We strolled a bit before the scheduled 10am pick up time (by Alex). I felt like it was heresy, but we stopped into a local Starbucks for coffee and muesli (me) and yogurt (Kim). It hit the spot and it was good to eat light for a change. Plus I suppose the non-coffee products do have a different local feel. We're still sitting outside on Kurfurstendamm watching the world go by (and, in my case, peering into Leysieffer across the street-it hasn't yet opened).
Today's tour with Alex is of "Jewish Berlin" and we may finish off at the Jewish Museum and make our way on our own back to our hotel at a later point. I thought it was supposed to be hot but so far it is cool and quiet breezy. It also was ok for sleeping last night, other than that I managed to do something to my problem knee while sleeping and the pain woke me up. It isn't too bad today though.
I'm sure today will be an interesting day and it's good that we didn't start with it, as I had preconceived notions about the city and the country which have now changed quite a bit. In short, today's Germany and Berlin seems like a different planet compared to the past. Alex did say that there was racism and anti-Semitism after reunification in the early '90's, but that it was more a thing of the former East Germany where they hadn't worked as hard as in the former West Germany to combat old attitudes. In the East the idea was that capitalism was inherently evil and Nazism a logical extension of capitalism.
We will see how we feel at the end of the day.
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