So I think Tres and I would agree that our stay in Berlin was a (much needed) rest and relaxation stop before we head out to Prague. The last two days have been pretty much uneventful except for the wonderful times with Kaitlin and the excellent food that we still manage to spend our budget on =) It was really nice to see Kaitlin and hang out with her during the weekend. She was our FANTASTIC tour guide and game-mate. She likes to refer to us as an “old couple” because we don’t really go out a lot and like to drink coffee and go to bed early….so thanks for putting up with the old couple, Kait-i-kins (xoxo)!
Today is another long train ride to Prague…a nice long 5 hours sitting in a cab with 3 other people we don’t really know (there are many cabs/closed in seating sections that groups of 6 can reserve but if they’re unreserved then they’re a free-for-all…so that’s what we ended up with since the train is completely packed). It’s making for an awkward situation, but at least we got seats and we get to sit together.
Since we really haven’t updated much in Berlin, here’s the scoop on what we did/saw. We attempted to see a Stasi museum, which housed the Stasi headquarters after WWII, but when we got there (and it was way out of town) it was closed, so we ate some awesome food. We went to the Topography of Terrors which is a museum exhibit located in the heart of the former Nazi headquarters. You can still see some of the basement ruins of the buildings but the entire complex was obliterated due to bombing and deconstruction at the end of the war. Another cool (and free) exhibit was the Jewish Memorial right near Brandenburg Gate. It is a complete square/street block of different size concrete blocks. It honestly looks like a bunch of graves in a grid with walking spaces in between, and when you look at the blocks from outside the memorial, they all look around the same height (not to mention the same dimensions in width and length); however, once you start walking towards the center of the memorial and the blocks surround you , you quickly find out that the blocks can get up to 10ft to 15ft high, maybe even more! It’s quite scary and neat at the same time. There’s a Jewish museum under the ground/beneath the memorial, but we did not go in it. I went inside when I toured with my study abroad group and it was a lot of reading --- Tres said he had had enough reading for the time being so we decided to skip the museum. Of course we saw the Brandenburg Gate, walked down Unter den Linden (under the lime trees), walked near Checkpoint Charlie, saw Alexander Platz, Potsdamer Platz, and pieces of the wall, and ate well =) If you read/learn nothing else from our trip, you should know that we ate well (though not as often as we should, sometimes eating at 9pm or 10pm at night instead of 5pm/6pm like we do at home)!
Some of the food break-downs: excellent pancakes (blueberry and plain) at Vis-à-Vis restaurant near the northeastern border of town, pretty good schnitzel near the southwestern area of town, delicious milchkaffe (milk-coffee) almost everywhere we went, kokosmakron (coconut/macadamia type fluff thing with chocolate on the bottom….it was AMAZING), weisswurst and grillwurst (white sausage that was boiled…not all that tasty….and grilled smaller sausages with sauerkraut), currywurst at two different places (but we didn’t get it from “the best” place in Berlin…currywurst is a grilled sausage cut up and sprinkled with paprika and curry powder and then with ketchup on the side), yummy Mexican food on the outskirts of town (though it was definitely no Mi Casitas), and other bakery snacks in between.
Yesterday, we did two things that most people can say that either missed or haven’t had the opportunity to do….we went to Mauerpark to view the vast market of junk, food, etc that hippies sell and the activities that the hippies participate in on Sundays (like Buddhist monks chanting and singing with instruments, some Ska type music being performed (it’s a lively type of rock..not hard rock…with the presence of brass instruments like the saxophone or trombone, kind of like a mix between rock and jazz), we saw some botchy ball…Google it, karaoke, other weird instruments being played, some young kid selling sangria for 2 euros per cup….he wasn’t getting much business since it was chilly outside, and other strange things). Mauerpark is a park that bordered the eastern side of the wall (hence “mauer” meaning wall) during DDR occupation. There used to be markets there during the summer just like there are now – they were pretty crappy markets then, according to different sources, as they are now. Tres enjoyed the market some, but it definitely wasn’t my thing so I thought we should get the heck out of there.
If any of you have turned on the TV lately, you might have noticed that the FIFA World Cup is taking place in South Africa. We’ve seen a few games, parts and pieces of them at least, while we’ve been here in Germany. Last night, we watched our first full game with Kaitlin at a place called “Haus der 100 Biers” or House of 100 Beers….hopefully y’all can see the resemblance here of English to German since English is a Germanic language. The game, of course, was Germany vs. Australia and Germany won 4-0. Trying to find a place to eat/watch the game was EXTREMELY difficult since all of the bars, cafes, restaurants, etc, both inside and outside, were packed! Once the game was over, we decided to head back towards Brandenburg Gate (Kaitlin included) to try and find some dessert. We made a pit-stop at our hotel to use the restroom but decided to stay on the main street facing our hotel after we used the potty. It was complete and udder chaos outside due to the win. Cars were being climbed on and rocked, even a double-decker bus was rocked a little, people were in the streets shouting and singing, police were on standby of course, firecrackers were going off, flags were being waved everywhere, music was being played, horns blown like crazy….this went on for at least the 1.5 hours we were there, and we heard it a little from our hotel room after we went back to the hotel for a while. It’d be neat and terrifying at the same time to be somewhere like Berlin if they were to win the World Cup…this was just a game that doesn’t really qualify them for the next round…it counts but still just a beginning game and the crowds are already ridiculous and out of control.
Besides yesterday, our other days have been pretty much relaxing, slow, and filled with naps/sleeping in, which I think we really needed. Hopefully we’ll be more rested for Prague and we’ve already made a promise to not exert ourselves as much as we have been in Paris, Brussels, and Cologne. For now, I’ll leave it at this but hopefully Tres or I will update tonight or tomorrow about this evening in Prague. Tschuess!
No comments:
Post a Comment