Germany is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Air Lift and also their recent soccer (football) win against Turkey, so they are now in the finals. We were there a few weeks ago for the first time and people were already wild in the streets celebrating the earlier games. You could hear a collective roar from all over whenever there was a good play, and most cafes and restaurants had big screen TVs set up. We're not fans but it was interesting to see all the enthusiasm. Berlin is very lively and having seen some postwar images of its devastation after WWII, it is amazing how much it has been built up, mostly in the 90s, so lots of modern architecture, as you can see here beside the Legoland giraffe. They've kept the shell of the Kaiser Wilhelm church as a memorial, at the end of the main shopping street, and some buildings retain their bullet and shell damage too.
The Reichstag was rebuilt with a glass dome by an American architect, and is now a tourist exhibit. It's shown here from our boat tour, as are the cafes along the Spree River which I think would have been East Berlin.
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