The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

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04/05/2007:
By morning we were all feeling a little bit better. Not 100%, but at least well enough that we weren’t going to be getting sick on the plane ride home!

I forgot to recount 2 humorous stories of yesterday:

The first is that X bought me a giant Kinder Egg. For those not in the know, Kinder Egg is a candy sold by Ferrero, the diabolical geniuses that began with the invention of Nutella and have also brought us Tic Tacs, and Rocher. Kinder Eggs consist of a hollow chocolate egg that is made up of two thin layers, one milk chocolate, one white chocolate. Inside the egg is a plastic capsule and inside the plastic capsule is a toy. They aren’t super special but they are cute and have a lot of novelty in that, predictably, they are not actually legal in the US. I always thought that this was because it was an obvious lawsuit in waiting, but apparently the original mandate for the FDA in the 1930s actually forbade embedding toys in food from the get-go. I like to pick some up anytime I’m in a country where they are available.

X picked this up as sort of a “get well” present and I was very grateful, although I had to poke fun that she had got me an egg for girls. She protested that it wasn’t her fault - the label is in German! Look closely at the label and you will see why I got a good laugh at this. It’s basically your normal Kinder Egg only it’s much larger.

Fortunately the toy inside doesn’t seem particularly gender-specific. It consists of a bunch of plastic ants and a plastic honeypot that you stack up.

Clicking this link will take you to the Kinder Egg album.

The second story is that at some point during the evening our landlord stopped down to return our security deposit. Mike and I, already not good at math spent an absurd amount of time passing Euro banknotes back and forth to each other but could not figure out a way to make it balance out. Mary was getting quite a laugh listening to us go back and forth unable to make any progress.

OK so our flight home was fairly early. We were already packed so we really just had to clear out and pick up a bus to the airport which was very close to the apartment. We walked out to the bus stop and waited. And waited. And waited. While we waited we discussed the bus schedule and why we hadn’t seen a single bus. Maybe we were just outside of peak hours. Maybe we just missed the last bus. Suddenly it occurred to me - it was Good Friday, which I had heard was a widely observed holiday. Maybe there is very limited public transit on Good Friday!

No sooner than I got these words out did a taxi cab approach us on the opposite side of the street. And not just any taxi cab - a big van. Big enough for all of us. Mary used her elite NYC skills to quickly flag him down. I was concerned he wouldn’t stop since he had to turn around to get to us, but he swung right around and picked us up. A few minutes later we were checking in at the airport.

Tegel airport seems pretty tiny. A long narrow hallway with all the check-in counters and another long narrow hallway divided up to form the gate waiting areas. We had to loaf around in the first long narrow hallway waiting for the security people to arrive and clear us. When they did, they flagged me to look through my backpack. My backpack is a combination camera bag/backpack (a review on this later) and so the lower portion contained the camera and the upper portion contained solely the giant Kinder Egg. I have no idea if the Kinder Egg looked suspicious on the X-ray display or if it was just a random check, but the woman doing the inspection seemed quite amused to find that my backpack pretty much contained nothing but a giant Kinder Egg.

The flight home was fairly uneventful. There were no Scary German Guys.

Back in the airport, we got a good taste of Department of Homeland Security dog-and-pony show. Maybe not specifically DHS but it at least illustrates some of the stupid things we do. As most travellers know, luggage is sent to a baggage claim where each traveller is responsible for finding his/her own bags and double-checking to make sure they aren’t mistakenly taking someone else’s. This isn’t a bad system. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than this.

After we collected all of our bags, we found that one of Mary’s was missing. She found the people to talk to and after a little while was notified that someone had picked up her bag and when they presented it to check in for their connecting flight it was caught since the destination tag indicated it was staying in Newark! They told Mary where to go to get her bag and then asked her to provide ID to claim it. This seems somewhat silly considering anyone can steal anyone’s bag from the baggage claim, but whatever - it’s just lucky that these people had another flight, otherwise they probably would not have noticed they had the wrong bag until they got home and opened it!

We considered making a stop at Harold’s on the way home, but after the previous days’ illness and wanting to just get home and unwind we decided to just skip that and head straight home.

It was a great trip, and Berlin is an awesome city. I think I may like it even better than London, and the fact that it is a LOT cheaper than London makes it all the more appealing.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

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04/04/2007:
I didn’t want to spoil it in the title, but there it is. Sick Day.

