uzbekistan: tashkent

My taxi picked me up at 0530 to bring me to the train station. My train departed on time and arrived on time in Tashkent, at 0830. It was basically the continuation of the train on which I'd arrived in Samarkand, a couple days earlier.

It was raining as I arrived, which didn't make me happy, but hey, what can you do. I walked to the same hostel at which I'd stayed during my first couple nights in the country. I wasn't going to stay there overnight this time, but I knew I could stay in the common area during the day.

While warming up in the hostel (it wasn't warm rain,) I ended up talking with a woman from Estonia. She was in the middle of a longer trip through a lot more of Central Asia, I envied her. She and I ended up walking together into the city 'center,' then going our separate ways.

I continued walking, I wanted to see a few more mausoleums marked on the map. I was able to find one of them, but another was behind a security gate. The one I did see was quite small, and had a couple people offering prayers when I visited.

I kept going in the rain (argh argh argh,) and walked toward a Soviet style monument. Called the monument to courage, it memorialized the 1966 earthquake that destroyed much of the city.

Near Tashkent Islamic University I found trees of blooming cherry blossoms. Beautiful, though the rain made them less so.

Eventually my walk brought me to the Jama Masjid of the city. The Friday Mosque, the main mosque of the city. This mosque was far more modern, not at all like the other mosques I'd seen around the city and country.

Behind this mosque was a wide open platz, it was really big. Since it was raining I was able to take a couple of my favourite kinds of photos, those with reflections. At the back of the platz was another old madrassa, also with the vendors about whom I'd come to have such ambivalent feelings.

I found a cafe not too far away (across the street, actually,) and stepped inside for a late lunch. I ordered too much, but it was nice to be out of the rain for a while. I think I was the only foreigner in there, I felt everyone staring at me for most of the time I was in there. Thankfully, I'm used to the feeling, and don't mind eating by myself.

After lunch I found the nearest metro station and rode the train to the stop nearest the hostel. I walked to the hostel, and took time to get all of my stuff organized in my pack. There is a difference in how you want to pack your bags when you're traveling by train/bus vs. plane.

The hostel called a taxi for me, which took me to the airport. The driver tried to get away with not giving me change, I had to ask twice. Sadly, I'm used to this kind of scam, so I had the patience to deal with it.

My flight back to Moscow was easy and smooth.

I'd like to come back to Uzbekistan, though the next time I will be exploring completely different parts of the country. After this visit I've seen enough of the cities of the country, now I want to see the landscapes.

spain: canary islands: tenerife: santa cruz and la laguna

I arrived in Santa Cruz after four glorious days in Puerto de la Cruz. The bus ride was easy, and short, only about an hour. The bus ride took me through fog and rain, arriving in more rain. I was not thrilled, to say the least.

I walked to my hotel, and was able to check in. It was a simple room, but good enough for me. I took a nap, since rainy weather is perfect for that. I also hoped that when I woke up the rain would be gone.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. It was still raining when I woke up. For the most part, the rain didn't go away until late evening. Argh. I didn't let that stop me from going out, but it was rather miserable.

The day was 6 January, a Saturday. Spain is Catholic, which means 6 January is the 12^th day of Christmas, also known as Epiphany. This basically means nothing is open on the day. A few corner stores with convenience food, McDonalds, and very little else.

Walking around in the rain, when nothing was open wasn't much fun. At all. I wanted to buy ferry tickets to go back to Gran Canaria, but the offices at the marina/port weren't open. Argh. Several times during my walk the rain came down really strongly, I was not a happy camper.

The next morning the weather was slightly better, thank goodness. It was still very cloudy and windy, but it wasn't raining. Eventually I got going, my first stop was the port, for another attempt at buying a ferry ticket.

I ended up buying a ticket for a different company than the one that had brought me to Tenerife. It was a bit more expensive, but the ride would be less than half the time, and took me directly to where I wanted to go on Gran Canaria.

From there I walked to a giant mall, hoping to find a supermarket. It had occurred to me that I should get real food, since I hadn't had a proper meal in over a day. I ended up buying snacks, which weren't quite enough, but were good enough for the time being.

The bus station wasn't too far away from the mall. When I got to the station I waited in a queue to buy a ticket, only to be told that the ticket I wanted could be bought on the bus. Fortunately, the next bus to San Cristobal de la Laguna (usually called just La Laguna,) left less than ten minutes later.

