Guess Who’s playing Soccer Tonight!

We were on the trains this morning by about 11:30...we are all really enjoying getting up to a house and not a hotel, so our mornings have been leisurely. We decide on the visiting the Schloss (Castle) Charlottenburg, a 17^th century palace built by King Fredrick 1 of Prussia for his wife Sophie Charlotte, a sharp contrast to yesterday’s agenda. The castle and the gardens were beautiful….paintings, décor, porcelain.

A new experience….Public bathrooms….a stainless room/building in a park or on a street….put in 50euro and the doors open, do your business to soothing, classical music (I wonder if the music changes to the district you are in….hmmmm) put your hands under the water, it comes out, put your hands under the soap, it comes out, put your hands under the dryer it starts…push the button and the door opens….and then it cleans itself! Amazing!

Then off on the underground….20 minutes from one side of the city to the other on the underground….and up in to Alexanderplatz where there was some kind of festival going on….music, food and craft tents, and for Cassidy a massage booth (her neck was sore). So while Cassidy had her massage, I found a couple of caches and Cam tested a couple of German beers! Then we explored one of the department stores in the platza

While I was off finding stamps (they say email is taking over from snail mail…..why is there always a line-up in the post offices?!) Cam and Cassidy decided on where we were going for dinner…back where were first saw Berlin…Brandenberg Gate.

Brandenberg Gate/Tiergarten is where the soccer celebrations are going on all month….well, when we came up there was a sea of red, black and gold (yellow)….tonight Germany was playing at 8:45.….again fans were dressed in anything that showed their support and they were all headed for the celebration area. After a nice dinner of schnitzel and fries or potato salad or pasta we watched the fans again streaming towards the celebration area. And then we headed back, against the still increasing number of fans, to the comfort of the house and the TV to watch the game.

It was a great day….the weather has been with us…a couple of drops of rain, not hot, a bit windy but just right for touring around and we are getting pretty good at getting around with the transit. Cam is even better at directions than I am!!.

PS...They won!