assigned seats. It is first come first served. If one wants TV visibility, one must get there early to get a room in the front. The public is allowed to attend, but must be silent.

Next up was a very interesting hallway. As the Soviets got to Berlin first when they captured the Reichstag many soldiers wrote graffiti on the walls. During restoration, this was found behind panels and was left exposed as well as charred areas from the fire. Also statues were removed as to not glorify any complicated past “heroes” and to enable this space to make new history. Interestingly, Hitler only spent one day here, so despite Reich being in the name, it does not have deep connections to the Third Reich.

We walked past the presidents office and it was not marked with any fanfare. Ornate chandeliers and red carpets were also removed to make this space as equamanious as possible.

On upper floors we saw the meeting areas for the different parties, the executive level which was marked in red and a view of the plenary room from above.

From there we were released to go up into the dome, which is more than decoration. It is actually part of the hearing and cooling system so it is not fully enclosed. The hot air glow into the center come and then gets released out of the dome.

By now, we are starved, so we walked to Potsdamer Platz because our next stop was Lego world. Amy found an excellent Italian restaurant where she had a black noodle dish and I had mushroom ravioli. We had a light Chianti to loopaccompany the meal and Amy went in for dessert with the tiramisu.

As luck would have it or lack of research, the Lgo place requires an adult to be accompanied by a child 16 or younger. There was no nope of convincing them Amy was 16 so we did what every self-respecting woman does when she’s thwarted—we went shopping! Amy had some luck at Uniqlo and I bought a Lego set at the Lego store.

From there we decided to split up. I wanted to go back and hang around Checkpoint Charlie for a bit and she had her own mission. I was going to go into the museum but a huge group of kids came in behind me as I was waiting for the clerk to sort out something with ther person in front of me. I decided to skip it because it was expensive, pretentious (you had to buy rights to take photos) and overcrowded. The online reviews were kind of meh and I had been there in 1983! I’m sure it’s much different now.

I walked back to the hotel doing some other shopping on the way. I found a cute Christmas store and I needed a few things from the grocery. Neither of us felt like going back out, so I had a couple of the Le Louvre cocktails and a snack at the sky bar. And another day was in the books.