The bus ride wasn't long, and took me to the main bus station of La Laguna. It was just off the highway, nowhere near the city center. I'm glad I had checked ahead of time where I wanted to go, and how to get there from the bus station. The street on which I walked was really quiet, there weren't any other people out, and very few cars.

The city center of La Laguna is Unesco designated, and is very cute. The entire city center is a pedestrian zone, which was perfect for my day visit. There weren't too many other visitors out in the city center either, probably for a couple reasons. One, it wasn't raining, but it was still rather dark, with strong winds. Two, it was a Sunday, and a Sunday right after a big Catholic holiday.

The first proper sight I saw was the Catedral de La Laguna. A pretty big church, in a rather small town. It was a surprisingly (to me) plain church. The part I liked best was the ceiling ribbing behind the altar, there really wasn't much other decor throughout the church. Part of the sanctuary was roped off, which made it easy to take a photo of the whole thing without anyone else in the way.

I found another church, but it looked ruined, and there was no open entry that I could see. Darnit. In one area of town I found a giant Christmas tree, I wonder who did the decorating.

I also found a third church, this one wasn't open either. It seems most of the churches I saw during this holiday trip were only open certain hours, not all the time. Booo. The bell tower of this church was beautiful, though it didn't match the church at all.

One of the sights listed on trip advisor was the Palacio de Pena, but it wasn't open. A bit of investigating informed me that it was almost never open to the public. Argh. The front facade was very grand, and photogenic, even if I had no idea what the building was supposed to be.

There wasn't much else to see in town, so I started walking back toward the bus station. Along the street I saw a couple buildings with huge murals on the walls. Even though I'd been out for several hours, I still wasn't seeing very many people out on the streets.

I didn't have to wait long for a bus back to Santa Cruz. When I got back I went back to my room for a few hours, until I remembered that I had seen a fertility clinic named after me on the map. I wanted to take a photo of the place, so I went for a walk. The clinic wasn't open at that hour, but I was still happy to take my photo.

The next morning I was up early to walk to the ferry port.

I don't feel the need to come back to Santa Cruz again, but it is a center of transport in this area of Tenerife, so I can't say I'll never be back.

ukraine: my 8th visit to Lviv (and a return to Zolochiv)

This is the story of yet another trip to Lviv. My original reason for booking this trip was to run a half marathon in Lviv. Howeva, when I didn't register for the race until just a couple weeks ahead of time. As I was going through the registration online, I decided to buy a race shirt. I don't need any of those, but I love them anywho. Unfortunately, they didn't have any more shirts in my size, so I decided not to register or run the race. This ended up being a good thing.

As with other recent trips to Lviv, I went somewhere else on Saturday, then walked Lviv on Sunday.

When I booked train tickets, I found one that arrived at 0405; this was a ridiculous time to arrive anywhere, but it was a third of the cost, less than $4. I stayed in the train station waiting room for an hour, paying the paltry fee of less than $.25 to do so.

I tried to doze off, but it didn't work very well since there were announcements nearly constantly. At one point I was fairly certain I heard an announcement for an electric train going to Zolochiv, but I couldn't find the electric train area of the station, darnit.

I walked to my accomodation, about a 20 minute walk. One of the reasons I'd booked this particular place was because it was supposed to have a 24 hour front desk. I didn't need to check into my room straightaway, but I did need a place to hang out for a few hours. The lady let me in, and I stayed in the kitchen for a few hours. While I was in there a few other guests came in, they were definitely surprised to see me, hee hee.

Around 0900, I decided it was reasonable to go into the city center, so I left my backpack at the front desk and walked out. I walked into the city center, annoyed by the rain and wind.

When I got to the city center I discovered the information office didn't open until 10am. I needed to kill about half an hour, so I found a cafe I liked, and ordered chocolate cake and tea. After eating and drinking I went back to the tourist information office, and asked how to get to the town of Zolochiv. The guy looked up the information, pulled out a city map, and told me where to go.

I followed his directions, hopping on a tram and riding it to the end of the line. Near there I found a marshrutka stop, and found Zolochiv listed on the signs. I waited around a bit, and a marshrutka pulled up. It waited there until it was full, then took off.

The first time I was in Zolochiv, I didn't see any of the town. My visit there was while I was on a castle tour with a friend. That tour took us to three castles in the area, but not the towns where those castles are located. I wanted to see the town.