Mike and Mary had an unpleasant evening and were totally wiped out by morning although their intestinal issues were beginning to at least subside. Kate was feeling a little bit queasy. X was feeling ok. As for me…I absolutely despise getting sick to my stomach. So much so that in her day care days, X merely mentioning one of the students getting sick to his stomach had me feeling off for days wondering when the other shoe was going to drop and I would get sick. So I was also feeling a little bit off, but was uncertain whether it was the real thing or if it was all in my head.

We had put off most shopping excursions for Day 7 instead of trying to make side trips to various places that we wanted to shop. We figured we would wrap up any remaining touristy things we wanted to see, go get souvenirs for friends and family, and have a fairly easy day.

After having a bite to eat, the 3 relatively healthy travelers set out. We hopped on the U-Bahn. Kate was looking a little pale but she vowed to tough it out. And tough it out she did. For about 3 stops. At this point she decided that maybe it wasn’t going to go so well after all, so we got off and hopped on the train going back towards the apartment. When we got to our station and got off the train, Kate was getting worse. She probably doesn’t want this story recounted, but it’s worth recounting.

She got sick on the U-Bahn platform. Fortunately there was a trash can nearby. X went ahead to stop at a drug store/apotheke to see if she could get some drugs. Meanwhile I was with Kate on the platform pondering the rather odd situation here. I didn’t want to abandon Kate on the subway platform, but I didn’t want to get too close because A) I didn’t want to get sick and B) I kinda didn’t want people in the area to know that I was with her. Later on Kate would have a similar concern that people passing by would identify us as uncouth Americans who come to Berlin, get totally drunk and party all night and then get sick in public places!

After this unfortunate event, we walked back to the apartment and were joined soon after by X carrying some sort of odd medicine that the pharmacist had confirmed was good for upset stomach through hand signals. It was a strange tincture that you mixed with water and drank. It had an herbal scent. Kate mixed up a dose, took a sip and decided it wasn’t worth it.

Meanwhile, I was still feeling fairly OK if not a little bit washed out. We decided to go on shopping expedition, take 2. On the way to the kneipe the previous night, I had spotted a toy/game store that I wanted to check out in the hopes that I could find a cool German game and maybe something for Lee.

On the way across the bridge, a man stopped us and asked for directions. FINALLY someone doesn’t immediately assume we are Americans! Unfortunately he was a bit disappointed with the result since he seemed to be in a bit of a rush and of course we could offer little assistance other than confirming that the large palace across the river was, indeed, Schloss Charlottenburg.

As we made our way to the game store, I was feeling OK…not great. When we walked into the game store, things immediately got a lot worse. I’m not sure if it was the temperature differential, but it was fairly chilly outside (in the 50s) and it was pretty hot in the store. Either way, in the store I started to feel unbearably hot and could not decide if I was just overheating or was about to faint, but either way, I felt that it was extremely important to get out of that store and into the cool fresh air.

After getting back outside I felt a little bit better, but still not great…more and more fatigued for sure. We decided to go back to the apartment and I felt worse and worse as we went. I laid in bed and slept, read, sweated, etc. My stomach started to feel queasy but I never did get sick. I did take a dose or two of the strange medicine which did taste pretty gross but it did settle my stomach.

X, meanwhile, was still feeling healthy, but was pretty much stuck. As if she wasn’t already hesitant to travel alone in an unfamiliar foreign city, she was doubly concerned that she was going to get sick sooner or later and did not want to be alone in an unfamiliar foreign city and getting sick! She hung out with me most of the afternoon which was very nice. At some point I commented that while I loved traveling to foreign countries, I think our next trip needed to be a cruise…I needed a relaxing vacation!

As the afternoon wore into the evening, Mike and Mary were still hiding out in their room. They reported that their symptoms had mostly subsided aside from just being completely wiped out. I was about in the same boat. Kate seemed to be feeling relatively normal and X had not yet developed any symptoms. X decided to keep her date with the family and go meet them for dinner and Kate also felt up to the challenge. We decided that our plans for a little party in the apartment probably should be abandoned. X and Kate left and I slept awhile longer.

