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SOCIAL EVENTS

On Thursday afternoon, 22 March 2012, we started a boat tour with dinner on the beautiful river Spree, one of the four rivers in Berlin that traverses the city center along a number of famous buildings.

The tour gave insights into the government district, the historic city center and the district Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg has emerged from its history as one of the poorest quarters in Berlin in the late 1970s, where it was an isolated section of West Berlin, to one of Berlin's cultural centers in the middle of the reunified city.

On Friday evening, 23 March 2012, we concluded the symposium with a sunset dinner above the buildings of Berlin in the restaurant of the television tower in the city centre of Berlin. Close to Alexanderplatz, the tower was constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic. With its height of 368 meters, it is the tallest structure in Germany and the fourth tallest freestanding structure in Europe. There is a visitor platform and a revolving restaurant in the middle of the sphere. The visitor platform is at a height of about 204 metres (669 ft) above the ground and visibility can reach 42 kilometres (26 mi) on a clear day. The restaurant, which rotates once every 30 minutes, is a few metres above the visitors platform. Inside the shaft are two lifts that shuttle visitors up to the sphere of the tower within 40 seconds.

When the sun shines on the television tower's tiled stainless steel dome, the reflection usually appears in the form of a cross. This effect was neither predicted nor desired by the planners. As a jibe against the atheist foundations of the Communist government, and the ongoing suppression of church institutions in East Germany, Berliners immediately named the luminous cross "Rache des Papstes" meaning Pope's revenge.

House of German Representatives	Office of the Federal Chancellor
View to Former East Berlin with TV Tower	Central Railway Station
Riverside of the Spree	Spree and Commemoration of Berlin Wall Victims
Potsdamer Platz Sony Center (inside)	Potsdamer Platz Sony Center (outside)
Potsdamer Platz Kollhoff Building	Regional Railway Station Potsdamer Platz