We decided to spend our last day in Berlin doing a little shopping. We purchased our obligatory chocolate from Fassbender & Rauch, the most famous chocolatier in Berlin, as well as some Ampelmann trinkets. We also made some quick visits to a couple of the neighborhoods we hadn't yet made it to.
Berlin is officially on our list of cities that are due a return visit. We didn't see nearly the amount of sights and neighborhoods that we were aiming for, including many of the major museums that many tourists go to see. This was partly because we decided to spend a few days with family and close friends. However, I definitely underestimated the amount of time it would take to get from A to B, and I didn't think walking so much would make me so tired (I work out 5 days per week). Like many people, Susan and I have surely fallen in love with Berlin. It's so ugly, yet so beautiful at the same time. We walked through parts of town that in any other city would be considered really dangerous. We saw parts of town that reminded us of other cities both in the USA and abroad that we love. It was great to see how different many of the neighborhoods are, especially Mitte versus Kreuzberg. There are also many parts of town that we didn't even set foot in. It seems like the next trip there needs to be at least 10 days.
Anyway, after shopping, we walked back up to the northern part of Mitte near the Spree River in search of Berlin souvenirs and a cafe. This bear is right outside the Hilton.
And this one is in the Ritter Sport Shokowelt! We didn't do it, but you can make your own custom Ritter Sport bar. However, we did take the place by storm and by way more bars than we probably should have. Oh well. :)
We took a break from our walk to relax for a bit at one of Berlin's many beach bars, Strandbar Mitte (aka Strandbar No. 1).
The night before we planned to go to one of the ones on the Spree near the East Side Gallery. However, I was having to fight with the subway ticket machines trying to find one that would take my 20 EURO bill. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I gave up, and we just got a couple drinks at a bar near the hotel and called it a night. Because of all this, we thought this would be a great opportunity to experience one of these places. Sure, it wasn't crowded, and the dancefloor wasn't open, but that's okay! Just another thing to do when we are back in town!
This is the dance floor. The audio nerd in me thinks that while the coverage is decent, the speakers appear to be homemade and don't like like they sound very good.
Susan says she has been having issues with her hair getting completely dry this whole week. Even when she uses a hairdryer for what seems like longer than normal, it's still wet. As such, we thought some crazy hair shots would be appropriate.
After we finished our pops at the beach bar, we walked back over the the Ampelmann restaurant and museum, and captured some of the various walk lights that are used throughout the world. On the way, we walked through this tunnel and thought it was interesting to see the polar opposites of Berlin in the same shot.
We ate at the Ampelmann Restaurant a couple days ago, and even though it was expensive, it was REALLY good (and worth the money).
As an engineer, I find these interesting and cool to see.
 |
Austria (left) and Switzerland (right)
|
 |
Switzerland (left), the former West Germany (center), and former West Berlin (right)
|
 |
The Netherlands
|
 |
The leaves got in the way, but the green man, made of LEDs, was animated
|
 |
Mongolia
|
 |
Italy
|
 |
Denmark
|
 |
France
|
 |
China - This one is also animated, and runs quickly, hence the blurriness!
|
 |
Spain
|
 |
Spain again - also animated!
|
 |
Great Britain
|
We continued on our walk, and proceeded to the Hackescher Markt. Wish we had spent more time here. Lots going on!
We found a Pure Origins Estate coffee shop, and sat down for a quick sandwich, coffee (for Susan), and hot chocolate (for me)!
On the boat cruise, we noted was seemed like a really cool biergarten, called the Schleusenkrug, with a patio overlooking the Landwehrkanal, and decided to check it out. It was located near the zoo, so we hopped on the U-Bahn and made our way over there. It was indeed awesome!
At the bottom of one of our Erdinger hefeweisen glasses.
The Schleusenkrug loverlooked one of the boat locks that raises or lowers the boats so that they can continue through the varying water levels of the canal. We saw a boat (similar to ours) come in to be lowered. Look carefully in the next few shots, and you can see it drop!
Then one of our hooded crow friends stopped by for a chat.
 |
| I can haz ur bier?! |
Susan then said she wanted to see the western half of the Tiergarten (that we didn't see when we were there for the Germany football game earlier in the week). The Schleusenkrug is conveniently located at the west end, so it was just a quick walk up to Straße des 17 Juni, which runs east-west through the center. This is looking east toward the Großer Stern.
Earlier, we estimated that there were "10s of thousands" of people at the public viewing in the Tiergarten the other night. The street was wall to wall people from the Großer Stern to the Brandenburg Gate, which is a stretch that is about 1.5 miles long. Later, we heard on the news that this was a gross under estimation, and the grand total of super fans was closer to 450,000. Here are a couple of areal shots from the news:
 |
| Source: http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16015937,00.html |
 |
| Source: http://press.visitberlin.de/en/feature/berlin-celebrates-euro-2012 |
 |
| Source: http://hostelsclubblog.com |
We then exited the Tiergarten, and walked past the Bellevue Palace
Susan wanted her photo taken in these weeping willows, as they are one of her favorite flavors of trees.
Earlier in the day, we locked up our bags at the Hauptbahnhof so that we could enjoy as much of the day as possible without having to return to Mitte and the Hilton to get the luggage. Our walk was well planned, as we were able to end it at Berlin's relatively new main train station. It is a magnificent, imposing, and beautiful glass building.
After a nice Asian noodle bowl dinner and a quick trip through Kaiser's Supermarket to get some snacks for the train, we boarded, and then rolled out of Berlin, beginning our overnight train trip to Munich. We were losing light, and our sleeping car window was dirty, so exterior shots weren't really going to happen.
One of our snacks was "Füßballkäse," that came with a little plastic goal keeper. Fun!
We also got a roll of Prince cookies, and some smoked almonds.
Even though we had a sleeping car, it was a little difficult to sleep in it, as the train bounded around, lurched to a stop a couple of times, honked its horn, and made other train sounds. Nevertheless, we made it to Munich just fine and on time. We didn't expect anything less. Waiting for us, appropriately dressed, was our friend Bene, with a bag of fresh warm pretzels in hand!
The pretzels were to be part of our "Weißwurstfrühstück." This was a very special breakfast consisting of white sausages, pretzels, obatza cheese spread, and wheat bier. I don't think there is a more appropriate way to welcome us to Bavaria.
As a thank you to Bene (and Ina) for hosting us and being our unofficial tour guides, we brought them one of the fake stuffed animal trophies like the ones we have in Atlanta.
Bene and Ina (and their roommates) were kind enough to let us do some laundry at their flat. After this, checking into our hotel, and some much needed shoe shopping, we met back up with Bene, Ina, and our other friend Dorothee at a biergarten just south of Munich. Below are officially the first two Maß of bier consumed in Munich on this trip!
The biergarten is called Forsthaus Kasten, and served Paulaner. They had a huge screen set up for public viewing of the Euro 2012 matches.
Here is our picnic spread. According to Bavarian tradition, guests can bring their own food to the biergarten as long as they buy bier from the bier stand.
I would call our first day in Munich a complete success!
No comments:
Post a Comment