Germany 2013 - Berlin

June 5, 2013
  We arrived in Berlin 2 days ago, and have been discovering the city mostly on foot.
  Our hotel is in the historic city center which was actually in East Berlin when the Wall was still in place.  We're lucky to have a small balcony with French doors so we can step out and look to our left for a clear view of the Brandenburg Gate which is just a couple of blocks away. Beyond the Gate and through the Tiergarden is the Siegessaule Monument which we climbed (285 spiral stairs) for a 360 degree view of Berlin.  Then we walked past the outskirts of the Zoo and many, many shops and finally ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Large sodas with ice, free refills, and a California Burger....aaaahhhh!
  We decided to catch the elevated train back to our hotel instead of walking the 3 miles, which was a little adventure of its own - just because we don't normally use mass transit at home.  So we found an S-Bahn station and asked a nice young lady about getting to a stop near our hotel, she basically said to get on any of the trains on the left side of the platform and we'd come close, then have to walk a bit.  We went upstairs to find a ticket machine and had a little trouble until a friendly man helped us change the instruction screen to English.  We then managed to buy a ticket and get on the right train and actually made it back to our hotel!