The Last, Cold Day

The following morning we woke up to inches of snow covering the ground, and a wind chill of -11.  We decided to stay in the warm comforts of our apartment and try to find something to do that was inside.  That was much easier said than done.  Every museum or monument we wanted to go see was outside, and since neither of us are of Eskimo or Siberian heritage, we opted against those.

Eventually Taylor came upon a train board layout of the city of Berlin that happened to occupy the top floor of a shopping mall.  We piled on the layers and headed out.  

Luckily, the mall was a quick walk from the metro stop.  Did I mention that it was super freezing cold outside?  We made our way up to the top floor and into the train room.  It was huge, with multiple trains and tracks running throughout the landscape.

While the setup was clearly aged, and needed a little dusting, it was pretty impressive.  Every twenty minutes it turned to nighttime, which consisted of a light change.  The buildings looked pretty cool with their little windows lit up and the streetlights on.

We continued to make our way around the table as the sun rose and it became daytime again.  To the left at the edge of the room was the control deck.  No one was manning it while we were there but the screens and switchboards were still running.

Around the corner was a little section where you could look underneath the mountain range and see the trains go through.  There were a lot more levels of tracks than I thought!

Next to the big table was another table in the beginnings of construction.  Pretty cool that they continue to build new sections.

They also had a separate room housing the airport.  Every few minutes an airplane would pull out of its parking spot and roll down to the runway.  It even had sound effects when the planes took off!

Back out in the city area, we found the Brandenburg Gate that we actually visited the night before. While it was kindof a last minute plan, seeing Berlin in train board form was a pretty neat and low-key way to spend our last evening.  We may not have seen all of the city in real life, but we did get to see it in HO scale.

(photos by e.hunt)