We were so tired last night!  Both of us slept about 13 hrs but after that, we’re doing pretty good!  We aren’t jet lagged or at least not feeling it.  We’ll take that!

We went down to the hotel breakfast.  We feel like we’ve scored big when we get a hotel in the States that was a waffle maker.  We are staying at a Holiday Inn Express here in Berlin and they have a BREAKFAST!  And it’s free!

They had, of course, the cereals, boiled eggs, croissants (real ones, not those nasty frozen things that you can get in the States), fresh fruit, fancy buns and rolls, ham, salami, nice cheeses, juice AND an espresso machine!!!

BOOM!

For my first breakfast in Berlin, I had a nice, flaky croissant and espresso.  Prefect start to a busy day.

After breakfast, we decided to do a little sightseeing before we walked to the Expo.  The Expo didn’t start until 2:00 pm so we had a little time to kill.  We decided to walk to the Brandenberg Gate.

Everybody here walks or rides a bike.  Of course, people drive but there is a lot of foot traffic and bicycle traffic.  You don’t see a lot of that where we live so it has been interesting to us to see everybody from little kids to elderly out hoofing it and/or riding their bikes.  *These bikes aren’t fancy ones, either.  They are old fashioned, single speed bikes!

On our way to the Brandenburg Gate, we stumbled upon some of the standing remains of the Berlin Wall.  I will be honest in saying I didn’t realize any of it was still standing!  We looked at it for quite a while.  We’ve heard so much about this wall, and how many people died trying to get over that wall to freedom, we were a little surprised to see how small it was!  I touched the wall.  That cold concrete, and was sad.  I thought of all the terror, hatred and heartache in that wall and all that it represented.

We continued past the Berlin Wall towards the Brandenburg Gate.  These two things are geographically close together!  When we reached the Brandenburg Gate there was a large crowd.  This is a tourist attraction in Berlin.  There was a man in front of the gate playing the Bagpipes.  I was excited about this because I get to run through the gate towards the end of the race come Sunday!

After the Gate, we walked a bit further and watched them putting up barricades and bleachers for the race on Sunday.  They were installing TONS of porta-potties~a runners best friend.  🙂  No joke, there was a least a mile of these things on both sides of the street leading up the the place where the starring line will be.!

After this, we walked back to the hotel.  We needed to pick up some paperwork I would need to get my Bib# at the Expo.  We popped into our room, grabbed the paperwork and hoofed it over to the other side of Berlin to the Expo.

The Expo is being held in an old airport.  This airport was built in the 1920’s.  It is a huge building!  The Expo was great!!!  They had things very well organized.  Even though we were pretty early to the Expo, we still had to stand in line a looooonnnngggg time to get my Bib# and other race swag.

*This is a pic of the old airport where they are holding the Expo:

So far today, we have walked 6 hours.  The sun is setting and we still have to walk to get ourselves some dinner.  MFH (My Favorite Husband) is figuring out where we are going to eat while I working on this blog post.  🙂

That’s about all for now!  Chat later.  I’m hungry!  HA!