Odds and Ends of Berlin

And now that I am looking back on my first experience in Germany, trying to recount anything odd or peculiar or interesting or anything of that sort, one thing immediately strikes me.  The Germans drink beer everywhere.  I don't mean everywhere as in just odd restaurants like McDonalds or Burger King, but really just everywhere.  You can see people drinking on the metro or on the bench in the park.  And I am not saying this is a once in a while type of thing.  It Is very common.  Every time I was on the metro after noon I saw groups of twenty or thirty somethings with Becks in hand, casually drinking a bottle of beer like an American would down a bottle of soda in public.  They were not being obnoxious and were not drunk in public.  They were just enjoying their beer while going about their day.
Also, everything in Germany has been on time.  Typical.

Oh, and everything in Berlin is a replica.  I forget if I mentioned this, bit after the war everything had to be rebuilt.  Communist Russia wanted to show that their way worked better, capitalist Britain, USA and France wanted to do the same.  So buildings went up.  Fast.  They were all restored in their former style and made to look old, like they had been there all along.  Well, I can't complain.
Also, the Berlin wall is small.  Well, smaller than I thought.  The part that was remaining was pretty short, thing and raggedy, and not very imposing.  Apparently the barbed wire was removed because it only made it easier to get over.  It was something to grab onto.  Can you imagine?  When the wall was still standing, there were apparently actually two.  The space in the middle was the difficult part.  It was heavily guarded, there were a lot of watch towers, and there were obstacles.  All just to keep people in East Berlin.  Oh, and I know I said it was small, but that really was just in regards to the height, because it was long.  Remember how I went to Potsdam?  Well that is about 25 km outside of Berlin.  The wall went around that.  It measured 155 km or so.  That is almost 100 miles long.  Wow.