YAY!

Last mention, I promise! I have hot water!!!!!!!! I'll be taking a wonderfully long and hot shower tonight and again in the morning!

So today we went to Sanssouci for the morning and toured the gardens and the palace. I accidentally left my camera at home so I don't have any photos... plus they were forbidden inside anyway. It was amazing how much wealth was visible in the designs of the area!

After a Döner lunch in the Mitte of Potsdam, we toured the Schloss Cecilienhof which was the site of the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945 between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Much of the site is now a hotel and the tour consisted of just a handful of rooms. It was absolutely fascinating to see such historical sites and to actually be there! One room held the desk where Stalin sat and planned his work, another room held the massive round table where none of the three parties could be at the head. It was also fascinating to look out the windows to the nearby River Spree that less than twenty years ago was hidden behind an extension of the Berlin Wall.

It is so amazing that so many major historical events occurred in the places I am visiting. Where today I walk across a street to get from a café to a movie theater, 20 years ago people would've been shot dead crossing the No-Man's-Land of Potsdamer Platz. Or even to use those U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations because many in that area were the Geisterbahnhöfe (Ghost Stations) that were closed by the East German authorities in the 1960s. Potsdamer Platz has been completely rebuilt and modernized but Unter den Linden is still in much the same condition and appearance as it was in the 1930s when it was built. And for 28 years no one could use those stations. And it's all right here... truly living history.