After our flight we met Carlie and Mave at the train station. It was so good to munch on her cute cheeks again. We bought the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted from Karl’s—a tiny strawberry stand in the middle of the Gesund-Brunnen train station.

It was so fun to see Carlie’s apartment. She’s living the city life I’ve always wanted. It’s such a cute place and she has it organized so well. We dropped our stuff and hit the city! We rented bikes using the Donkey Republic app. The bikes locked and unlocked with an app. It was so cool!Halle was so brave on her bike. We rode through crazy traffic on the streets of Berlin making lots of stops along the way to read about the Berlin Wall. It’s all so interesting! Mave cried and cried and said she didn’t want to ride bikes. Then we bought her some gummies and juice. She was perfectly pleasant the rest of the day. Here are Halle and Mave looking down into “No Man’s Land” between the outer and inner Berlin wall.  On to the Reichstag!  I got good Mave snuggles when we stopped here.  We stopped and got pics at the Brandenburger Tor before riding to the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe. It’s a somber place, but also perfect for playing hide and seek between all the concrete blocks. Mave was hiding from Halle and we couldn’t find her forever! We all split up in different directions to hunt for her. She about gave us a heart attack.Next we rode through the blissfully shady Tiergarten. We had a blast riding through the big lawn sprinklers and getting cooled down. There were dense green trees as far as the eye could see. Carlie always had so many interesting facts and stories to tell. She told us in the two years after WWII that the people of Berlin cut down every tree in Tiergarten to burn for firewood. Such a sad time.We rode to the Siegessäule–Victory Column and climbed to the top. Mave was so awesome. She held Halle’s hand and climbed all 282 stairs by herself. And Halle loved being Mave’s special guide. The day was roasty hot and we had to cross under a tunnel to get to the statue. It was so damp and cool we though about just setting up shop down there for the rest of the day 😉We rode to get Gwen from school. It was so fun to see her in her German element. She is such a great little speaker. We went to lunch and she ordered for us all. It was adorable. Mave and Gwen had kartoffelpuffer with apfelmus. Gwen really liked the apfelmus so Mave snuck away from the table and asked the “payer person” to bring Gwen some more. The waitress got such a kick out of that. Our last bike stop was Eis Am Stiel for a fantastic popsicle. Carlie asked for the total cost and the gal told Carlie her total was “nine.” Mave got so sad and said, “did she say no to us?? Why?” We all got a good chuckle out of that.We went home and made a much needed, giant honey mustard chicken salad for dinner. It hit the spot! And it was so good to finally see Dan. Then after it cooled down we went for a walk to some beautiful rose gardens. And none of us got even one picture at the garden. Nat would put the girls on her back and pretend she couldn’t find them. They thought it was hilarious. Mave was getting sad again so we played one two three whee to keep her entertained.We stopped in at Kaufland for a gummy/candy/cookie/chocolate sampler. A little bit of everything to find out what we liked best. We stayed up late eating and talking until we were all fighting to keep our eyes open.One more interesting thing from the day. Halle has entered to win a trip to Orlando to the opening of the new Hagrid ride at Universal Studios. She got an email from the Today Show saying she was a potential winner. But, we hadn’t checked our email for a few days and we missed our window to reply! I email and begged for another chance but it was too late. She was so sad. Me too!