I got back from Berlin late last night.  It was a super fun trip, but so tiring!

I went with my friend Andrew, and we left early Sunday morning, at 7:20.  Well the tube doesn’t even open until about 5:30am, so we had to take a bus to Paddington Station and take the express train to Heathrow.  That required a 3am wakeup call, which was oh-so enjoyable.

But we arrived quickly and easily in Berlin and caught a cab to our hotel.  We stayed at the Ritz Carlton, not because we’re loaded, but because we found a sweet deal.  After an early check-in, we went out to find something to eat.  We ended up at a restaurant serving Sunday brunch, which was sort of nice.  Then we walked towards Alexanderplatz, which was where our bike tour was supposed to leave from later that day.  We explored a little bit, but didn’t want to go too far and make the bike tour pointless, so we ended up finding a nice outdoor area to sit by the river and order a beer.  We were so tired, so it was nice to sit down for a little while.

Soon enough it was time to go to the meeting point for our Fat Tire Bike Tour.  It was tons of fun, and we had a great guide.  We saw so much of Berlin!  Humboldt University, where Einstein taught, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, the Jewish Memorial, the site of Hitler’s bunker, the Tiergarten, a great beer garden, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, and Museum Island and the Lustgarten.  It was awesome, and by the time we were done, we were exhausted.

The next morning was somewhat of a late start, but it didn’t affect our day much.  It was supposed to rain, but ended up being a really nice day.  We started by walking toward the Berlin Wall to check out the exhibition and the museum behind it, which was suuuuper depressing.  

Then we were ready to drown our sorrows, because we had seen a Schlotzsky’s Deli on the tour the previous day, and we NEEDED to find it.  Well, we found it and it was closed.  So we found a sausage stand and got some more bratwurst, after looking at Checkpoint Charlie a little more closely.  

We then decided to take a closer look at the Jewish Memorial, and really get in there and get lost.  It was probably the coolest memorial I’ve ever seen, it’s so interactive and symbolic.  The blocks get so high and you’re really able to get lost.

After that we wanted to find a memorial our tour guide had mentioned, the memorial to the homosexuals who were killed in the war.  We walked alllllll through the Tiergarten to try to find it, with no signs anywhere in the park.  When we had completely given up, we found it.  It was so lame and so obvious!  It looked like a leftover block from the Jewish Memorial was slapped on the edge of the Tiergarten, and it had a window in it that showed a video playing of two boys making out.  A little lack of symbolism there. Something better could have been done for sure, but oh well.  It’s there.  And Berlin is the 3rd biggest city for gays in the world (behind Sydney and San Francisco), so that’s pretty awesome.  Gotta love it!

Then we were going to try to find a bar and a restaurant that we wanted to go to, for wine and for schnitzel respectively, which were both completely NOT what we expected, or they weren’t open the hours we had read about.  Ridiculous.  Found a bar and had a beer, then got schnitzel elsewhere.  Our weiner schnitzel was GIANT and pretty tasty.

That night we went out, but not to the places we really wanted to experience.  Clubs in Berlin are supposedly open 24 hours, but they close on some days.  Come on.  So we ended up in what was supposedly a really nice bar, but to me just looked tacky, with some of the most expensive drinks ever.  Oh well.

The next day we started at the Berlin Zoo, which was really nice.  Then we checked out Berlin’s version of Harrods or Selfridges, KaDeWe, which was pretty cool and extravagant.  Walked back to the hotel through the Tiergarten, and hung out for a little while until it was time to get to the airport.

It was a pretty awesome trip, and we had a lot of fun.  The city has so much brutal history, and yet has been able to rebound from everything and become hugely progressive.  I enjoyed it a whole lot more than I expected to, for whatever reason.