Tours with Terry

After a very interesting talk last night with Terry, Dad and I decided to go on one of his day tours called "Tours with Terry – Berlin Unknown”, a tour that will bring us to cool parts of Berlin that most tourists don't know about. As I mentioned yesterday, Terry has been around Berlin for a long time. He knows everything there is the know about Berlin’s history, as well as very interesting facts about WWII and the Cold War because he lived through it – a perfect tour guide in my opinion!

Our first stop was the 1936 Olympic Stadium (the Olympiastadion). When the Nazis came to power in Germany (1933), they decided to use the Olympic Games for propaganda purposes. With these plans in mind, Hitler ordered the construction of a great sports complex in Grunewald named the "Reichssportfeld" with a totally new Olympiastadion (there was one already there from the 1912 Olympic Games). The stadium was beautiful and could seat as many as 11,000 spectators around the main field alone.

We then went to the WWII Memorial Cemetery for British and Commonwealth servicemen killed in the war. I find it interesting that when you hear about people dying in wars, you don’t feel the same sympathy towards them we often look at them as a whole. It’s not until you see their actual graves and read the messages that their families left for them that you attach a soul to their names and you feel really hurt and sympathy.

Up next was a trip to a fortress and a little town called Spandow, where Terry brought us to his favorite donor place for EUR2.00 donors. They were massive and he was thoroughly enjoying himself - I on the other hand didn’t quite fancy it much.

All in all it was a good day. It was interesting spending the day with Terry and listening to all he had to say about Berlin then and now. We walked through the real streets of Berlin, away from all the tourists and attractions. Tomorrow we’re planning on taking it easy and checking out the area around our hostel.

Love,
Alexis