May 31
After breakfast we rolled our duffel bags to the train station which was a 7 minute walk.  The train was on time and we had a 1 hour 40 minute trip to Berlin.  The Berlin Banhof is huge and we finally made our way to the taxi stand for the trip to our hotel, Art'otel Berlin Kudamm, a Radisson property.  There are 3 Art'otels in Berlin and each has original artwork by a specific artist and ours focuses on Wolf Vostell.  The more expensive one has Andy Warhol artwork.  It was cool and breezy and we decided to walk around the area a bit.  We're a block off Kurfurstenstrasse and about 4 blocks from the zoo.  We checked out several restaurants to visit for dinners, got info on the HOHO buses, had a beer in a biergarten.  We then visited the Memorial Church (I didn't get the name) which was heavily ruined in 1943 by allied bombs and is being partially restored.  Unfortunately the exterior is shrouded in aluminum so you can only view a small part of the interior.  They have done a good job of displaying posters with photographs describing, in German & English, the entire history of the church.  I remember the church from my last visit here in 1964 and, at that time, I think the plan was to leave the remains as is as a memorial.  We walked by the zoo, explored some more and bought some wine & cheese for the room.  By dinnertime it had started raining so we went to a delightful small restaurant next to the hotel.  They specialize in Argentinian beef, which is our favorite, so we indulged and had a great meal.  Asparagus is in season and Pat has had it twice, however the Germans tend to overcook it so it loses a lot of its flavor.