Eventually I heard some stirring and found that Mike and Mary were up and moving around. I wasn’t feeling too bad either. We had some toast and tea and found that we could get the EuroSport channel in our apartment here, too so that we could watch more curling. We found it amusing that while the commentary was in German, many of the curling “terms” such as “takeout” or even “double takeout” were still pronounced in English by the commentators. We discussed our illness and how it might have come to be. Eventually we settled on a theory that Kate would later call “The Snow White Incident.” Remember the apples we ate on the train the day before? We had no way to wash them. Who knows what was on them, be it germs or some pesticide that will make you sick. This would also handily explain why X did not get sick - she had a banana. In fact she consciously chose the banana because she was concerned about not being able to wash an apple - which…good thought. Would have been nice if she had told the rest of us this concern!

However, since that fateful trip I have learned a little bit about norovirus and I have to ease Mike’s conscious (since he provided the apples) by pointing out that our symptoms were consistent with norovirus AND the “epidemiology” as it were also works out. You see, 6 weeks or so prior to our trip, X had a sinus infection and took some broad spectrum antibiotics. She then started having some intestinal trouble. I think it was a side effect of the antibiotic even though the doctor tried to claim otherwise (I think maybe he just wants to discourage people from diagnosing themselves). In any case, she was given a targetted antibiotic for this and was specifically told to not consume even the slightest bit of alcohol.

All through the trip, Mike, Mary, Kate and I were constantly sharing things, in particular beer. We would all order different beers and then try each others. All of us, that is, except X who was prevented from drinking beer. If any one of us had picked up norovirus - which would be fairly easy to do travelling on airplanes, busses, subways, etc - the rest of us would have very easily been infected through all this sharing of beer!

Nonetheless, “The Snow White Incident” is a great title so we’re generally sticking with that. It also gives us another reason to dislike Prague. When you get right down to it, our one day trip to Prague ended up costing us 3 days - the day spent travelling to and in Prague, the day spent coming home and then the day spent laid (and throwing) up!

X and Kate came back fairly late. Late enough that we were a little bit worried especially since we had no real way to get in touch with them. But they were fine. They had gone to a pizza joint that Maria and Colin had said was really good and they came back with very favorable reviews and had a wonderful time.

Unfortunately, we had a fairly early flight home and so we needed to pack before bed, otherwise we would have to be up at 5AM trying to get everything together. After packing everything up we went to bed with a heavy heart.

We were thankful that it looked like none of us was going to be sick for the flight home!

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

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04/03/2007:
Our train back to Berlin did not leave at the crack of dawn as our train out did, but it left fairly early. Early enough that in order to do further sightseeing in Prague, we would have to truly get up at the crack of dawn. Instead we opted to sleep in a little bit. We woke and packed and got some breakfast from the cool kids lounge and then went down to wait for our taxi.

The taxi was right on time and took us right to the station.

For some reason, Nádrazí Holesovice was either uncommonly empty yesterday or uncommonly crowded today. We were in the station around the same time both days, but for some reason today there was a lot of people. Touristy people. With all of these travellers in the station who were there with a purpose, Holesovice seemed a lot less seedy than before. Had we stepped off the train into this environment I might not have been quite so skeeved out.

In the station were a bunch of American girls. Pretty young I’d say…17 years old maybe? They seemed *awfully* young to be travelling without any adult supervision…or at least a beefy male to back them up. One of them approached me and asked me about a train to Italy. “You do know there are other train stations, right?” She said that her train was leaving from Holesovice. “Is this Holesovice?” Yes. *Whew* For a minute I was concerned these girls weren’t even in the right station.

Meanwhile, our train was listed as delayed. I took advantage of the extra time to waste the remainder of my Czech crowns seeing as how by the time I ever come back that currency will be long-gone. I suppose I could have kept some as a souvenir, but I don’t need the clutter. Believe me.

At some point we decided our train’s arrival was imminent. We went out on the platform where it was shockingly cold. I believe there were snow flurries in the air. There was a single tramcar sitting on the track. Was this the cause of the delay? I suggested that we all just get behind it and push it out of the way, but this plan did not last long. Everyone was cold and we went back inside.

