Berlin Day 1

Berlin was an interesting experience to say the least.  I think it's pretty impressive that even after the amount of things acting against Kate and I in having fun on this trip we still fell in love with the city.  To begin with, we took the bus from Prague to Berlin.  That wasn't the problem, we'd both taken Student Agency buses before and enjoyed them.  However, this particular bus (the only one from Prague to Berlin) departed Praha at 11:55 pm and arrived in Berlin at precisely 4:30 in the morning.  A bit daunting to say the least.  Luckily for us, we were traveling on a weekend, so the metro in Berlin was operating 24 hours a day and all we had to do was hop on the metro near the bus station and head over to the hostel.

When we arrived at the hostel, another surprise (although not really a surprise as we'd assumed it would be the case) awaited--we couldn't check into our room until 3 pm.  We'd arrived at 5:17 am hoping to take a nap before hitting the town.  Not so much.  We were able to check out lockers in the lobby and drop off our stuff, and we could hang out in the downstairs cafe area, but we would not be getting the rest we so desperately desired.  The German girl working the front desk clearly sympathized with us but there was nothing she could do.  So, we found a comfy looking bench in a back corner away from the roaming drunk British students who were sitting around playing cards and being rambunctious and made a plan for the day ahead.  The very, very long day ahead.

After about 15 minutes of sitting around at the Pfefferbett (best name ever!) we decided to hit up a 24-hour cafe that was in our guidebook, which turned out to be an excellent decision.  Also, the metro ride to get there took about a half an hour on the U-bahn (one of the two metro systems, the other being the very superior S-bahn) which was good for passing the several hours we needed to kill before we could sleep.  The trip was totally worth it, and after we were done eating at approximately 7:45 am we opted to walk across Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz to get to the meeting point for the free tour we would be taking.  The tour group met at 11:00.  We had time, which was good as it wasn't exactly a short walk.

 

We arrived at the starting point of the tour at 11 on the dot after stops at a few touristy attractions along the way.  Naturally, we were both pretty excited when we discovered that our tour guide was not only awesome in the general tour guide way, but also awesome in that he was Australian.  Of course, the travel gods couldn't let it be that easy.  The weather decided to rain on our free tour parade.  It didn't rain literally--just figuratively.  It was cold and almost rainy and Kate stepped in a puddle which led to her needing to buy new socks.  Good times.

About half way through what would have been an upwards of three hours tour, we decided we just couldn't do it any more, glorious Australian tour guide or no.  We decided to make our way over to one of the city's museums where it would be warm inside after lunch at a Mexican place we'd heard about.  Lest we forget the theme of our trip, we took the metro to the restaurant and they were closed.  They don't do lunch on weekends.  We decided go somewhere nearby instead and then headed over to the Pergamon Museum.  By the time we were done with that we were able to get back to the hostel, check in, and get a couple hours of sleep before going out for the night.

We'd intended to sign up for the pub crawl sponsored by the same people who did the free tour, but that very much did not happen.  We found our way to a "traditional" (according to the two guys--one sketchy German who kept going on about the evils of capitalism and one friendly American-asked us how we found ourselves there) German pub and then hit up an American-themed restaurant for some late night mozzarella sticks.  We finally got back to the hostel at about midnight and immediately crashed in preparation for the next day.  I think I just barely had time to take off my coat before I fell asleep.

I've decided to make my pictures from this trip (for the most part) black and white.  I think it more accurately captures the mood.

The life-saving cafe that was open at the crack of dawn to serve us breakfast

Remainders of the cappuccino that thankfully kept me up for the next few hours

Inside the restaurant.   We actually weren't the only people there, but I think we were the only ones who hadn't been out clubbing all night.

I left my mark on the table, of course

Emperor William Memorial Church, still in the state it was left in during WWII

A small reminder of Budapest

Path in Tiergarten

Victory Column

Looking down the street we'd just walked up before walking all the way back down the other side

Philharmonic--one of many examples of modern architecture in Berlin

Cool statues with the Philharmonic in the background

This statue is clearly trying to be a balloon animal, but it wasn't exactly successful in being anything other than an amorphous blob.

Sony Center, home of lots of movie theaters and expensive restaurants

Very cool roof above the Sony Center courtyard

With exhaustion came the urge to take ridiculous pictures

These street lights were used in East Berlin while it was occupied by the Soviets and they're still around.  This one means "Stop!", but I think you probably could have guessed that.

This walking green gentleman with the hat means "Go!"

They really, really like bears in Berlin.  Throughout the city there are differently-painted bears like this one, like the Snoopys in Minnesota.

More bears for purchase

First sighting of a piece of the Berlin Wall

Peace sign

The wall was surprisingly short

Basically every inch of the Wall that remains around the city has been graffitied.

Brandenburg Gate.  Hitler changed the statue on top from the original Prussian one, in which the woman was holding a simple iron cross.  He also changed the direction of her gaze, so that she is now staring directly at the French Embassy a few meters away, making sure they don't get up to any funny business.

The square in front of the gate is pretty popular

Holocaust Memorial

Walking through the memorial is incredibly disorienting

Apartment buildings in the background

Our wonderful tour guide telling us about the building behind him.

It's one of the last Nazi buildings remaining in Germany.  It was originally the HQ of the Luftwaffe.  They filmed parts of Valkyrie there too.

Really big globe

Long section of the Berlin Wall

I also didn't know that they decided to use rubber tubing instead of barbed wire at the top because with the tubing there's no way to get a good enough grip to swing yourself over the top of the wall; with barbed wire, there would be something for a rug or towel to cling too and let you climb over.

Trabants were the best cars EVER!  Not only would you have been forced to wait upwards of ten years to be blessed with one during the Communist period, but once you finally received your luxury vehicle, you had lots of noise and bad smells to look forward to.  Now, they rent them to tourists, of course.

Checkpoint Charlie

Gendarmenmarkt

Berliner Dom with the Berlin TV Tower in the background

We stumbled across a street art market and decided to peruse

Hanging German things

Probably not Germans, but that's ok

Purses

This guy was just cool

Berlin TV Tower

Pergamon Museum

Inside

It seemed like in this area more than any other the statues were missing several body parts.

Bigfoot!  We found him!

I don't remember what mythical being this is, but he was very hairy.

This couple was just staring into space.  Perhaps they were also on the bus from Prague and hadn't been able to sleep either.

Oranienstrasse at night

Kate at The Sixties, where we were comforted by mozzarella sticks, even though they came with tartar sauce instead of marinara.  You can't have everything.

The U-bahn stop near our hostel

Metro

Stay tuned for Day 2 of my Berlin adventure!