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the great knomad-trek
Berlin - The Sequel
Sunset at the Reichstag!  Cola gummies on the Altes Museum/Berliner Dom lawn! Carrying a full backpack the entire day! Spine... snapping... under.... pressure....
Back to Berlin.  We got off to a late start, and found ourselves on a full train, with Fortuna Dusseldorf 95 fans.  They had spirit... team spirit, cheerlead-y type spirit, AND alcoholic-style spirit.  Lots of beer, and it was only 8 a.m!  For the three hour train rides to Berlin, we rode with the F95 fans, listened to Daft Punk over and over and over again, learned their cheers (involuntarily though) which are more like singing than cheering, and had to deal with the boomboxes, fireworks (yep), smoking and beer.  They were pretty rowdy but not violent so it was cool.  I needed some quiet time afterwards though since those trains were super crowded and really really noisy.  When we got to Berlin Zoologischer Garten Hauptbahnhof, we managed to re-sell our Wochenende ticket for half its original price to these guys passing by (thanks to Bojan standing out front of the Reisebüro, holding up the ticket very discreetly).  Score!  I wouldn't recommend it though, it's very risky, and you could get in trouble.  The money aspect though is very appealing and both parties benefit in the end -- as I learned in ECON 310.  Anyway, off for lunch at Nordsee and we walked to the Gedachtniskirche.  I managed to messy myself up with tartar sauce.  Gross!  Then we went back to the Hauptbahnhof, bought a group day pass for the Berlin transit system for DM21 (3 people, good deal), and took the U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz.  The first thing I noticed once we were out of the U-Bahn station was that there was a guy on the footpath selling army helmets and gas masks that looked like they were from the war years.  I'm not an expert though so they might have been fake.  Anyway, we walked straight to the Sony Centre since our bladders were busting.  The toilets were clean and free, if you wanted to opt out of dropping a few pfennig into the dish on the desk outside.  We checked out the Sony Centre which is full of neato gadgets.  Anyone who knows me also knows that I'm somewhat of a gadget fan, so all the tiny CD and MiniDisc players, cell phones, portable DVD players, flat screen monitors, PS2s and camcorders were droolworthy.  They even got a SmartCar indoors, these weird goggles that let you watch DVDs as you walk along and the robot dogs!  Once that was over and a few pictures were taken, we moved on to Haus am Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse in former East Berlin.  As usual, there was a huge line up outside the museum so we just looked at the exhibits outside which included chunks of the wall, part of a car, lots of inscriptions and some steel sculptures all stuck onto the museum walls.  It was definitely creative, and I bet there's nothing like that in North America.  I cruised through a couple of souvenir shops trying to find an Ampel-Männchen souvenir for my sister but none of all the corkscrews, notebooks, gummies, bookends I saw seemed right.  I got separated from my fellow travellers but they managed to find me in one of the shops.  We walked to part of the Berlin Wall further down Friedrichstrasse (the part that says "Save Our Planet") and looked at the Topographie des Terrors just behind it.  Basically, it is the ruins of the basement of the Hotel Prinz Albrecht which held the SS Reich leadership offices and more SS and Gestapo offices on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and Wilhelmstrasse.  It's this outdoor exhibit of the history of Germany from just before the 1930s to the 1950s, I think.  It was all in Deutsch but I still found it extrememly interesting.  I love how Europe really makes an effort to preserve its history, even if it's a little on the notorious side.  We spent some time there, resting (Kitty and Bojan) while I went through the exhibit really slowly.  It looks like some crumbly old building but so many things happened there and it really influenced things in the world today.  Anyway, enough of my lecture for now.  On the way back, I got photo-happy and snapped a pic of a Citröen parked on the street (i.e. the car that Melina the Bond girl drives in "For Your Eyes Only").  We then took the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, walked past the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall), the Fernsehturm (like a TV antenna tower with a ball on top), and statues of Marx and Engels in Marx-Engels-Forum (the Fathers of Communism, if you will).  Walk walk walk.  We finally reached our final destination:  the Berliner Dom, it was HUUUUGE and also pretty.  It was impossible to fit in one shot, so we just plopped down on the grass, since we were very very tired and stared at it for a long time.  I took a partial shot of the Dom anyway, and one of the front of the Altes Museum and its huge bowl (according to my Let's Go Germany, it couldn't fit through the front doors so they just left it outside) which were adjacent to the Dom.  