I'd expected the ride to be a little over an hour. I don't know why, but it was nearly two hours later when we arrived in Zolochiv. I made a note of where the marshrutka stopped on the map, then started walking.

The first sight I went to was a church. It was a lot closer than I expected, less than two blocks away.

It was a Polish Catholic church, somewhat Baroque inside. Not too busy in decor, but definitely not plain or simple. I think the name was something like the Madonna Assumption Cathedral. I took photos of everything, including the ceiling. I also took a few moments to stand still and enjoy the quiet atmosphere.

Further down the street I came to another church. Unfortunately, the gates into the property were closed, so I wasn't able to get very close, let alone inside the church. While I was standing in front I watched a couple have wedding photos taken. Very cute. The lady must've been freezing, she was weraing a strapless dress!

I walked up a different street, winding my way through town. Zolochiv is not big, to say the least. I walked past several apartment buildings, and a couple playgrounds. Eventually I got to yet another church. This one was much smaller, and I wasn't the only visitor. When I first walked in, there were a bunch of kids inside. They all had notebooks of some kind, which were being checked one by one by a nun. I assume it was the end of a catechism (?) class, or whateva is the equivalent in the Orthodox church. This church had been part of the city fortress, and used to be Catholic.

Close to this church was a long park. Walking along this park I saw several large tree trunks that had been carved into faces. The carvings were done really well, and I loved them all.

I followed the street after the end of the park, it eventually brought me to the city cemetery. On one corner of the area was a WW2 momument/memorial. As usual, it was large-ish.

The cemetery was crowded with gravestones. A wide variety of course, some were large and fance, others much smaller. Some had individual fences, most did not. There were a couple that were really big, I'm guessing they were family mausoleums.

After wandering through part of the cemetery, I came to an intersection and changed streets. This street took me past an old hospital, and past a church still under construction. There was a large pile of construction material in front of the church, but no construction vehicles, so who knows if anything was going to be done anytime soon. One of the travel apps I use said this would eventually be the All Saints Church.

I followed this street around a corner, and kept going. Eventually it met up with another street, where I saw a monastery, the Basilian Monastery.

The monastery itself wasn't very exciting, but a couple photos turned out well because of the really dark clouds coming in fast. Unfortunately, the church of the monastery property wasn't open, I wish I'd been able to enter.

Further along the same street I found a Jewish memorial, next to a plain field. I'm not sure what it was memorializing, I didn't see a sign. (I hope there was a sign and I just missed it.) A couple blocks after that I found a Christian memorial.
Not long after that I arrived back at the area where I'd been dropped off earlier in the day. I boarded the next marshrutka to depart, I didn't have to wait long for it to get going.

Thankfully, the ride back to Lviv was a bit faster. I got back to Lviv, and rode the tram back toward the city center. I got off the tram before the city center, then walked my way to where I wanted to have dinner. It was a sushi place I've visited before, and was exactly what I expected.

From there I walked around the long platz in front of the opera building, just because I could. At night the building is lit up, and there are plenty of others strolling around, it's quite nice.

I walked because I still felt like moving for a little while. Then I walked to my hotel, and finally checked in properly. I ended up with what they called a triple room. There were three twin beds, spaced around a large room. I had a skylight too, which was nice.

The next morning I was awake early, as is normal for me. Unfortunately, when I woke up, I could hear rain coming down on the skylight. A lot of rain. Ugh. The one kind of weather I really don't like while traveling.

I started walking, back toward the city center. The comment I made earlier about not running the race being a good thing comes in now. As I was walking, I was passed by runners, the race had just started. This reminded me of the miserable race I'd run in Kyiv recently, I was more than happy to stay out of this one. I hate rain as it is, and had no desire to run another cold and wet race.

I arrived at a brunch place where I've eaten before to find a long line, argh. Not only was the line long, but it didn't move much. I stayed in the line, because I had my mind set on eating breakfast there. It's 100griven for a brunch, including a made to order omelette, drink, breads, salads, deli cut meats, and a few desserts. I ended up at a table with three ladies who were together. If I'd had to wait for a table for myself it might've been a lot longer. The omelette I ordered was not the omelette that was brought to me, but I was hungry and not very patient.

From there I walked to a souvenir store and bought a HUGE coffee mug (I'm pretty sure it holds 800mL) and postcards and a normal size mug. I didn't need to buy any of the stuff, but I couldn't help myself. The next time I go back to Lviv I have to find enough willpower not to spend money on souvenirs from the city.

