Berlin, Germany

We left Copenhagen, Denmark, on Friday afternoon August 22, 2014, on the Oceania cruise ship, Nautica. Our first port Saturday morning was Warnemunde, Germany. But that was just the port. We took a 3 hour tour bus ride to Berlin from the port. Our group of 4 couples had a wonderful guide, Preston Meyer, from some town in Oregon. He had back-packed around Europe the end of the 1990s, and wanted to improve his German language skills. While in Berlin he fell in love with the place and decided to stay and became a tour guide.

He was very informative about the history of the country, the city, and was very witty. It appears while the city of Berlin shows off its charm and architecture it is about 95 billion Euros in debt. An example would be the airport which was scheduled to open in 2006, which was changed to 2008, 2010, and now they won’t even give a date for the opening.

During the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm I (1735ish), the city of Berlin was very welcoming to people who were being chased out of other countries, like the Jews. The city needed a labor force and this was a way of attracting them. An amazing Baroque synagogue sits on a main street in the city showing that the Jews did not need to hide in that era.

We were able to see a portion of the Berlin Wall that was left standing as a reminder of the Soviet era occupation of East Berlin, and a beautiful museum with an open air gallery. We also visited Check Point Charlie, which was the gate where American servicemen could enter and exit East Berlin. It appears to be controlled by some Russian mafia folks who are in costumes resembling US soldiers and charge for photographs.

After a day at sea, Sunday, August 24, 2014, our next stop was Klaipeda, Lithuania