We are past the halfway mark of our trip now. I guess it will start speeding up and we'll be home before we know it.
Had a very late night - didn't get to sleep until 2am, partly thanks to Sharlene & Nick chatting, so by the time we had showered it was getting close to 10am.
Most attractions don't open before then anyway.
We went to a bakery at the station for pastries and coffee for breakfast- getting better at ordering. Then we caught the train to the tower ruins of the memorial church (Kaiser-Wilhrlm-Gedachtnis-Kirche).
It didn't open until 12 so we had 45 minutes to spare, so went for a long walk past the Zoo entrance & down some random streets. There is a lot of art work , sculptures, etc in odd places around Berlin, so you don't have to walk far to see something.
Passed some shops I was dying to go into 
but they were closed on Sunday. Also spotted some unusual businesses...
This one is known as the water meatball (Wasser-klops).
The boys weren't keen on trying the gay labyrinth!
We walked back to the church and got to go into both the old and new parts of the church. The old had impressive mosaics of Prussian dukes & a lovely tower clock,
but the new part was really nice too. Appealed to me with the blues and golds and the main altar was stunning.
We used the underpass to get to the column and paid to go into the tower. It was a very narrow spiral staircase...only a few flights of stairs to the 1st lookout
, but to the top went on and on and if there weren't so many people to slow us down we would need to take breaks to catch our breathe. It was a good workout! 
We were glad we went up but the view wasn't as incredible as others we had seen...and there were too many people in very little space. The walk back down was less crowded & easier than the climb.
After this we decided it was time for a feed and so caught some trains quite a distance to Prater Beer Garten, which is Berlin's oldest beer garden
. It was in a very trendy area with lots of alternative type of people. Being winter the garden wasn't in use but we went into the beer hall which also had very nice German food. 
We ordered 3 dishes to rotate (Goulash with bread dumplings, 
To drink we had local Pilsner, but Cam decided to try one that was mixed with fanta. 
There were lots of drinks on the menu mixing beer with various soft drinks...seems a bit strange but he liked the taste & fanta is yellow here rather than orange. We were very full as they were big meals but shared a large apple strudel in vanilla cream for dessert - yum!
We were keen for a walk so we went to the East Side Gallery, which is a km section of the Berlin Wall that had been decorated by well known artists. It was very cool and we enjoyed the walk. 
Graffiti had been added to some of the artworks which is a bit of a shame, but the overall effect was still cool.
We arrived at the Story of Berlin in time for their 6pm (last tour of the day) of a bunker. The bunker was built under a car park in the 1970s & has never needed to be used. It was still pretty interesting to see. It was massive and could sleep over 5,000 people.
Not conditions you'd want to stay in for long though! After this we looked around the rest of museum-
some parts we rushed but some was really interesting.
It was a fairly interactive display...obviously plenty of work here for creative types!
meatballs in cream sauce with capers & beetroot salad, Weiner schnitzel with cucumber salad & potatoes) so we could all try them and Nick ordered an entree of beetroot soup , which was very nice. All meals were delicious but the goulash was the stand out favourite...full of flavour!
The sun was setting by now so we hurried by trains to the Story of Berlin- a modern museum covering the full history of Berlin. On the way we took a quick look at some Rolls Royce. 
When we were finished here we were still not hungry, but Nick managed to eat a kebab and then we headed back to our main station, got some sweet things from the bakery & back to our room.
We've all enjoyed Berlin. Part of what we have enjoyed is wandering the streets & catching trains while observing the people. Have seen lots of bright hair styles, emos (people wearing black & with piercings - like goths), and have had beggars on trains asking us for money - luckily we don't speak German! Have also seen people drinking beer pretty much everywhere...including on trains under signs saying 'no drinking allowed'. Very few people have been smiley or had friendly personalities- but we haven't had any problems with them either. An interesting place.
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