After what could be described as a rough night, John and I marked the first full day in Berlin by arguing; we were both tired due to John´s snoring, which is akin to someone shouting in your ear every 25 seconds. However, our first day in Berlin turned everyone´s moods around.

On the recommendation of an Albertan couple on their honeymoon we joined the Insider tour in Berlin. We were greeted outside Berlin´s Zoo station by Kenny, a Glaswegian transplant to Berlin´s shores who displayed a sense of humour as he guided us around Berlin´s most famous sights. The tour began in the eastern half of Berlin, the former Communist bloc, and took us through Berlin´s history, from its establishment as a fishing village to the time of the kings of Prussia to the Third Reich to the capitalist-communist division and the fall of the Berlin wall. They also gae us a free pamphlet that largely has served as a guide for the rest of our trip, detailing public transit, restaurants, museums, tours (theirs and other companies) and daytrips from the city.

This tour took us around all the big sites of Berlin: the Dom, the Brandenburg Tor, Museum Island, the Death Strip, the old Luftwaffe headquarters, the remains of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the TV Tower, the Reichstag, Humboldt University, the ruins of the Gestapo headquarters, the state opera house and Bebelplatz, site of the Nazi book burning. The tour took nearly five hours, and was interspersed with rest stops so Kenny could elucidate more freely on events and place sites in historical context. The tour was a good introduction to Berlin, and I arrived home very happy.