The end of the road - Wolfsburg and Berlin

The last part to the Germany holiday. We spent a few days in Berlin where we caught up with Andrew and Grace (our friends from NZ that are living in the UK at the moment). The main reason why we ended up going to Berlin was to catch up with Sascha (my best friend from school in Germany) who was in Berlin for a few months. Sascha kindly put us up at his flat which saved us a bit of money. Given that it was now Nevember too, we bought Gluehwein (Spiced red wine that you heat up) and lots of 'christmasy' food to get us in the christmas mood. Had lots of fun and managed to teach Andrew and Grace a bit of German and taught Sascha how to play phase 10. And just like his father he ended up being the 'champion'! :-) Anyway; the weather turned out to be not that good (one of very few days that were wet!) for one day but that didn't stop us from seeing a few things anyway. It was good having a 'local' to show us around and as Andrew and Grace had been in Berlin for a day on their big Europe trip they knew a few spots that were really cool too - neither Sascha or myself knew how big a piece of the wall is still left standing! Below are some of the many photos we took (tourists!) of the Reichstag (the beehive), the holocaust memorial which was quite impressive with all the concrete blocks, the new 5 storey central train station that was more like an airport and the Berlin wall.



After our days in Berlin Beck and I then got on a train to Wolfsburg for a day trip to the VW factory. It's about 200km from Berling (an hour on the train) and so of course we had to go there! Unfortunately Andrew and Grace couldn't get a cheap train ticket and the standard fare was far too expensive for a day trip, and Sascha had to be at work (it was monday). It was really impressive and a lot better than I imagined it. There is so much to see and do in Autostadt - which is the exhibition part with individual buildings where each VW owned brand has their own 'experience'. As well as that there are a 'Time House' which has all sorts of old cars (not just VW) to take you through the history of the car, a general VW experience world where you can play around with designing cars, driving simulators and learn about all sorts of things and of course the VW customer services centre where buyers can pick up their new cars that are waiting in one of two towers. Everything is lit up at night which is quite a sight! We also did a small tour of a tiny section of the factory where you get a snippet of how cars are made. They manufacturing site is massive and some of the statistics are almost unbelievable. We were both really glad that we had done the little side trip and spent a day there.

In the photo below you can see the two towers that are full of cars waiting for their new owners and the customer services centre (blue/green light to the right) and one of the pavillions to the left.
Below are some massive car seats that were part of the Skoda pavillion. Just an example of some of the 'experiences' that each pavillion offered. And of course each had a different theme.
This is the 'time house' at night from the outside all lit up. Following are all photos from inside the time house - inlcuding Beck and her dream car. All the cars you could walk right up to and have a good look at!

The photo above is the millionth beetle that rolled of the line, which has all parts that are ordinarliy chrome covered in little polished glass pearls and was painted metallic gold to make it unique! Below is an old BMW roadster.

The beetle cut in half in the photo below was quite funny as the caption said that this was done to highlight the technological advances of the beetle! Technology in a beetle!?

After our trip to Wolfsburg we caught an overnight train back to Munich where we spent another couple of days before we headed back to NZ. And so five weeks had flown by but we had seen lots and caught up with most of the family and friends we had planned to. Hopefully it won't be too long before we'll manage to go back maybe during summer to see a little more of Europe too. For now we've got a few exciting months or years ahead of us with beck rapidly growing now - still a few months till April though!