BERLIN, GERMANY
Arriving in Berlin was an adventure. Its different than Italy because its nearly impossible to look at the language and make sense of any of it. Before leaving, I looked up directions to our hotel from the airport and it seemed simple. It said to take the bus to the Ubahn and from there take the U8. So…Tammy and I get on the bus and at the first stop, everyone gets off. Tammy and I kind of look at each other but figure this is not where we are supposed to be. So we stay on the bus and the next thing we know we are back at the airport. After realizing we did one huge circle, we try and explain to the bus driver our situation. He lets us stay on the bus and a few minutes later, the bus starts moving again and this time when it stopped, we got off. So we start walking around looking for a Ubahn or a U8 but we couldn’t find a thing. Tammy gets fed up, because it was SO hot and we were both so tired. She hails us a cab and as soon as we turn a corner, we see a large blue U sign and realize the Ubahn is their subway system. We laugh it off and enjoy the AC in the cab. When we got to the hostel, I was amazed. This was the nicest hostel yet. There was a living room, a dining room and it was all nicely decorated. We go upstairs to our room to find we have two roommates, both guys. One young guy from Australia and some older man. Our rooms were huge with four separate twin beds. Each bed had down comforters and huge white pillows. It was amazing. After getting dinner downstairs, we decide to go to bed early and rest up for our first day exploring Berlin.
The first thing we saw was the east side gallery. It was probably the most enjoyable tourist attraction in Berlin. The different artwork was interesting, controversial, unique and inspiring to look at. We walked along the east side gallery and at the very end there was a rasta park. Just from those few hours, I experienced so many different cultures, I loved it. After the rasta park, Tammy and I wandered towards the Alexanderplatz and had one of the most random, prolly most memorable conversation we’ve ever had. We talked about her hate for tall pointless ( in her opinion ) buildings. We got dinner and again tried Mexican food. We ordered nachos and it was probably the worst attempt at nachos. It was literally microwaved cheese over chips. I did get a beer though and it was delicious. After dinner we walked and ended up at the Berliner dom, just in time to watch the gorgeous Berlin sunset.
Being in Berlin gave me a different perspective on graffiti. It didn’t have the usual negative act of defiance…instead I was able to appreciate all the tagging everywhere as art. Just another thing to add to what I love about Berlin.
The last day in Berlin was an adventure, which happened to be a reoccurring pattern for our last nights in cities. We did a five hour walking tour and saw all of the touristy things. It was just a more organized way of wandering around. It was really interesting, im not usually one for historical tours but there is just so much crazy history that Berlin holds, its impossible to not find it intriguing. It also helped that our tour guide was very animated. At one point he told us to run to the end of the block, some people did, the others just kind of stayed back. Once he got to the end of the block, he turned around and yelled at those who didn’t run. “If this was back then, those of you who didn’t run and miss the time cut off, you all would have been shot.” Little things like that made the history he was telling us more real. It put it in perspective, which made it all more interesting. He also had us all stand in this one area and told us that we were standing on hitlers old bunker. Creepy. We also saw the window where Michael Jackson held blanket out of. We ended the tour at the Berliner Dom. After the tour we went back to our hostel to freshen up because we decided to go out. I don’t know why we always choose the night before we leave to go out but we did. We started drinking at our hostel and got to talk to the bartender. He suggested some places to go. The first place we went to was more of a casual restrurant. We sat down and to the right of us, we saw a pregnant women smoking and drinking, after that, we decided this was not where we wanted to be. So we left, hopped on the metro and went to some bar where we drank and ate really spicy pizza. We hang out for awhile and then head back because we have an early flight to Paris. However, when we get back to the metro, we see the gates are closed. Thank god for Tammy because I for sure started to freak out. We walked further down the street to the next metro stop and saw that was closed too, with no other option we hailed a cab to take us back to our hostel. That night/ morning were pretty rough. But seeing as we ended our last night in Berlin on the streets, having yet another adventure…it was definitely well worth it. :)
