So, I have now been in Berlin for little more than a day, and man, what an experience this is.  First off, I struggled getting use.d to public transportation here (it sucks when you do not know ANY German) and I have gotten lost multiple times already!

With that being said, people here are extremely friendly and this city IS amazing! It is such a confluence between old and new, modern and classical, dirty (east side) and clean (west side).  Yes, many of the discrepenicies from the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall have faded, but, you notiice a difference!

Yesterday, my first day here, I did a walking tour of Berlin's NAZI past.  Hitler's bunker has been turned into a parking lot and there is a beautiful, yet confusing, Holocaust memorial in the midst of the city. It is so weird right now to see such a modern, accepting city and think it was one of the cradles of anti-semetism!