Berlin Day 6

Friday the weather was glorious! It was the perfect weather for our planned activity, a five hour bike tour of the city! 

We woke up Friday morning (again with not enough sleep... we could hear late night socializing from the courtyard below) and headed down stairs to the hostel lobby for breakfast. They had plenty of options but it of course paled in comparison to what we had become accustomed to at the Intercontinental. However, we did get to eat outside near the hostel's garden and that was really pleasant. 

After we finished up breakfast we hopped on the metro towards to city center to meet for our bike tour. The tour met under this giant TV tower that reminds me a lot of the space needle in appearance and scale. It's in East Berlin and was built during the 1960's. Since all the engineers and architects left  East Berlin to go to West Berlin, the communists had to sneak in Swiss architects to design it. Which is funny because they built the tower mostly as propaganda to show off with a "look what we, and our government, can do" mentality. 

All the Fat Tire tour guides spoke English as their first language as did 90% of the people on the tour. It was strange and soothing to be in an environment where you could understand all the surrounding conversation. Our tour guide was an Aussie named Julian. There were a handful of Australians actually, a couple of folks from the UK and some fellow yanks. 

Our guide, Julian

After a brief introduction and adjusting our bikes we were off! Goodness it was quite scary at first biking through the city. The bike lanes go back and forth between being on the sidewalks, being on the road, and then sharing a lane with the buses! Ahhh!  and the cars go fast in Berlin and then you also have to dodge pedestrians too. Thankfully Berlin is very bike friendly - many people cycle as their main transportation. 

We hit up the major sights: old churches, Humboldt university, Gendarmenmarkt (Berlin concert house, French cathedral, and the German cathedral), check point Charlie, Berlin Wall, Berlin Wall watch towers, Hitler's bunker and suicide place, the murdered Jews monument, Berlin Victory Column, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag.

Humboldt University

Konzerthaus Berlin Concert Hall (complete with an opera singing peacock dressed man...)

 The Neue Kirche (German Church) in the Gendarmenmarkt 

French Church in the Gendarmenmarkt (same design as the German one... only one is like 1 meter taller than the other)

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall Watch Tower

(Originally they were occupied by two new and young army men. But after the government realized that they had a problem with the men shooting their partner and making a run for it to West Berlin they began assigning older, married men to the towers... men who had more to lose if they ran away)

Nazi Government Building (now the tax building)

Check Point Charlie

Check Point Charlie

Holocaust Memorial 

Reichstag (German Parliament)

Where Hilter's bunker is... now a parking lot. The German people want to forget it and not acknowledge it. 

The Brandenburg Gate

For lunch we headed back to the Tiergarten and stopped at a different Beir Garten. We sat as a group and the people we happened to sit next to both got engineering degrees from Georgia Tech and one of them actually worked as a contractor at Gulfstream!! What are the odds?! Miguel even designed a part that attached to something the other guy had designed way back in the day!! 

Lunch was actually in the middle of the tour so by the time we finished up we were both hungry. It was around 3 o'clock so neither of us wanted a large meal so we stopped by a local establishment on the way back to the metro. It reminded me of a German version of a Taco Mac except there are hardly any televisions here and the wait staff all wore German costume which tickled Miguel. There were two large, separate stag parties from Britain there that provided quite the entertainment and had Miguel and me laughing a lot! At one point one of the grooms removed his pants and I got quite an eyeful! We did end up table hopping some trying to avoid smokers. Miguel ordered two beers and I ate some desert pancakes. 

No beer for me

The Stag party... see the leopard print suit?

After our snack and relax time we headed back to the older side of town to our hostel. We changed into some warmer clothes and went out to explore the area. We saw an old church that had been badly damaged in the war. It was repaired a little bit but the devastation was still apparent. 

We walked for a bit till we found a restaurant that takes Amex. That's the only card we brought with us and we already ran out of Euros. 

The restaurant was Italian which we both felt kinda eh about (we'd rather try local cuisine if we can). I had spaghetti and Miguel had the biggest calzone I have ever seen. The food was fine. We sat outside and people watched. We had both crashed at this point so we're pretty excited to go back to the hostel and go to sleep. 

Berlin Day 5

Thursday was kind of a mess. We woke up earlier than normal with little sleep from the night before. We had to pack up all our stuff to leave in the hotel luggage room as we had to check out by noon. It was a very stressful morning and Miguel had to really rush through breakfast in about ten minutes so he could make it to his seminar on time. He sadly could only go to the buffet once on his last glorious breakfast day. I took my time at breakfast and wrote my parents an email that gmail decided to delete and send into oblivion. That just added to my already sleepy, cranky attitude. 

Eventually I headed back once again to Museum Island to finish up the last two museums, the Pergamon and the Bode. I arrived right when the museums opened at 10 am. The previous days I spent at the museums had a pattern of getting busier and more crowded as the day progressed so I was thinking getting there when the Pergamon opened would ensure the least amount of crowds. Ugh. This ended up being the busiest museum day yet. There were HORDES of school groups everywhere. Middle school to young high school aged. They were very disrespectful, disruptive, loud, and just in the way! They would rush around in large groups making it difficult to walk or see the exhibits. They would randomly stop in clusters and sit on the stairs taking up the entire staircase making it impossible to pass. The museum staff was obviously annoyed by them too and had to tell them multiple times to move and quiet down, but the results never lasted more than a few moments. The noise level especially bugged me on one floor which was dedicated to Islamic religious art. I just felt that exhibit in particular deserved some amount of quiet and respect. My only consolation was that none of the groups were American. 

The facade of the museum was under construction, so I think this was a makeshift entrance. 

