Suddenly Berlin! Auf einmal Berlin!

Above is the statue of Fredrick the Great, located in the middle of the famous street Unter den Linden. My own Prussian heritage makes me soft for anything reminding me of that...
This is my favorite place in Berlin, the Gendarmenmarkt, where Prussian pomp and French noble restraint battle it out in the architecture...
This, the Berlin Cathedral, is Prussian pomp at its best. It was accross the street from the castle where the Kaisers, the Hohenzollerns, lived.
Thursday I went to the foreign office to pick up the next extension of my residence permit. All was paid when the lady discovered I had no pages left in my passport for the new permit, so she could not officially issue it. I had to go to the US Embassy as quickly as possible to get more pages pasted in. Since my current permit would expire on the 20th of this month, I had to move quickly. That meant Friday at 6:42 am. I was sitting in the ICE train on my way to Berlin. At 8:45 am. I was in the embassy and by 9:45 am. I had the extra pages inserted (at no charge), and I had the rest of the day to spend in Berlin. So, I visited the places you see in these three photos and many more - KaDeWe - one of the largest department stores in Europe, Postdam Square, the Hackischen Höfe, and I just walked all day. I love Berlin, so any reason to go is fine, but I had to move quickly. By the way, the picture of the Gendarmenmarkt was taken from my seat in a restaurant, where I ate a lunch with a salad, main course (fish) with noodles and sauce and dessert all for €5,50 - not bad at all. I hope you enjoy these photos, and above all, breathe a sigh of relief with me, that the US Embassy does things at no charge for Americans - this is not the case in other countries.