A Day to Remember

Climbing trees in the backyard of the church where we stayed

The Pergamon Altar

What the altar would have looked like in its glory days

The Ishtar Gate

The part of the Ishtar gate you saw above is only the smaller part of the gate, shown on a model here.  The larger part behind it is too big to be shown in the museum. 

Gives you a feel for how big these columns really were

Checkpoint Charlie

American Embassy

British Embassy (!!!!!!)

Brandenburg Gate

This is a real person

Walking through the Holocaust memorial

Paul Gerhardt's church

Drinking sparkling apple juice

Our last days in Berlin were tired, but wonderful.  It was Pentecost on May 27th and there were 13 baptisms that day, so church took three and a half hours.  I repeat, three and a half hours.  Still to this day though, I remember the pastor's very exact cadence which he used every time he said "Dir sind deine Sunden vergeben" (your sins are forgiven).  That's one of the only German phrases I know.  After church we went to the Pergamon museum, which is not like any other museum I've ever been to.  There aren't just artifacts here- there are actual buildings rebuilt in it! The ruins of the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate were brought to Germany and set up in this museum.   You enter the museum, and it's like you stepped into Greece or Babylon.  For those of you who may not know, the Ishtar Gate was built by King Nebuchadnezzar and when Daniel and the Israelites were in Babylon they would have seen these gates. To me, this is almost unbelievably cool.  After the museum we went to Checkpoint Charlie and then tried to find part of the Berlin Wall that is still standing.  This search for the wall turned into what was easily the worst and scariest part of our trip.  We walked out of the main city into some particularly sketchy part of town and ended up at some big gathering with lots of music and people who had probably had too much to drink.  Needless to say, none of the kids wanted to keep going after that.  Later we discovered that our map was misleading and we weren't even close to the wall, so all of that was for nothing.  But can everything on a trip be perfect?

May 28th, a year ago today, was our last full day in Europe.  A sad, sad, occasion.  If you were being especially observant, you might have noticed that the flag on the American Embassy was at half mast.  I noticed this that day and asked mom and dad what might have happened in our country while we were away that would cause the flag to be lowered.  We were trying to think of what might have happened when it finally struck us that it was Memorial Day.  Being out of the U.S. doesn't help you remember holidays such as these.  We walked through the Holocaust memorial that day, we saw the British Embassy, the Brandenburg gate, went to the DDR museum and saw the church where Paul Gerhardt was pastor.  And then we went to bed in Germany for the last time.  That day was not my favorite, nor anyone else in my family's favorite day, but it was a day to remember.  Because that day marked the end of the best family vacation we have ever had.