Sunday 15 May, 2016

Our apartment in Berlin is lovely, just what we need after 18 days of hotels. It has a kitchen, dining and living room as well as the bedroom and bathroom. I love the idea of single doonas on the beds! No fighting for the blanket!

Today we headed out to the flea market but first took a photo next to the bear in front of the hotel. When we were in Canada in 2010, I took Matt's picture as he imitated all the bear poses! Sadly I can no longer stand on my head for this photo!

The flea market was at Mauer Park which once divided the two Berlins. It was huge and there

were many hundreds of people there.

We then headed clear across town (the subway makes it so easy) to see the Parade of Cultures which is an annual event. The subway was quite packed and thousands of people lined the streets.

 It was drizzly at times before the parade started and the wind was like our Westerly winds...blows right through you. It was about 8 today, a far cry from the 20's we had most of the trip but better than the snow we had the first day.

There were some fantastic groups..all were so enthusiastic! Some made me shiver as they had hardly any clothes on!

This group had about 100 performers!

And even groups of children took part.

Germans sure do love the drums. There were many groups with drums.

It also surprised me how many Asian groups took part.

We then took the subway back to the area of our hotel. We walked past what we think was part of the Berlin Wall but as were trying to beat the rain we weren't sure.

This sculpture, "Balancing Act" commemorates the 50th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stones for the Axel Springer Publishing building in the background. The building was located on the border of the Soviet occupied sector of Berlin and became a lighthouse of the free West. Parts of the Berlin Wall are contained in the sculpture, built in 2009, 20 years after the fall of the wall.

The sky looked stormy but it blew over.