I took everything back to my hotel where I cleaned up, packed up, and checked out. I left everything behind the front desk, and went back into town. It continued to rain all morning, sometimes more, sometimes less. Ugh.

When I got to the square at the city center I decided to go to a museum, something I've done very little of in Lviv. I found my way to the entry of the historical museum, on one side of the square. There was an entry fee, plus a photo fee, plus a fee to go into the Italian courtyard behind the building. Since none of the fees were very large, I paid for everything.

I started by walking toward the back, taking a look at the courtyard. It turned out to be three levels, with a few statues in various places. While I was on one of the balconies I saw a group of soldiers checking everything out from the ground level. I didn't find the area very interesting, I thought there must be a reason why there is an extra fee to see it, there must be some history I don't know. Oh well.

This building was originally built as a private residence, and when this area was part of Poland it became a royal residence for a Polish King Jan Sibelski (sp?) many years ago. The Royal Halls are what people come to see, they're lovely. Some of the original furniture and decor are still in the rooms, other pieces are just what would've been in use at the time. I really liked the wood floors, they were different in each room. There were several chandeliers to see too, very elegant.

After the history museum I walked to the corner of the square and went into another museum. This was the pharmacy museum. The front room is still a pharmacy, it has been active for a very long time. It turns out you pay your entry fee at the same place you would be buying medicine if that's why you are in the room!

After paying (just a simple entry fee, yay!) I went into the next room, which had displays of old school medicine, in old school containers. I didn't recognize any of the names, of course. I kept going and found a couple more rooms, with more displays of old medicine related stuff. Eventually I went down stairs into a storage room, to keep everything cool. To exit I had to go back up the stairs, and out the back of the building into a courtyard. Then you enter another building, go down stairs, and exit onto the street out of the front of that building. All in all, the pharmacy museum was much bigger and better than I expected.

By that point it was late afternoon, so I went to a cafe I like. It's a cafe specializing in waffles, yum! They have sweet and savoury choices on the menu, I always go for a sweet option. I had one with ice cream and raspberry sauce. I also had a salad, to pretend I was being healthy, hee hee.

After leaving the cafe I went to the Jewish quarter, and tried to take a look at the memorial the city has arranged there. There used to be a synagogue, but all you get to see now are the remains of the Golden Rose Synagogue. There is no ceiling, you just see a bit of the flooring.

There are signs describing the vibrant community that used to exist in Lviv, it's a shame that it has disappeared nearly entirely.

I continued walking, making my way toward a church I've always called the Soli Deo Gloria church, I don't know the actual name of the church. It says those words on the front of the church, and at night it is lit up with changing colours. The church is big, and I love the interior.

I started walking back toward my hotel, hanging out in the kitchen again for a couple more hours.

After that I walked to a nearby cafe, a scandinavian cafe. I couldn't decide what I wanted, so I had a hot chocolate, piece of strudel, and a piece of cheesecake. Sugar, yum!

When the cafe closed I walked to the train station, and found a seat in a waiting room I hadn't seen before. As I was sitting I looked at everything on the walls. There were schedules for electric trains, I knew I'd finally found the area to buy tickets for the electric trains.

When I come back to Lviv, now I know how to get to some of the day trip cities that interest me!!

germany: berlin

Every year, on or around my birthday, I like to take a trip. It's always a weekend trip, never very long. This year, a few months before my trip someone had posted a list of festivals of light, and I noticed that one of them would be happening over my birthday weekend. I booked the flights and was a happy camper.

My flights to Berlin did not go well, I did not land on time. My first flight, leaving Kyiv departed late. In order to make the connection in Vienna I had to race through the airport. Thankfully I wasn't the only one trying to make this particular connection. Go figure, I got to the second plane on time, and boarded, only to wait again; the second plane departed late as well.

At least arrival in Berlin was easy, as I didn't have to go through passport control again.

I was super excited and figured I could get to my hotel in less than an hour. I felt that way until I exited the airport and saw just how slowly traffic was moving out there. Berlin Tegel is an older airport in the city, there are no metro lines going to the airport. This means if you want to use public transport to get to and from the airport, you have to use a bus. This is all fine and dandy, until you see how SLOWLY traffic moves at 1730 on a Friday evening. The chaos was mostly confined to the area near the airport. After we got less than a kilometer away, traffic opened up and the rest of the bus ride was at normal speed.

The ride wasn't even that long, only about 30 minutes.

