Beer and Pretzels (Berlin)

We took a 5-hour train to Berlin from Prague.  It was a really good deal (29 euros)! We bought it on a Czech site and didn’t see an option to reserve seats, so it was a little stressful when people would come in and say we were in their seats, but it worked out, and we only had to move a couple of times.  It was also stressful when the conductor was mad at us because we had folded our papers and ruined the barcode.  The paper says don’t fold the barcode (and we didn’t! we folded at the midpoint of the paper), and she couldn’t scan our tickets.  Other passengers told us we were very lucky because in the olden days, they would have kicked us off the train.

Eventually, we got to Berlin and met up with my friend Alette.  The first day was pretty low-key: we went up the TV tower to have a panoramic view of Berlin, and then we went to a beer garden to drink beers and eat pretzels.  It was delicious!

The next day, we walked around the city, went to the Berlin wall, Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Holocaust memorial.  We had trouble (once again) identifying the important monument…the Berlin Wall wasn’t what we were expecting.  There wasn’t a sign (ok, it was clear that it was a giant wall), and there was a lot of graffiti and paintings on the wall.  The art was really good, and it seems like it’s a nice way to draw attention to all the events surrounding WWII.

The Holocaust memorial was very interesting (and depressing).  It seemed industrial and had lots of large concrete blocks of varying sizes arranged in a grid pattern.  Underneath the memorial, there was a museum which recounted the history of WWII and told the stories of many Jews killed in the Holocaust.  One room was all dark and just showed the person’s name, year of birth, and year of death on a big screen and then told their story in a few sentences in German and then in English.  It was pretty moving.

We also visited the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, and it was overwhelming and packed with information (and tourists).  Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War.  The museum had lots of stories about the history of the wall, how people escaped East Berlin and the lives of those who helped escapees.  It’s definitely one of the best historical museums I’ve visited.

Museum Island was not very exciting.  There was a lot of construction going on, and it was a bit hard to navigate.  But we did find an amazing pizza place nearby, 12 Apostel, which had pizzas named after the apostles.  Delicious!

When we were walking around Berlin, we paused at a kebab place to get some waters and consult our maps before taking the metro.  We were under a bridge and walked into the metro station when Lisa said “Ew, what is that?” because something dripped on her shoulder. Alette said “It’s probably just water,” but then Lisa said “No…it’s brown.”  We looked up, and a giant evil pigeon was staring down at us.  And Lisa had a lot of white and brown poop on her jacket and in her hair.  I had always thought bird poop was all white!  Anyway, I went back into the kebab store and asked if I could have some water and napkins because my friend got pooped on.  The owner was confused and only spoke German.  Luckily, the amused man next to me translated (I wonder if it was a direct translation?) and we got a cup of water and paper towels.  Lisa was a very good sport about it!  And she didn’t wear her jacket the rest of the day.

There was a positive turn of events when we found a Ritter Sport chocolate shop.  I had never had the chocolate before, but it is so addicting! Be warned.  They had an area where you could make your own chocolate bar and come back in 30 minutes after it set.  We were tempted but decided to buy the premade flavors instead.  I bought a couple of bars for myself and a box to give to my roommates.  But I ended up eating the bars and the box for my roommates before I could get back to France.  It’s dangerous I tell you. 

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