I woke up in my clothes at 4am, checked out, was at the airport by 5:15am, and landed in Berlin at 8am.  Their transit wasn’t too hard to figure out either, so I dropped my stuff at the hostel around 9 and then strolled around for a few hours.  I do a lot of strolling.  There were some museums and palaces and old structures and stuff that I looked at.  There was also someone with bubbles.  I saw a little girl fall off a statue and cry.  I had a bagel at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast because I didn’t know how to say any of the German stuff at the street fair.

The ambulance and police sirens immediately brought me back to the chase scene from The Bourne Supremacy.  Not all that surprising, since that movie is like 2 hours of chase scenes.

I worked at the hostel, which is very nice.  Good Internet throughout and a desk area too.  Across the street, I ate at a Vietnamese place called Good Morning Vietnam.  Had some curry tofu and rice, which was pretty good.

Then I retired to the roof for $1 beer happy hour.  Here is the view from the roof of the hostel.  I relaxed and gazed there for a bit.

After a couple beers I strolled through the streets in a different direction and then came back to bed.  There were 4 guys from India who had just arrived and were getting ready to go out.  We had a short conversation, which was unpleasant for me but I survived.

On Saturday, I took a train down to the city center to do a walking tour.  But I did my own walking tour instead.

This is Brandenburg Gate.

There’s a large memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe as well.  Lots of square blocks.  Pretty cool actually.

Then I walked around Tiergarten for a while.  It’s like the Central Park of Berlin.

This is Checkpoint Charlie.  Where the spies used to talk and stuff.  I didn’t see any spies, but there were a lot of souvenir shops.

Topography of Terror – This was probably one of my more favorite parts.  Built next to a bit of the Berlin wall was an area basically discussing Poland and Warsaw through WWII.  It’s definitely worth a visit if you go to Berlin.

What would be the point if I didn’t visit the biggest part of the Berlin Wall?  I’ve provided for you a bonus picture of dudes making out (East Side Gallery).

I went to some Stasi museum and learned about them too.  Cold war stuff.  Honestly I walked into a few of the free museum places because I was lost most of the time.  There’s a big Mercedes-Benz building too in that area.

There are lots of Beer Gardens and outdoor festivals and such.  I got a Nutella waffle at one and some beer.  You can just buy beer and sit around outside here or walk down the street, which is nice I guess.

Then I went to the Zoo area, which is more like Berlin’s 5th avenue.  Just strolled for a while.

Did some more strolling in my own area again, had a beer on the roof, and went to bed.  It was a long day.

Sunday I got up for an excursion out to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.  I had to change trains twice.  Probably the worst train ride anyone has ever taken there.  But anyways, the memorial was very informative and the way they presented things was rather “interesting”.

On my way back I grabbed some lunch again at the Alexanderplatz festival since it’s only one stop from my hostel.  This time I got more ambitious and ordered a German word called vegetariasomething.  It was basically fancy bread with cheese and spinach and spices and stuff.  Onions too I think.  I dunno, it was pretty good.

I rested for a bit afterward, then headed down to the Neue Nationalgalerie to experience some art.  Berlin has a lot of great art museums, so I figured I should go to a couple (aside from the National Gallery and the traditional ones I already did).  So I went to Neue Nationalgalerie.

For the current feature, they had taken a bunch of trees and made them into a tree museum.  But they didn’t charge me a dollar and a half to see them; they charged me 8 Euros.  I dunno, I just don’t really find art makes me feel much as it’s supposed to, but I’m trying to at least appreciate the effort.

I figured that was enough of Berlin.  It’s known for its awesome nightlife, but honestly I just don’t have the energy to do that.  I hung out in the hotel bar area again for a few hours working on my computer, planning my next leg to Prague, and watching my mediocre fantasy football teams.