Berlin begins….

Of course, the best thing about arriving in Berlin was seeing our old friends.   The kids were thrilled to have friends to play with – you can see Marc, Griffin, Anne and Callie on the train.

We parked Mr. Liberty in their lovely neighborhood and took public transportation for the next 4 days.  I must say, the Berlin system is awesome.  It is fast, easy to follow and goes anywhere you want to go.  Plus, a four day pass for our whole family was only 70 euros – and we could go all over the city and the outlying areas!   We were headed for the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin (German Museum of Technology) with over 50,000 square feet of exhibit space and promised to be one of the coolest things for kids in all of Berlin.  We got off the subway and had an amazing lunch of Thai food, then headed over.  We passed a beautiful church and this neat bridge whose supports spelled out Anhalt and, on the other side, Berlin. 

The museum was easy to spot from afar since there was a giant plane perched on its roof.  This was, as you would guess, a famous plane, in fact a C-47 Skytrain which is the plane invented by the Allies to carry cargo and drop paratroopers down into war zones.  They were also used in Vietnam and there are actually a few left in service today.

The museum was immense and we spent most of our time simply exploring the train area.  They had literally hundreds of full size engines to explore, with lots of interactive things for the kids.

 

There were only 2 trains you could go under to see what they looked like.  One I can’t remember but the other was the Führerzug or Hitler’s train. André was horrified by the symbolism implied by asking people to throw themselves down under the machine of the Third Reich; our kids didn’t mind, pictured right.    I ran across the basic law of fascism when trying to find out more information about the train.

The Führerprinzip states that “the Führer's word is above all written law and that governmental policies, decisions, and offices ought to work toward the realization of this end.”

This reminded me, strongly, of the way I was taught during my brief sojourn in the Mormon Church. If I were ever to question or differ in opinion from the status quo, I was told “When the prophet speaks, the thinking is over.”   Do Mormons consider themselves fascists?????

We saw other parts of the museum, they had an amazing nautical section and we even got to see Enigma – the machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages during WWII.  We wanted to see more, especially the plane section – this place put the Smithsonian to shame!  But we wanted to have time to see the entire building dedicated to interactive stuff!  We loved the mirror section.  It was a great day.