Tom, Joan and Whitney come to Berlin!

Whitney, Tom and Joan arrived in Berlin on Sunday morning.  It was so good to see family faces from home!  We met them at the airport then took them by bus to their hotel so they could drop off their luggage and change into Sunday clothes.  Then we attended church together and had dinner at our apartment.  They pushed through the jet lag and we visited a few of the landmarks of Berlin that afternoon.  We were in he midst of a heat wave with temperatures in the nineties and high humidity - so it was hot!

 

The Siegessäule or Victory Column was our first stop.  This monument marks the German defeat of Napoleon and the French and is a beautiful and prominent landmark.

From the top of the Siegessäule there is an awesome view of Berlin.  Here you can see the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) which lies in a straight line from the Victory Column.

 

The Brandenburg Gate was our next stop.  The horse and chariot atop this gate were turned from facing the west to facing the east after the reunification of the city of Berlin.

 

The American Embassy

 The Jewish Memorial to those killed by the Nazis

This is one of the sections of the infamous Berlin Wall that has been preserved.  

After looking around Berlin, we returned to our apartment for ice cream with berries. 

 

 

Monday morning they came for breakfast and then we took them to see more of the sights of the city.

Our first stop was at Checkpoint Charlie

Then we went on a boat tour of Berlin.  It was very hot riding in the boat - I think we all got a little sunburned!

We stopped for lunch and enjoyed a Berlin original - Döner.  This is a sandwich invented by the Turks who have come to Berlin for the reconstruction of the city.  This concoction features thinly sliced meat (chicken, lamb or beef) fresh veggies, choice of sauces all on a delicious pita style bun.

 

Enjoying our Döner

 



After our lunch we had to have gelato from Berlin's best ice cream shop.

Tom, Joan and Whitney ordered 2 beautiful and delicious creations.

 

Our friend Susan joined us on the boat tour and of course for the gelato - she introduced us to this wonderful place!

 

After lunch we stopped for more pictures.

 

This is another preserved portion of the Berlin Wall.

 

 

That evening, Tom, Joan and Whitney presented Family Home Evening to a group of our Young Single Adults.  They gave an awesome lesson!

After the lesson, Whitney played and sang 3 songs for our group.  They loved it!  Whitney is so incredibly talented.

 Then Whitney led the group in a fun game.

 It involved remembering names and switching places.

After the game, we enjoyed a dinner of pasta and cake with the group.

 

 

 

Tuesday morning Joan, Hal and Patty went shopping.  We took Joan to the famous Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop.  It is a wonderland of German handmade Christmas and other holiday items.  They are famous for their nutcrackers and pyramids.

We had fun exploring the store and Joan found a cute nutcracker and Berlin Bear Christmas ornament.

While we were shopping, Tom and Whitney went bike riding.  Berlin is famous for its huge forested park known as The Tiergarten.  They visited that as well as more historical sights.

Here is Tom holding up his belated Christmas gift - an Ampelman T shirt.  Ampelmännchen : little traffic light man,  is the symbol shown on pedestrian signal lights. In the former German Democratic Republic (GDR – East Germany), now a part of Germany. Prior to German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east.

The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, enjoying the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.

For our farewell lunch we went to a restaurant in Neukollin (a suburb of Berlin) for their famous giant Wienerschitzel.  Here we are anticipating the arrival of our food.

 

There it is - larger than a plate and more than Tom, Joan and Whitney could eat!  It was not only big, but delicious!  (John - yours is better tasting but you will have to step it up in size to compete with this huge treat!!)

 

 

Hal and I ordered the half size and it was enough for us for lunch and we took home half of it for another meal.  The drink you see in the background is Almdudler ( which is a sweetened carbonated beverage made of grape and apple juice concentrates flavoured with herbs)  it is delicious and enjoyed in Austria, Germany and at John and Cindy's Oktoberfest when available.



 

 

The schnitzel was served with fried potatoes - it was all yummy.

 We can't believe how much we ate! 

 

We then had to say our farewells and Tom, Joan and Whitney left for Freiberg and a visit to the temple.  From there, they will travel to Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Italy before returning home.  It was wonderful to spend time together!

 

 

 

Visit to Brandenburg

Our Stake President has asked us to visit all the Branches and Wards in our Stake.  With eleven units in the Stake, we have many visits to make.  Our first visit was to the Branch in the city Brandenburg an der Havel (so named because the city was built on the River Havel. Brandenburg is about an hour's drive northwest of Berlin.

 

Brandenburg has an interesting history dating back to the 900's and Medieval times.  The World War II Era brought sad history to this city due to a Nazi Concentration Camp which was located and operated for a period of time during the war.  An airplane factory was also located in Brandenburg and due to this, the city was 70 % destroyed by bombings during the war.  However, it has been rebuilt and restored and there are still many very old and historic buildings and churches.

The Brandenburg Branch meets in a building in the heart of the city.

This is the Relief Society of the Brandenburg Branch.  The sisters were kind, welcoming and happy that I played the piano for Relief Society.  With flowers on the table and a quilted table square which read: "Liebe hört niemals auf"  ("Charity Never Faileth) - I knew I was in the right place!

During the previous week the RS sisters had gathered to make strawberry/rhubarb jam.  They had little jars of jam for each sister and were generous enough to give me one!

 

 



We were asked to share our testimonies in Sacrament Meeting - which we did in our best German (we hope that they understood all that we tried to say!)  After Sacrament Meeting, we met with the Branch President and his counselor to talk about activating the less active YSA in the Branch.  We had a good meeting with them and we will return in a few months to follow up on what we discussed and planned. 

After the meetings, we walked around to see a bit of the city.  This is a bridge over the River Havel.

A view from the bridge

 A view of the Steintorturm - an ancient medieval tower.

A closer view of the tower.

 

We enjoyed our visit to this interesting city and we especially enjoyed meeting the saints in the Branch there!  We look forward to visiting the other Wards and Branches of our Stake.