Runners, Rain and Dinosaurs!

Berlin Marathon, out our window

We woke today to the sound of rain. Lots of it. It started last night, and looks like it will continue through the day. With the prospect of picking an indoor venue, I dove into the tour books ... until ... I heard a commotion coming from outside.

Here's what we saw...

The Berlin Marathon, which they were setting up for last night (and of course, we forgot about) went right past our window. It was amazing to see all those people. The stream went on for almost an hour, probably longer but we picked a location and started on our way.

But, of course, we had to stop downstairs to get a good look of the action -- and some pictures.

Funny story: While we were on our corner watching the runners, we started talking to a mom and her son. The son was yelling "Go U.S.A.!" Not only were they from the States, they live in Paramus, New Jersey and were there cheering on her husband, who was running the marathon. It's a small world, after all.

Outside of the museum

We picked the Natural History Museum (Museum fur Naturkunde), because it was indoors and probably kid-friendly. Boy, was it ever! Kids were lining the place like wallpaper, yelling and running around pointing at the stuffed animals and insects. It was a parent's paradise -- nothing to break and few non-families looking down their noses at wild kids.

The dinosaurs were very cool

The museum's claim to fame is that it houses the world's largest original dinosaur skeleton at 12 meters (that's 39 feet, for you non-metric folk) tall. Leah was pretty impressed, though she kept wanting to see the "real" dinosaurs.

The museum was historic in itself, it opened it's doors in 1889 and has an extensive collection -- not that Leah and Alice cared. They did enjoy seeing animals up close, and pointing out all the gross stuff.

We took the long way home, cheering some marathon runners along the way -- while passing by sets of loud drummers who were also encouraging them on. It was exciting to be by all the action. And since we were on foot, having the streets closed was a bonus in this usually busy city.