It took me more than two hours to get to my hotel, argh. When I got to the hotel I texted Bo, who had arrived in Berlin that morning on a train. We found each other and checked in. We dropped off our bags, bundled up, and went back out into the city. Normally I'm not a huge fan of being out late in the evening, but this festival is one that happens only in the evenings, and we had just two nights to see everything.

The festival of light in Berlin happens every year over 9 days in October. (Two weekends and the week in between them.)

The festival consists of a number of buildings around the city that are lit up with special lighting in the evenings. For several of the buildings, the lighting is more like a video, with music. I'm not sure I'm describing it clearly, I hope some of my photos show it better than I'm writing.

Our hotel was near Potsdamerplatz, a large platz in Berlin. The former Berlin Wall used to run right through this platz, and some of the wall panels are still there. There is also a small hill running the length of the street along which the wall was built.

Inside Potsdamerplatz there is a mall, and a metro station. We went into the mall to find food, as neither of us had eaten a proper meal in a while. We found an Asian food place, and I was happy to have a box with tofu and veggies.

The first building we saw wasn't far from the platz. I think it was a mall on Leipziger street. This was one of the buildings where the lighting changed along with music. We saw faces, and shapes, and general awesomeness. We stood around for a little while, as the whole video played out on the facade of the building. Since this festival is in mid October, the weather is still decent for people to stand around outside. I also enjoyed watching people for a bit.

We ducked into the Sony building, which is also close to Alexanderplatz, because it is a unique building. At night it is lit up every night of the year. Its basically a mall, which I didn't need to explore, but I loved looking up at the ceiling.
On the platz were neon lights shaped into riders on bicycles. Very simple, but I loved them.

We walked up the street, going by the Holocaust memorial at one point. It's a large memorial, very unique. Definitely a place I wanted to come back to in daylight.

We followed the street all the way up to the Brandenburg Gate. (Brandenburger Tor in German.) This was another building (is a gate a building?) lit up with music and moving light. There was a much larger crowd there, so I had more fun watching people. This festival brought out people of all ages: couples, families, friends, and singles; old and young. There were a number of people with cameras on tripods, videoing the entire series of music and light shows on the gate. It was absolutely fascinating to watch the whole thing. I think there were about 4 songs, each with it's own show of light on the gate.

Not far from the gate we could see the Reichstag, so we strolled over after watching everything at the gate. The building was lit up, but it was not part of the festival.

From there we walked back to the hotel, and called it a night.

Since I live an hour ahead of Berlin, I woke up fairly early the next morning. We got out the door of the hotel around 0900, and found breakfast on a corner at Alexanderplatz. I'm a HUGE fan of German bakeries, and always have a hard time choosing how many items I want to buy. There was a coffee shop there too, with different options for hot chocolate drinks. Yum.

We followed the same street we'd walked the night before, going to the Holocaust Memorial first. It is a series of irregular blocks on irregular ground. It seems like you can see everyone there, but as you start to walk through it, the ground goes down and the blocks get taller, so you're hidden from anyone standing on the edge. It's intense, in a quiet way. There are signs on each side reminding people to behave with respect, it's amazing how often that does not happen. We walked all the way through, and all the way around.

As we came out of the Holocaust Memorial it started to sprinkle. I wasn't thrilled, as rain is the one type of weather I really really don't like, especially while traveling.

Since I never get good weather in Berlin I was sortof expecting this, so I was wearing a raincoat.

We crossed the street, into one of the many entries into Tiergarten Park. It's a big park, with many paths, smaller landscaped areas, trees, statues, etc... I'm sure it's a whole lot more impressive when the weather is good. We wound our way through, finding a couple small bodies of water, one of which was completely covered in green. Adding that to the greenery all around made for an interesting photo, but not what I wanted.

When we got to the street that goes through the park, we followed it all the way to the Victory Column, in the middle of the park. This column commemorates the German victory over France and Napoleon. The column is surrounded by reliefs, which were part of political games for a while. If I remember correctly, they were stolen, and kept by France for a while. Not surprisingly, France didn't want memorials to this battle. When they returned the reliefs, there was some breakage, and this is how they are now displayed. It's possible to go up to the top of the tower, but we didn't feel like paying to do that in such crappy weather.

Continuing our walk through the park we saw the presidential schloss (castle,) which was really rather boring, with a plane lawn in front.

