Day 3

Long day. I feel like my feet have covered so much ground already, and yet there still seems to be so much more to see. We took a walking tour all over the east and west for nearly 3 hours today. Needless to say, everybody picked up some color to add to the tourist look we have going on. Some of the highlights were: Museum Island, the Brandenberg gate, a Holocaust memorial and Checkpoint Charlie of course, where many stopped for a snapshot sandwiched between two actors dressed in soldiers' uniforms. Then we stopped for lunch at "Snackpoint Charlie," where I inhaled the cucumber, tomato and cheese sandwich that I packed back at the hotel to save some money. It didn't really help much though after I paid 2 euros for a bottled water and 50 cents for a trip to the water closet, a.k.a bathroom here. I thought that was bad until I paid 2 euros for a European-sized glass of water at the Vietnamese restaurant we ate dinner at. After tonight I have vowed never to pay for water again while I'm here. I wonder if all the Starbucks of Berlin make you pay for the so-called "triple-filtered" water that I live off of while in Gainesville. We rounded off the day with a coffee date with Stine and her sister, a German radiology student who's helping a bunch of us find subjects for our projects. I'm still looking...wish me luck!