Art & Architecture Trip - Day 37

Today, our first day in Berlin, we slept very late. At 1230, we got up to eat breakfast. We took our time getting ready and played Skat some more. At 1500, we left Sabine's apartment and walked down the street to a bank where I changed my money. The rate has now shrunk to 2 DM to 1 dollar - it was 2.34 DM to 1 dollar when I arrived in the country. I only cashed $40 (these were my last travellers checks). Next, we walked to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It is in the eastern end of the Western Sector and is still pretty much a ruin from World War II. It used to be a beautiful, large, Gothic-Romanesque church, but now it is just an empty, hollow hunk of stone. Some of the paintings have survived inside, but they are mostly cracked. They are inlaid with gold and still possess some element of beauty and value. A new, modern church was built on the site of the the church - in the area where everything was destroyed. From 1700 to 1730, we looked around in WOM (World of Music), a huge record and tape store. At 1745, we went on the S-Bahn that we thought would take us home. Instead, we ended up going the wrong way - into East Berlin. We saw the Wall - from the wrong side! We finally did get home, and had dinner at Burger King. Stephan and I went back to Sabine's apartment after this and played more Skat. At 2100, we decided that it was time for some fun. We got a squirt bottle with water and started to squirt people on the street (three stories below). They didn't know who was squirting them - and it was funny to see their reactions. One man stayed for a long time and we kept squirting him. He never did figure out who it was! We went to bed around 0100 (this is the third night in a row...).