On Dulles Street (named for the American guy,) we passed the How of World Culture, which was definitely unique. I didn't like the way it looked very much, but architecture is always very subjective. We saw one guy running the stairs over and over again as we passed by, it didn't look like fun.

Our next stop was the Soviet soldier war memorial. As is typical of Soviet anything, especially memorials, it was big. In a way I'm surprised such a thing exists in Germany, but hey, who am I to say anything.

Due to the rain all over the ground, I could see the reflection of the memorial on the ground in front of it, which was interesting to me as a photographer.

Continuing to follow this street took us back to the Reichstag area again. Before this trip I'd looked into getting tickets to go up in the dome on top of the building, but they were sold out. Argh. Despite the rain, there were still a lot of people in the ground surrounding the Reichstag.

We went through the Brandenburger Tor again, and walked straight along the road. This street is FULL of tourists, and has restaurants, cafes, and shops mostly there for tourists.

The gate is pretty awesome, but dealing with the mess of the street is not so fun. As we were walking along we noticed a bunch of Georgian soldiers doing the tourist thing, I'm guessing they were also doing some sort of military exercises with the German Army?

This main street is called Unter den Linden, and like I just said, is a main street, full of tourists. We walked to the cross street of Friedrichstrasse, which is what you follow to get to Checkpoint Charlie. On our way to the checkpoint, we stopped at the Ampelman store, which they call a lifestyle store. I don't really get how one makes a lifestyle out of their stuff.

Ampelman was the shape of someone walking on street crossing signs, back when there was an East Germany. Now that character has been printed on everything known to man, including t-shirts, mugs, magnets, pencils, plates, etc...

We also stopped in a bakery to pick up food. Not a real meal, but the only food we'd eaten since breakfast several hours ago. I love German bakeries and will use any excuse possible to visit one. It's both good and bad that I don't have access to these bakeries more often.

This was my second trip in recent memory to Checkpoint Charlie, and I was just as disappointed this time around as I was last time.

It has become so commercialized, and so touristed. It's really hard to understand what the place used to be, and what it meant for so many people. The pictures show it well, but with all the extra stuff there now, it's hard to imagine. There is a KFC on the corner, souvenir shops, and more. It's ridiculous. You can even pay total strangers wearing German Army costumes (allegedly they look like the uniforms from back then,) to take pictures. These strangers didn't even serve in the military! Argh.

One of the iconic photos to take here is that of the side that says which zone you are leaving, and which zone you are entering. It says it in several languages, representing the allies who controlled the area. It's pretty much the only photo that doesn't show the modern world that exists there now.

If you look at the ground long enough, you'll find a line of stones on the pavement, showing where the wall used to stand in this area. Bo and I took a photo with each of us straddling this line.

Ironically, there was a car parked over this line, which the owners didn't realize when they first parked. Even though I've seen and learned a lot, it's still amazing to me that this wall existed during my lifetime, and prevented the movement of so many people.

Our next stop wasn't far away, we went to a museum called the Topography of Terror. It's not a museum in the sense of items on display. It is a museum in that there are exhibits, and you learn a lot. As you might guess from the name, this museum is all about those decades in history, in this area of the world.

To get to the entry of the museum, you walk past a number of pieces of the wall still standing. The exteriors of a few of them have been chipped away, so you can see the steel pieces reinforcing the concrete. These panels have not been painted with graffiti, they're just as they were.

We entered the museum and started walking through the different displays. We'd been out walking all day, in crappy weather, and quickly realized neither one of us wanted to read every single display, and look at every single picture. I would like to go back, but I still don't think I would read or look at every single thing in a single visit because that would be way too intense. You see the different groups of people affected by all the laws and the wall, you see the different countries affected by the rules of Communists, you see the people in charge as well as the 'regular' people. Instead of focusing on WW2, there is a focus on everything else related. Since I grew up in a free country, I have a hard time understanding or imagining being persecuted simply because of being born a certain ethnicity.

After leaving, we walked back toward our hotel, stopping at the food court in the mall again for dinner. When I find food I like, I don't mind having it again and again. Bring on the veggies and tofu!

We went back to our hotel for an hour to warm up and put on more clothes for another evening out walking around the city. We left the hotel and went back to the mall we'd first seen the night before. This time, instead of watching the light show we went into the mall, I was looking for a specific watch. The store I found didn't have the watch, (a Timex Ironman,) so I guess I will get it the next time I go to the States.