The train was not super late in the end. An hour, maybe? I don’t recall completely. We found our car and boarded and I was disappointed to learn that we did not get a cool compartment to ourselves. For the ride home we would be in normal train seats. Sometime into the ride, Mike revealed a stash of fruit in his backpack. He had the foresight to take a little snack along for the ride. X had a banana and the rest of us had apples.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Because we didn’t have private cars, and the dining car seemed pretty crowded, we went there in shifts. The girls went first while we held down the seats and then X came and got us and we went back and assumed their table at the dining car while Kate and Mary went back to the seats. On the long walk through the train we went through the smoking car which was astounding. You could smell it two cars away and it was thick with smoke. I’m pretty tolerant of smoke and it threw me for a loop! At the dining car I had some sort of sausage and lentil stew that I really liked.

We arrived back at our lovely apartment and kicked back for a few minutes to change, freshen up, nap and plan dinner. We also planned some activities after dinner - namely a ride on the 100 bus that goes around the touristy attractions so that we could see them light up at night. We also wanted to visit the Siegessäule.

All week long we had been going back and forth about visiting a kneipe. You see, my guidebook described kneipen as, basically old-man bars. Seedy joints where neighborhood people went to get blitzed after work. It specifically said that women rarely ventured into these dives. But Mary, on the advice of her guidebook and a co-worker had been lobbying to visit a kneipe listed in her guidebook. At some point I mused to X that maybe Mary’s guidebook described kneipen more favorably, so we decided to compare. Sure enough, Mary’s guidebook talked of the kneipe being a friendly neighborhood pub where the whole family goes out for a drink and a cheap bite to eat. It would be interesting to visit the kneipen listed in my guidebook to see if they really are seedy dives.

In any case, spurred on by the favorable description in Mary’s book we sought out the kneipe that she thought was most interesting. We stepped inside the main entrance and it wasn’t beautiful. It did seem like an old-man bar. In fact it was full of old men - actual old men in the 60+ range, a lot of them playing cards. This might not be the crowd we’d normally hang out with, but they did not seem a dangerous lot. We got some looks as we entered but nothing disconcerting. There were no tables in the bar but someone spotted a door leading off to another room. We went through to find more of restaurant-like area. This area was completely empty. We sat down at a nearby table.

On the table was little metal cube that had a picture on it of a crossed-out cigarette. Presumably this room was a non-smoking section. A bit of an extra bonus since people smoke pretty much everywhere in Berlin, including at the dinner table. While they eat. Shortly after we sat down, a pleasant waitress buzzed by the table and sat down an ashtray! We got a chuckle out of this. Evidently the non-smoking section is not heavily enforced!

Once concern with eating at a kneipe is that they are not really touristy so you are less likely to find English-speaking staff or English-language menus. I don’t know how much English the waitress knew - we all try to be polite travellers and just do our best in German and hand signals. She did fairly quickly determine that we were English speakers and did bring us an English menu. I always carried a guidebook that included a food dictionary, but having an English menu always makes things simpler!

This seemed like a good opportunity to get a Berliner Weiße which was described in the guidebook as one of the things you *have* to do in Berlin since it’s something pretty much unique to Berlin. I asked for it mit grün which includes a shot of a woodruff flavored syrup since that also seems to be the most traditional of all the options. Actually, I ordered a different kind of beer mit grün and I believe the waitress told me that you wouldn’t want to put that syrup in anything but Berliner Weiße, so I heeded her advice. It is definitely different and I can see why it’s very popular during the summer months!

For dinner I got this dish that had a name that I cannot recall but it was bloodwurst and liverwurst fried up with potatoes and onions and maybe some sauerkraut into a sort of hash. I think you would have to try pretty hard to come up with a meal that is more unhealthy and more offensive to the senses. It was really, really good. Frying liverwurst is a brilliant idea.

At some point during the meal Mike, who had previously mentioned not feeling very hungry, declared that he was going to opt out from further touring activities for the evening and just get an early night. He was looking a little bit pale. Mike and Mary departed and X, Kate and I finished up and paid. We decided not to go touring without Mike and Mary after a long day on the train. On our way back to the apartment, we got a little bit lost. A very nice woman noticed us huddled around a map and asked us (in German) if we needed help. At least I recognized the word for “help” in there somewhere. Kate used this opportunity to use the one German phrase she has truly mastered “Ich verstehe kein Deutsch” or “I understand no German.” The woman chuckled. We pointed to her on the map where we wanted to go and she pointed us in the right direction.