Kitty and I chatted and people-watched and ate some of Kitty's sour cola gummies (introduced to us by Plato in Paris).  Yoink!  I actually did most of the eating.  My stomach says, "Thanks Kitty!".  Bojan slept on the grass.  No ticks, thank goodness.  Then after recovering, we walked to Unter den Linden.  Who knew it was so close???  Dinner for me (okay, so I got hungry again) was BRATWURST with the nice mustard on it.  I ordered in Deutsch and felt very proud of myself afterwards, because (1) I answered and understood the guy's question when he asked me if I wanted mustard on it and (2) he understood me when I gave my order!  We walked to Humboldt Universität -- famous students?  Einstein, Karl Marx, Hegel and the Brothers Grimm.  Good list of people.  There's a cool statue of Friedrich the Great outside and across the road is the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek.  They sell cheap books outside Humboldt Universität -- I've seen that on both my visits to Berlin so I guess it's a regular thing.  We slowly walked up Unter den Linden, checked out a toy shop that had a big Asterix doll outside and awesome toys inside.  Asterix is soooo hard to find!  I think he's a French cartoon.  We spent some time in there, then walked on to the covered-up Brandenburger Tor.  It still had the same Deutsch Telekom tarp over it that it had a month ago.  Crossing the road in front of the Brandenburger Tor on the other side of Pariser Platz (a posh little plaza with Dresdner Bank -- that's my bank! -- on one side and Commerzbank on the other) right near the Hotel Adlon!  That's familiar territory.  We walked past the top of the Tiergarten (Love Parade territory) to the Reichstag.  The Reichstag is awesome.  It has to be the best looking government building I have ever seen.  There was a bit of a line-up to get in but it was moving pretty quickly so we were inside in no time.  Germans are really proud of the Reichstag, and I would be too.  We all did the security check deal and went into the elevator with a guide who was German but had a very British accent when he spoke in English.  When we got to the viewing deck, we headed straight for the top of the dome, so we could catch the sunset.  There were a lot of couples on the observation deck so I tried to avoid looking at people canoodling and smooching and walked around the decks, looked down the giant mirror-cone-thingy standing in the middle of the dome, looked at the panorama view of Berlin (I counted at least seven cranes), and studied the spiral walkways (did you know that every other level is for people walking up to the top deck while all the alternate walkway level is for people headed down?  It's very systematic).  I tried to look at everything EXCEPT the mushy stuff.  After a while I went down to the main viewing deck and read the history of the Reichstag.  It's amazing how much stuff happened in the German government in the last 100 years... most of which I learned in History 12.  Took a few pictures of the sunset, and then we were off to meet the Schnells in front of the Hotel Adlon.  It was great to see them again, and they were in their ultimate car again.  We went to their house for the night (since Bahay Piipino was otherwise occupied) and had a gourmet dinner, talked for a long time and went to sleep past midnight.  It was so cool to be able to spend some time with them again.  They laughed at our travel adventures A LOT, so I guess we were as equally entertaining, and we talked about our upcoming trip to Italy.  I was pretty wiped out afterwards so I plopped down to sleep in the giant guest bed (we all shared the guest apartment which was very cool).  P.S.  the dog absolutely hated Bojan.  Next up:  Potsdam!
Highlights. 

- Meeting up with my relatives again. Yay! They're so cool! 

- Going on a Kitty-led walking tour of Berlin, and actually seeing Alexanderplatz, the Topographies des Terrors, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin wall on Friedrichstr. up close, and walking around the Gedachtniskirche, Potsdamer Platz, Fernsehturm, Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Universitat (and past Bebelplatz), Altes Museum and Berliner Dom. Much nicer and cheaper than a bus tour. 

- Sunset at the Reichstag.... pretty. 
 

Lowlights. 

- Three hours on the train with rowdy, techno-playing, really devoted Fortuna Dusseldorf fans. I never want to hear Daft Punk or "You'll Never Walk Alone" again. 

- Brandenburger Tor was STILL being fixed. I still have never seen the Brandenburger Tor. 

- Carrying my backpack around ALL DAY. Brutal brutal punishment.
Grade: A. Berlin the second time around is still a lot of fun and still has tonnes of things for tourists to see, even if your energy has been drained by a very rowdy 3 hours on the train. Mental note:  Walking with a backpack the whole day was punishing.  Payback came in the evening when we got to go home with the Schnells.  They are my favourite couple in Germany!