We walked up the street to Brandenburger Tor again, and watched the light show again. There were even more people out, it was Saturday evening. We managed to make our way through the crowd to walk Unter den Linden again. With the evening festival taking place there were locals out along with all the tourists. Both Bo and I were annoyed with all the pedestrian traffic.

The next building we saw lit up was that of Humboldt University. The light was unchanging, but a whole lot of colours were used.

Nearby the university was the Hotel de Rome, which was lit up with video and sound. Across the street was another lighted building, though I don't know the name of the building. There was a statue in the center of the courtyard, it wasn't part of the display. The music and lighting on this one made me think of trance or house music. Patterns and sounds repeated over and over.

We walked further on the street, finally coming to the Berlin Cathedral. It's big, and visited by heaps of people. I haven't gone inside, because it costs seven euro to do so. That's a lot of money to see the inside of a chuch. If it were two or three euro, I'm sure I would've gone inside. The cathedral also participates in this festival, with a series of changing projections.

Each projection stayed up for a few minutes, then it was changed. There were more people at the cathedral with tripods and expensive cameras.

At that point we felt like it was time to go to sleep. To get back to the hotel we walking along different streets, since we were both really annoyed with all the pedestrian traffic. Walking just one street over made a HUGE difference in how fast we could go.

The next morning we had breakfast again at the two places from the day before, the bakery and the coffee shop.

I found a donut of sorts with cream and sour cherry sauce in the midle, SO GOOD; I had a large hot chocolate to drink. Not the healthiest breakfast ever, but yummy anywho!

This day we walked in a completely different direction, heading to a canal near our hotel. We walked along the canal for a while, it was as if we were in a different city.

Bo recognized the turn we needed to take onto a street that led us straight to a church. Well, it used to be a church. I guess it still is, but it isn't used as a church now. Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was bombed during WW2, and what remains of the building (part of the bell tower and a small amount of the ground floor,) has been left alone as a reminder of what happened.

A new church was built next door, and is rather ugly from the outside, but I really liked the inside. The walls are made of heaps of small squares of stained glass, which made the interior feel really welcoming to me. On a sunny day it must be incredible inside. This church is Protestant.

Across the street was a metro station, we figured it would be easy to get across the city to our next sight. That was true once we figured out where to go inside the metro station. We'd intended to take an S-bahn, but part of the station was under construction, so we had to find another option. Thank goodness Bo speaks German and was able to translate signage for me.

We got off a train at Alexanderplatz. IT's a well known platz in the city, though from a photographers point of view, I've never really understood why. No part of it has ever stayed in my mind for any reason. It's usually full of people, and the metro station there is a connection station. There is also a TV tower there, but we couldn't see it because of fog.

The top half of the tower was completely covered/invisible to us.

It took us a few moments to figured out in which direction we wanted to walk, but eventually we got it sorted. We walked toward the Rotes Rathaus, otherwise called the Red City Hall. It's the old city hall for the building, I think we accidentally walked by the new city hall. Rotes Rathaus is much better looking.

We wound our way through twisty streets to get to Nikolaikirche, another church that charges entry to visitors. We didn't want to pay five euros to see this church, so just the entry area was good enough for us. What is it with expensive churches?

From the church we walked to the East End Gallery, which is a long section of Berlin Wall panels. In this area most of them have been painted, some really well, some not so much. Those that are painted really nicely are blocked off by fences, to protect the painting. We saw a couple people go behind the fences to pose for photos, which I found disrespectful. Argh.

I'm all for getting a photo, but I hope those people remember why the Wall was there, and what happened to all the people.

At one end of the East End Gallery is the Oberbaumbrucke. This bridge was one of the first open connections after the fall of the Wall, it connects east and west Berlin over the river. It's a unique bridge, part of it is covered. I loved the windows, or at least the frames along one side of the bridge.

After crossing the bridge both of us realized we were hungry, so we split a currywurst. A couple years ago I never would've eaten any of the wursts in Germany, but I mostly love them now.

Especially when you add heaps of mustard.

We took the metro back to Potsdamer Platz, close to our hotel. Since I knew I'd be on planes for a few hours and no real chance to eat a decent meal, I picked up yet another box of veggies and tofu. Why fix something that isn't broken?

Back at the hotel we grabbed our packs from behind the front desk (where we'd left them in the morning,) and I headed to the airport. Bo had a few more hours in the city. My ride to the airport went a whole lot faster, and hours later, I was back in Kyiv.

I will definitely be going back to Berlin.