Berlin, days 3-4
Wilkommenzurück, dear readers! We're now on a train to what I thought was going toMünchen, but since they're so very intent on freezing us to death, perhapswe're going to Ireland or Scotland or somewhere else up north where people wearwool year around. Seriously, it's kind of hilariously sad to watch: Jen'scurled up in a ball trying to sleep, and I'm actually shivering. It looks a lotlike Oregon where we are right now (somewhere North of Nürnberg): cloudy, athreat of rain, lots of trees, and it's somewhat hilly.
When last we left off, I think we had just gotten done withour walking tour, after which we had some chill time and valiantly attemped todo laundry. When it was apparent we wouldn't be getting clean underwear anytimesoon, we ventured back out to the Tiergarten (a large park-like area near theBrandenburg Gate and our hostel) to check out what there was to play on/climbon. We had heard about a memorialto the gay victims of the Nazis, and when after a little bit of hunting wefound... something. We had no idea whether it was another fancy public toilet ora random large rock or perhaps the memorial. I think I took at least onepicture of our group circling the structure with "wtf?" expressions on ourfaces, haha. It had no plaque, no inscriptions, nothing. It had a small windowto look through, and on the inside, there was a 30 second looped video of twomen kissing in a park. That's our memorial? For the unestimable people thatwere harrassed, tortured and killed by the nazis, and all we get to commemoratethem is an unmarked rock with two MEN kissing? Bollucks, says the dyke. After that letdown, we played a littlein the park, and then went out for authentic german food, per request of Jen& Jacob. Ironically enough, Tim was the only one of the other three thatactually enjoyed his meal. We had Currywurst, Weisswurst, and the boys had somethick, beefy stuff with some delicious potato. We're not giving up, though!I'll be forcing traditional bavarian food upon them tonight. Being the foody Iam, I'm already jazzed about eating Spätzele and Schitzel tonight.
Anyway, back to Berlin- that night we decided to do a pubcrawl, and after reading about a few of them, we chose the "alternative" pubcrawl, which unfortunately for us was on the other side of town. By this timewe had more U-Bahn confidence and didn't have much problem locating the firstbar, which was a 70s Flower Power bar, hahahaha. We all ordered drinks and satdown at a flower and mushroom filled booth, while the Stones sang to us aboutbrown sugar. Through the course of 8 hours, we visited that bar, a "deathmetal/goth" bar, an absinthe bar, a live-band (aka fairly non-themed) bar, abeer garden, and ended at a hip hop dance club. It was so much fun, even for agirl who doesn't enjoy drinking. We befriended Illinois and her german partnerfrom Essen, some Dutch 30somethings, a couple of Aussies, an Irishman, and ayoung gayboy studying in Bombay. We basically crawled home at 5am, crippledfrom exhaustion.
The next morning I was woken up around 9 because our windowis directly above the outside eating area, and people were loud. At 9am. Rude.I knew the second coming of Christ would not rouse my posse so I headed out ona walk without a destination. I ended up in Potsdamer Platz, which I didn'tspend much time at, as I wasn't hungry and had no money to blow. There was abatch of cultural buildings not far from there- where the Berlin Philharmonicis located, as well as the State Library, and a few other things. I found avery hidden museum for the Germans who tried to resist Hitler, including SophieScholl, her brother and a lot of other people who of course were killed.Unfortunately for my tired brain, everything was exclusively in German, so Idid not linger long. When I got back, the dead were still dead, but we had toget our butts out of the room so they could clean it (read: change ourcomforters).
The rest of the day was just fail after fail. I know youcan't win them all, but damn did Berlin slap us hard across the face. The firstthing we attempted to do was see the East Side Gallery, which if you don'tknow, is south and pretty far east from where we were. We took a U-Bahn to getto another U-Bahn, which took us to a bus because of contruction, which took usto another U-Bahn, which we got off on the wrong stop, and FINALLY we ended upacross the river from the wall. It was muggy and windless, and needless to say:we were not amused, lol. The wall was great, of course, and after a short restby the Spree (river), we trekked back to Alexandersplatz to see thePergamonmuseum. (Note: I saw this museum, which is dedicated to ancient Greekart/statues etc, and did not particularly enjoy it, so going back was quite odd).The line was Disneyland-esque and we were given false information about freeentrance between 2-4. So! After another 40 minute commute from the ESG-themuseum, we stood in line for 30 minutes and were then given the bad news. Moralwas low, and only the promise of ice cream could get us to keep going. The nextstop was the Jewish Museum (which is located back down by the ESG) and by someact of God we made it there in one piece and without killing anyone. The museumwas incredible, even the second time around; I got to look at all/some of thethings I missed the first time. Seriously, that museum is amazing- there's somuch to see and learn, and it's literally impossible to do it in one trip. Theevening was spend in our hostel: we had dinner, did laundry (Gott sei Dank),and hung out with a young guy from Finland, who was on our walking tour the daybefore.
Not much new to report otherwise. Jen's battling a cold,Tim's doing great for his first time out of the country, Jacob is my rock, andI'm doing surprisingly well for not having gotten more than 6 hours of sleepany night so far. Hopefully our hostel won't suck in München!
Hostel doesn't suck- continuously being lost does.
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