Meanwhile back at the apartment, Mike and Mary were in bed. Aunt Bern and company were supposed to arrive the next day so our plan was to meet them for dinner. Since we had this awesome apartment with this awesome balcony and the weather was beautiful, we figured after dinner we could hang out at the apartment. To celebrate the occasion I had picked up a case of Berliner Pilsener at ReWe during our last shopping excursion. I have no idea if it’s good beer, but really it’s hard to find BAD beer in German. In ReWe there were a couple of guys who were giving away some Berliner Pilsener schwag to go with a discount on the case and they seemed to enjoy practicing their sales pitch in English. We scored a pen, a lanyard, a metal motorscooter keyring and a model tractor trailer Anyway, we had this case of beer so we figured we’d crack into it. Kate and X and I sat and talked and drank for awhile. Well Kate didn’t drink because despite feeding her beer in every restaurant she just can’t get into it.

After awhile, Mary came out to chat for awhile. She wasn’t feeling all that great either. Suddenly, Mike runs past and into the bathroom and gets sick. Mary goes into to assist…and soon after she gets sick, too! After things started to calm down we got the sick soldiers to bed and then retired ourselves. Not a very spectacular day for us!

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

04/02/2007:
It was early. 5AM maybe? I don’t remember. It was dark. I showered before going to bed so I could sleep later. Maybe if I can find my ticket stub I can figure out when the train left…suffice it to say that factoring in time to make it from our apartment to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, we had to get up really really early. We had a little breakfast and made our way out to the station via S-Bahn. Berlin Hbf is really nice. Here’s a picture:

If it looks familiar, you probably saw it on Day 2 from atop the Reichstag.

We found our way to our track and waited around for our train. There was a clock on the platform that did a weird hitch every minute. I can’t imagine how it stayed accurate.

European rail travel is interesting. It’s a little more complex than travel in the US since people actually use it and you can actually go places on it for a sensible amount of money. Crazy, I know. Since tracks are shared by multiple carriers and cars can be headed to different destinations, you actually have to make sure you get on the right car because the wrong car might get disconnected from the train before you arrive!

We found our car and stepped inside and looked for our seat numbers. Very shortly we found this:

We had our own compartment! Just like in the movies! And since we had bought the group ticket for 6 people we knew that the 6th seat would remain unoccupied and we wouldn’t have to share it with some creepy or chatty person.

The ride down to Prague takes about 5 hours and you see a lot of scenic countryside and you pass through Dresden. On the way we saw a lot of tiny cottages no bigger than tool sheds on plots of land. We have it on reliable sources that these are basically rentable backyards that urban people can use to get away from the city and spend some time in the garden. It is also reported that there was a set of these a couple blocks from our apartment but we never went by it.

Anyway, we arrived in Nádrazí Holesovice which is one of Prague’s secondary train stations, but it is the one that you go to when you come from north. It was probably 11AM or so. Holesovice is seedy. There are not a whole lot of people around and the few people that are there don’t seem particularly wholesome. I felt leery and it was boad daylight. Interestingly, in researching this post I found an article that says the main train station is actually SEEDIER than Holesovice! Yikes…

Doing our best not to look like complete targets, we attempted to find our way to the public trams. The signs seemed to lead in circles. We did find a way to the subway, so we went and studied the subway map and stared at the antiquated ticket machines. More modern ticketing machines generally speak English or are illustrated with pictograms allowing you to at least pick your way through. These were coin-op. I commented that the subway map looks like it was drawn with a crayon. I held up my pocket map of Berlin’s transit system next to the Prague map. “See?” X and Kate lobbied to just go get taxis. I wondered if maybe we should just cut our losses and buy a ticket on the next train back to Berlin.

