Berlin Briefly by Coach

Two weeks ago, I went to Berlin with The Boy's eighth-grade class, for their middle-school "graduation" trip. I repeat, I went to Berlin with eighth-graders--thirty of them.

We left from the school parking lot on a bus, at midnight. We spent that whole night on the bus. I repeat, I spent all night riding a bus with eighth-graders. After stopping for breakfast outside Berlin at a McDonald's and letting the kids burn some energy, we headed into the city.

We met our guide and started on a two-hour bus tour--mind you, after having been up all night. Actually, I did sleep a fair amount, as I was able to curl up across two seats, like a cat. But still. I don't think The Boy and his buddies got much sleep. Until the city tour began.

It was a characteristically gray day, with showers from time to time, and it was also unfortunately rather chilly. The kids didn't really care about that, of course.

Our first stop on our city tour was at Checkpoint Charlie, which was cool, though I didn't pay the couple of euros to have our picture taken with the costumed re-enactors there. I preferred photographing these parts of the Wall. 

I also took pictures of random things, such as this circus-and-road scene, that somehow spoke to me. They said, "This is the real Berlin--almost."

I snapped this out the bus window. It's of a bahnhof (train station) entrance; I found these enchanting in Berlin.

True, isn't it? I'll be back soon with another post about our two-day adventure, which turned out to be quite fun after all--despite spending a night on a bus.