Steven decided after years of yearning to go to Europe the morning should start early to make the most of the day. After a delicious breakfast of croissants, breads, cheeses, prosciutto, eggs, and coffee we headed out for an adventure. We wandered several blocks before deciding to postpone our adventure until something might actually open.
We did notice that, contrary to what we said yesterday about there being no mobile stores in Germany, there are in fact mobile phone stores on every corner. How we missed this yesterday we aren’t sure. (Likely its that we were in the posh “designer” district, where useful stores were verboten). Unfortunately they were all closed on Sunday.
The wait for things to open provided Steven with time to buy a month’s worth of internet connectivity in Germany. After waiting a while we restarted our adventure through Berlin. Our first wandering stop was the remainder of the destroyed Kaiser Wilhem church. The partial façade of the bombed structure stood out as one of the only historical buildings surviving in the area after the bombing of Berlin. I soon reached what Steven refers to as the “need food so bad anything looks good stage” and we stopped at a typical German café. It served many delicious meals in differing combinations of sausage and potatoes. Steven successfully ordered the noodles that I had unsuccessfully tried ordering the last two days. As usual, I ended up eating half his food too. Steven discovered that his cell phone could connect instantly to the WiFi there, dissolving his edgy withdrawal symptoms. Per usual, Steven spent the next ten minutes zoned out researching the sites during our morning “bumbling around Berlin” tour. Being able to spout out dates and facts to his hearts content and finding our blue spot of location on Google Maps, Steven became a fulfilled traveler.
Instead of taking the tourist friendly buses that make stops at all of the must-see sights in Berlin it was decided that we should walk to all the sites to feel “more like the locals”. After a long walk we found the Gemaldegalerie, which is Berlin’s painting gallery. (It was next to tourist bus stop). I was worried about Steven’s interest in the gallery. Being the artsy one of the duo, I quickly piqued Steven’s attention with “Hey, look there’s a painting by a ninja turtle!” The response of “Oh, which one, Michelangelo? Donatello? Leonardo? Or Raphael?” provided Steven with the confidence of being able to rapidly spout out the names of four famous artists without hesitation. (It was by Raphael). We continued onward viewing masterpieces by Titian, Caravaggio, Van Eyck, Bosch, Rembrandt and others. We followed the remains of the Berlin wall to the Topography of Terror display (Conveniently next to a tourist bus stop). The outdoor display was a graphic historical pictorial and written display of the area that had housed the SS, Gestapo, and Third Reich headquarters during WWII. The bomb-damaged buildings were quickly destroyed after the war to suppress memories of the atrocities committed there. The wall continued to the old East sector of Berlin. Partial wall fragments were on display along the way. Checkpoint Charlie, the United States guard post between the allied and soviet sectors, still stands. (Oddly, it too was directly next to a tourist bus stop). The Checkpoint Charlie museum was an incredible history museum. Devices used to aid Germans escaping illegally across the border were on display along with artifacts from both sides of the wall, and commentaries from much of the Cold War period. Here too Steven’s desire to read Every. Single. Display. In. The. Museum. became apparent. After finishing the entire first floor while he was still in the first room, I went back to grab him, and gave him a quick oral tour of the rest of the museum.
From the Checkpoint Charlie museum we decided to head to the Unter Den Linden, the “main street” of Berlin. (Huh, there was one of those tourist bus stops there too). By this point our feet were almost falling off, so instead of walking the 10 or so blocks, we had our first experience with the U-Bahn. This underground was, like everything else in Berlin, incredibly clean and modern. One of the biggest things we noticed about Berlin, in fact, was how clean the whole city is. After strolling down the Unter Den Linden, we realized that yes, everything was still closed. There were some restaurants, but nothing that looked particularly good, so we walked past the Brandenburg gate again, past the Reichstag, and then to the Hauptbahnhof station to take the exact same train we took last night (20:16 to Potsdam via ZoologischeGarten bahn) back to our hotel. (As we walked in to the hotel, we noticed yet another tourist bus stop). Once at the hotel, we realized we were still starving, still tired, and that restaurants were probably closing soon. We walked over to the first place we saw; an Italian open-air restaurant. It ended up being delicious, but if we thought ordering in German was difficult, it was nothing compared to trying to order Italian in German. Once again, our trick of “staring stupidly at the menu” produced results, as the Italian, German-speaking, English-speaking owner was kind enough to translate some for us. We ended up with Spaghetti with Lamb, Fettuccini with rabbit, and a delicious Tiramisu (here Steven said “no, I’m not hungry, I don’t need dessert”, which in Steven-speak is “Yes of course I’ll eat half your dessert, are you kidding?”).
Signing off,
Libby the Elder, Steven the Younger

Question of the day: Since we have had more people approach us and speak in German than English, on the second day are we no longer obviously tourists? (We even had a group ask us directions in German).

After signing off from day 1, Libby and I still had a full half-day left to explore Berlin. We were tired and more than a little cranky, but we set off full of high hopes. Our first bit of business was to try and find the nearest train station. We bought our tickets (two 72 hour passes) and set off on the S-Bahn. As with everything in Germany, the transit system is very logical; all the transit components operate on the same system, so our tickets work on S-Bahn (fast aboveground train), U-Bahn (underground), and bus systems.
We made it to the big hub station next to the Zoo, and expected the train to head on to the main station in Berlin (Hauptbahnhoff). That’s what the map said, after all. We happily sat there as everyone else jumped off the train, until someone took pity on us and tried three languages before settling on English to say, “The train ends here, you must get off”. We left the train to look for where to go next. As the train to the main station didn’t leave for another 45 minutes, we decided to try the bus. We went outside, where dozens of buses were leaving, and began trying to decipher the bus map. Here, we once again encountered the odd weather in Berlin. Out of a clear sky it began pouring rain once again. We found the bus, made it to the very impressive Brandenburg Tor (gate), and found ourselves in a stream of Moccasin-wearing, bandana-toting hippies. Apparently they’re a cross-cultural phenomenon. One of Libby’s coworkers had said to her before we left that she thought I’d probably propose in front of the Brandenburg Gate. I’m glad I didn’t take her advice; the majesty of the moment might have been diminished a bit by the Peace Rally going on directly in front of it. Leaving the odd fumes of the rally behind, we decided to get a snack at a bratwurst stand. I ordered a bratwurst, and Libby attempted to order her favorite German noodle dish her grandmother used to make, “Spatzel”. Instead she ended up with a pound-patty of deep-fried calf, “Shnitzel”.
We made it to the Reichstag next. The Reichstag is Germany’s very-old general assembly building, which had burnt partially down during Hitler’s reign (he blamed it on the communists and used it as an excuse to take more power). The facade of the building was very impressive, but the interior and the new dome they had built on top in the eighties to replace the bomb and fire damaged one were not. It was cold and industrial looking. We walked up to the top of the glass dome after waiting in line for an hour (which gave us plenty of opportunity to ponder our PDA question of the day). In the dome we were given an audio tour which pointed out much of the sites visible in Berlin. After a weary day, we headed back home via the S-Bahn, and went to bed without dinner (everything else had closed by then).
Auf Wiedersehen.

We decided to take over the blog from the stalker who seemed to be following our every move in Germany. The blog seemed like a good idea, but having everything written from an over-the-shoulder perspective was a little creepy.