Eventually we capitulated and decided that even though it would be more expensive, we might as well just take a taxi and get where we need to go. We proceeded to a taxi stand where we found some guys standing around smoking. We told one guy where we were going and how many people and he called over a couple of other guys. We asked how much (when travelling in places where taxis are not well regulated, always negotiate the price first. Depending on how you feel, you might even want to have the driver write the price down so that he can’t “forget.” Even in places where it’s safe to take taxis, you still might want to get an estimate from the driver before you take off!) and the driver quoted us something in local currency - Czech Crowns or Kurona. It was like 500. It sounded like a lot. Here’s something I don’t like about Prague - the crown is worthless in just the right amount to make it very hard to compare with dollars or Euro. Prices are always in the hundreds of crowns and the numbers are just weird enough that it’s hard to calculate in your head what something would be in the other currencies. This will get better once they fully convert to Euro, but for the time being I get the distinct impression that merchants in touristy areas are charging high prices in crowns hoping people won’t be able to figure it out. In any case, we didn’t have much local currency. We told the drivers we would discuss it and walked away. As we walked away he told us we could also pay in Euro - 20 per car. We went back into the station, huddled up and decided that the 20 Euro didn’t seem too terrible. We went back. I was expecting the driver to say “30 Euro, now!” but when I asked to confirm he said it would be 20.

The ride to the Prague Hilton was uneventful. Driving in Prague seems frightening and crazy, and the hotel seemed a bit out of the way, so taking a taxi seemed a decent idea. We got to the hotel and checked in. It’s a very nice hotel. We dropped our stuff off and explored the lay of the land. X found a desk in the hotel that offered a walking/bus tour of the city. It seemed a little bit expensive, but it also seemed like a convenient and safe way to see all the major sights. After discussing with the group we decided to do this, and booked a tour with them.

We had a little bit of time for lunch, so we sat down in one of the hotel restaurants. There wasn’t a table big enough for all 5 of us, so we sat at a 4-top and pulled a 5th chair over. After a wait of typical European length, a waitress finally came over and asked us if we were ordering food or drinks. We told her food and she said “This table is not for 5 people to order food.” And then walked away! She did not offer to split us up. She did not offer to find us another table. We were not sure if she is going to set something up for us or anything. We waited a few more minutes and she did not return. We were running out of time. Mike and Mary and Kate decided to run upstairs to the club lounge for cool people like Mike who book a lot of Hilton rooms. X and I sat at a 2-top and were finally able to get someone to serve us sandwiches. Again, the bill came back in crowns. The conversion still boggles my mind, but I’m pretty sure it was outrageously expensive…something like $30 for a sandwich and a bowl of soup. I had heard that if they bring bread to your table and you eat it, they also charge for this, but there did not appear to be a charge for the bread. The food was tasty, at least

At the appointed time we went out and met our tour guide who had a nice slavic name like Yaroslav. We had him all to ourselves which was really nice. They took us into the center of the historic district where we walked all around and saw all the historic sights. I don’t remember most of the names and I don’t have a guidebook, but suffice it to say we saw all the major stuff like the Charles River Bridge, Wenceslas Square, etc. Here are some highlights:

Cathedral

Stained Glass

The local standard for one metre.

The Prague skyline.

After walking around we hopped back in the bus where he showed us more cool things. There was a lot of traffic in the city, so the guide and driver decided that instead of wasting a lot of time sitting in traffic, we would walk some more and meet the bus at another location. We were now travelling off of the planned route, so the guide had to get a little bit creative. He began taking us into all kinds of crazy places to show us the centuries-old architecture that has since been converted into things like banks and department stores and still have amazing gilt ceilings and murals. Unfortunately you can’t take pictures in most of these places, but it was neat. Eventually we met up with the bus where we were driven to a square near the Charles River. We crossed the bridge to the square where there was an open-air market going on along with a band and lots of activity. We asked our guide if he could show us a good place to get real Czech food. We ducked off into a side street and followed him into a door to a small, smokey pub. It was basically an old man bar! It might have been good. In fact, considering that it was absolutely stuffed with people I’m sure it was good, but it was too crowded. He gave us directions to another place and lead us back to the square where after a brief goodbye, he disappeared into the crowd.

We took this opportunity to explore the market. There were a few rows of stalls, but they all seemed to be selling the same overpriced (if you can figure out the conversion) junk. We did pick up some souvenirs for folks back home, though. We also found this interesting fire-roasted pastry called Trdlo which they seem to pitch as being a Czech tradition, but this story is of dubious origins. Either way it’s like a pretzel, but it’s fire-roasted on a cylinder and coated with cinnamon and sugar. It was a tasty snack.