Arriving in Berlin was an adventure. Its different than Italy because its nearly impossible to look at the language and make sense of any of it. Before leaving, I looked up directions to our hotel from the airport and it seemed simple. It said to take the bus to the Ubahn and from there take the U8. So…Tammy and I get on the bus and at the first stop, everyone gets off. Tammy and I kind of look at each other but figure this is not where we are supposed to be. So we stay on the bus and the next thing we know we are back at the airport. After realizing we did one huge circle, we try and explain to the bus driver our situation. He lets us stay on the bus and a few minutes later, the bus starts moving again and this time when it stopped, we got off. So we start walking around looking for a Ubahn or a U8 but we couldn’t find a thing. Tammy gets fed up, because it was SO hot and we were both so tired. She hails us a cab and as soon as we turn a corner, we see a large blue U sign and realize the Ubahn is their subway system. We laugh it off and enjoy the AC in the cab. When we got to the hostel, I was amazed. This was the nicest hostel yet. There was a living room, a dining room and it was all nicely decorated. We go upstairs to our room to find we have two roommates, both guys. One young guy from Australia and some older man. Our rooms were huge with four separate twin beds. Each bed had down comforters and huge white pillows. It was amazing. After getting dinner downstairs, we decide to go to bed early and rest up for our first day exploring Berlin.
The first thing we saw was the east side gallery. It was probably the most enjoyable tourist attraction in Berlin. The different artwork was interesting, controversial, unique and inspiring to look at. We walked along the east side gallery and at the very end there was a rasta park. Just from those few hours, I experienced so many different cultures, I loved it. After the rasta park, Tammy and I wandered towards the Alexanderplatz and had one of the most random, prolly most memorable conversation we’ve ever had. We talked about her hate for tall pointless ( in her opinion ) buildings. We got dinner and again tried Mexican food. We ordered nachos and it was probably the worst attempt at nachos. It was literally microwaved cheese over chips. I did get a beer though and it was delicious. After dinner we walked and ended up at the Berliner dom, just in time to watch the gorgeous Berlin sunset.
Being in Berlin gave me a different perspective on graffiti. It didn’t have the usual negative act of defiance…instead I was able to appreciate all the tagging everywhere as art. Just another thing to add to what I love about Berlin.
The last day in Berlin was an adventure, which happened to be a reoccurring pattern for our last nights in cities. We did a five hour walking tour and saw all of the touristy things. It was just a more organized way of wandering around. It was really interesting, im not usually one for historical tours but there is just so much crazy history that Berlin holds, its impossible to not find it intriguing. It also helped that our tour guide was very animated. At one point he told us to run to the end of the block, some people did, the others just kind of stayed back. Once he got to the end of the block, he turned around and yelled at those who didn’t run. “If this was back then, those of you who didn’t run and miss the time cut off, you all would have been shot.” Little things like that made the history he was telling us more real. It put it in perspective, which made it all more interesting. He also had us all stand in this one area and told us that we were standing on hitlers old bunker. Creepy. We also saw the window where Michael Jackson held blanket out of. We ended the tour at the Berliner Dom. After the tour we went back to our hostel to freshen up because we decided to go out. I don’t know why we always choose the night before we leave to go out but we did. We started drinking at our hostel and got to talk to the bartender. He suggested some places to go. The first place we went to was more of a casual restrurant. We sat down and to the right of us, we saw a pregnant women smoking and drinking, after that, we decided this was not where we wanted to be. So we left, hopped on the metro and went to some bar where we drank and ate really spicy pizza. We hang out for awhile and then head back because we have an early flight to Paris. However, when we get back to the metro, we see the gates are closed. Thank god for Tammy because I for sure started to freak out. We walked further down the street to the next metro stop and saw that was closed too, with no other option we hailed a cab to take us back to our hostel. That night/ morning were pretty rough. But seeing as we ended our last night in Berlin on the streets, having yet another adventure…it was definitely well worth it. :)
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