So, a friend of mine from Church organized a visit to the see the inside of the Reichstag and I thought 'why not invite the people who live in my dorm?' So I did and many came.
This is the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) that was built with French money after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The Kaiser (emperor) didn't want it, but relented and let the people build a parliament building, except they had to build it outside the city borders of Berlin ;)
The building is now where the Bundestag (Federal/National Diet) holds their meetings...
Here is the group of us...we are more or less a tiny United Nations - people from all over the place!!
The inside where the Bundestag sits and does their bidnezz....
The 'taller' chair off to the left of the middle 'taller' chairs is where Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister, sits...
Our group getting the tour - our tour guide was heelarious!
In the 1960's the West German governemnt, wanting to make the Reichstag building look better (in my opinion, hide all of the imperialistic past) covered all of these old murals and ornaments from the Imperial days....
The British architect who designed the dome, uncovered a lot of these 'covered-up' murals/decorations...
They also found a lot of Soviet graffiti all over the walls. Some I could see was from 1945...
Another 'aerial' view....
Our tour guide got us to the roof just in time to watch the sun set....
The hill where the sun is setting is exactly where the old American spy listening post was (that is right outside my dorm window) and you can see my Funkturm/radio tower off to the right of the setting sun....
The new Potsdamer Platz - all of that, 20 years ago wasn't there! It was part of the 'Death Strip' between East and West....
There is Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in old East Berlin....
When we were waiting for our tour, a lot of Russian Orthodox priests came walking out, then on the roof we ran into several Russian generals - very interesting...