Highlights of this museum included seeing the Ishtar Gate and Roman market gate. They were both MASSIVE and so strange to see contained in a building. The Ishtar Gate was also on my art history bucket list so I was pretty thrilled to see it. Of course half of it was covered up due to renovations which was a bummer but it was also neat to see the art restorers taking q-tips to the glazed bricks cleaning in tiny sections. So crazy that it was built by king Nebuchadnezzar. He seems like such a far away, fictional character.

Wide angle lens makes for strange looking portrait shots...

Model of the Ishtar Gate and how it would have appeared in Babylon 

Originally the gate was unglazed brick with some animal figure reliefs...

Then they glazed the bricks, but the animal figures were flat....

Eventually they combined the two and thats how it remained.

I spent a couple of hours at the Pergamon. The Islamic art floor was interesting. Definitely a nice change of pace and very visually pleasing with all the ornate details and bright colors. They had rooms and rooms filled with huge carpets! 

By the time I made it to the last couple of exhibits I had had it with the school groups and crowds. I left the museum and decided maybe food would help my sour mood. I stopped at a food truck. I waited behind an older American man who unfortunately was a bit obnoxious. He absolutely did not want to try any of "that foreign food". He asked for a candy bar to which the vendor suggested one of their large, yummy-looking cookies to which the American grumbled and heavily sighed. After refusing the cookie he asked for a lemonade. The vendor patiently explained that Lemonade in Berlin is actually a name brand soda and not the traditional American beverage. As I'm sure you can imagine that went over really well. The gentleman left in a huff. I ordered a mit Käse with tomato. Which was basically a large quesadilla in the form of a wrap. It consisted of melted cheese, tomato, and a basil pesto type sauce. While I was waiting for my lunch to cook Mr. American came back and demanded/asked for a coke "because that is at least something he understands!". 

I ate my lunch in the beautiful gardened courtyard between three of the museums and looking toward the cathedral. I soaked up the warm sun and enjoyed being off my feet for a while. Miguel texted while I was eating that he was done for the day. I decided to head back and meet up with him. I skipped going to the last museum, the Bode. It is Byzantine religious art - a subject I'm not too interested in. I was still in a foul mood and tired so I didn't mind much making that sacrifice in the moment. If Miguel hadn't been done I probably would have gone though. 

I met back with Miguel in the hotel lobby. I had asked him to talk to the concierge while I was heading back and to figure out something for us to do for the afternoon. He really wanted to see something war related and the concierge could suggest something. The concierge suggested the history of Berlin museum which we could walk to... which was not a fun walk. It felt super long, I got super hungry and both of us were still not in the best moods. However on the way we stopped at this big Christmas village. It was really fun for me and felt nostalgic because they had hundreds of Christmas pyramids just like one my family had when I was a child. I always loved that thing! 

Anyways, we at some point made it to the museum. One of the draws about that museum is that you can go way below ground to this Cold War nuclear bunker. It can hold up to 3000 people. It looked very much like the place in the third hunger games movie. But we had just missed the tour and would have to return over an hour later if we wanted to go down and see it. I wasn't too bummed to miss it as the thought of going in an elevator way underground freaks me out! 

We decided to do the self guided tour. It was interesting to a point but I was just over museums and so hungry and pouty that I wanted to rush through it. And guess who else showed up?! TWO of the SAME school groups from earlier in the day. I was thrilled. We spent about an hour there and then agreed to head back to the hotel, pick up our stuff, and head to the hostel. 

The walk back to the hotel seemed much shorter on the return trip. We collected our stuff and jumped on a crowded bus - so easy with multiple pieces of luggage btw. After two stops with loads of people getting on and no one getting off the already crowded bus got so compact that we were smushed up next to one another. Even with the tightness the ride was really rickety since we were standing and just holding on to rails. At this point I lost it. Yep. Not one of my finest moments. I was so tired, hungry, sore, and claustrophobic that I started to cry. Miguel held me in his arms and let me close my eyes and burry my face in his chest. At some point some people hopped off and Miguel grabbed a seat for me. That helped so so so much. Being able to sit and feel like I had some bit of space and air was great. 

This was when I was finally able to sit down. 

Once we reached our bus stop it was about a fifteen minute walk to our hostel. Rolling suitcases over cobble stone sidewalks isn't the most fun. But I enjoyed walking through this new part of the city. It was very different from every other place we had been so far. This felt much more local (if that makes sense?). Small businesses, less English, lots of normal people going about their evening activities, slower pace. The area our hostel was in was filled with lots of young families. 

We were definitely on the older side of the hostel guests. We both agreed it would have been a very fun place to stay in college with friends. In both places we had stayed so far we had double beds but it's interesting because instead of one large comforter there are two twin bed comforters and no sheets. 

We fought the urge to throw our things down and then fling ourselves into bed and instead headed to find food. We walked up the street a bit and came to a little area with a couple of outdoor restaurants and sat down at one that turned out to be a Russian restaurant. I don't think I've ever eaten Russian food before but I was pleased with my meal. We were both starving so ordered an appetizer of garlic bread. I had a hard time with the water situation there. I'm used to drinking so much water throughout the day and in Berlin most of it is that nasty mineral water or cost too much money to consume at the rate I wanted to. The sparkling water was good, but didn't satisfy my thirst the same way. So at dinner I've been ordered juice. Miguel ordered a potato, pork, mushroom dish. I ordered potato dumplings with a cream sauce. It was hearty and hit the spot. 

It was also chilly so I ordered a decaf coffee

We headed back to the hostel and watched the world dart finals in German (hahaha!). "Sports" seem to be the only thing we can 'understand' in a foreign language. 

So yeah, Thursday was kinda a bleh day but the hostel turned out much better than I imagined. I was just so happy that Miguel was done with his conference and that the rest of the trip we would be together!