Walking, Learning, Processing, and then more Walking!

Today I need to be short and sweet. Up at 6:30 for an airport run (all students are here now!!!) and then well over 20k steps were taken to accomplish our walking tour of downtown Berlin. I’m crashing fast.

Here are the events and locations followed by a set of pics – most from the student’s eye.

We peeked inside St. Mary’s church, then stopped by the Rosenstrasse Protest Memorial, then we paced through Museum Island, by the German History Museum and Humboldt University on our way to Bebelplatz. Then, through Gendarmenmarkt on our way to Checkpoint Charlie and then to the Topography of Terror Museum. After about 75 minutes there we strolled through Potsdamerplatz and up to the Aktion T4 Memorial, back to the subtle Fuhrer bunker marker and on to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Finally, we got to the Brandenburg Gate just in time to hear a little concert and to witness a pro-peace parade. Recall that tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the German capitulation. To top off the evening, my friend, historian and educator, Christian Marx, arranged for all of us to grab some pizza and Italian food at a nice restaurant he was familiar with in the downtown, Mitte District of Berlin. Whew – what a day.

The students were absolutely fantastic. I asked so much of them – and they are still experiencing jet lag. But, not only did they keep up the pace, they did a great job thoughtfully and bravely processing what they were seeing and witnessing. Wow – I’m super impressed!

Tomorrow we meet up with Christian again – this time for the entire day. He will escort us by regional train to Brandenburg an der Havel where we can learn more about this beautiful medieval city and also the euthanasia memorial and museum where he works. It will be our heaviest day so far, but it should also be a bit shorter.

Here are some pics from today.