The square seemed to be teeming with American tourists. It seemed like everyone was speaking American English. A guy from New York started a conversation with me and remarked how beautiful the city was and how awesome it was that there were so many Americans around. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket so I agreed, but deep down inside I felt kinda like it was Busch Gardens and not an actual old world city. Did we come all this way to hang out with other Americans in a square where the vendors are selling trinkets at high prices?

After wandering the market a bit longer we set out to find the restaurant that our tour guide had recommended. He indicated that it was a good place to get Czech food, but would be fairly accessible to tourists. The restaurant was called Kolkovna and for all we know it could basically be the Czech version of TGI Friday’s, but it certainly fit the bill of offering ribsticking Czech food but accessible to tourists with translated menus and the like. We enjoyed our meals. Unfortunately I didn’t write what I ate in my notes. Had some tasty beers, too.

After dinner it was getting dark. X, Kate and I still did not feel all that comfortable about the environment and decided to make our way back to the hotel. Mary and Mike decided to press on for a few more hours. I guess all of their time spent wandering NYC in the wee hours during Mary’s college days makes them a little bolder about that kind of thing

Back at the hotel we decided to arrange for our transportation back to the station. We told the woman at the Reception desk our story about the taxis and how it took 20 Euro to get there. She seemed to think we had definitely been screwed. She said she would call and have a van pick us up, picked up the phone and gave us some confirmation information. And a price. You want to know how much? 20 Euro! Who is ripping who off here? Maybe the going rate for that trip really is 20 Euro? The bonus is that this would be a van so really the trip would be half the price in total. Score.

We then relaxed in the room a bit. The Eurosport network was showing the Men’s World Curling Championships. It’s a bit absurd that I could see this event in the Czech Republic but I would not have been able to watch in the US! We also wandered up to the business center in the hotel to play on the Internet. I chatted with Lee for a little while.

When Mike and Mary returned safely, we went down to the restaurant for some desert and drink and then we thought we’d check out the casino in the hotel. Why not? I’ll tell you why not. It was whacky. When we got there, a woman at the front desk asked if we were hotel guests. She then told the girls they could go into the casino, but she would need to see the guys’ passports. The girls went inside. Mike handed her is passport and she began writing down some information. Before she was finished, suddenly a TON of guys came in. Like 20 people. All speaking Czech or another Slavic language. They were pushy and rude. They came in and began throwing their passports at the woman. Instead of trying to serve the people in order (in other words clearing Mike and I first!), she took one of their passports. It then occurred to me that the reason they were bumping and jostling was because they were actually pickpockets. I decided I had had enough of this nonsense. Around this time the girls, wondering what was taking so long, came back out into the lobby. I signaled to them and told Mike I was getting out of there and made for the door. No casino that night. I didn’t need to spend the money anyway! The girls said it was pretty small and not that impressive anyway.

At this point, we had been up for quite a long time and we also had a fairly early train back the next day so it seemed like a good time to call it a night, and so we did.

Here are the rest of the pictures from Prague:

Do I seem kinda down on Prague? Well, I AM down on Prague! I actually felt homesick for our awesome little apartment in Berlin. You see, we had heard a lot of great things about Prague up to and including it being the best city in Europe. It’s really cheap. It’s really beautiful. It’s really pristine and unmodernized. Those last two things are quite true. But it’s not cheap. Not by a long shot. I think the people we talked to haven’t been to Prague in the last few years. Food was expensive. Beer was expensive. It seemed very touristy to me. So many things seem to be set up just to exploit the tourists. I constantly felt like I was asking myself “Is this person trying to screw me?” It was in many ways like being in Cancun, minus the ocean and in another language. And that language is really challenging - there are very few cognates and the words *look* like you shoudl be able to read and understand them but there’s just no way. Maybe it’s better suited towards a different type of tourist, but even Mike and Mary who are more exploratory were not overly impressed. Of London, Berlin and Prague, Prague is my least favorite by a long shot.

There are some great things about Prague - the beer, the castle, the cathedrals. It is beautiful and picturesque. When you close your eyes and picture the quintessential old world city in your mind, you think of narrow, winding cobblestone streets. Stone buildings with terracotta roofs. Squares and plazas with fountains. Elegant gardens. Historic Prague is that image come to life right out of your imagination. Should you skip going there if you have a chance? Definitely not. Should you go out of your way to get there? I don’t think so. In retrospect, I think I would have preferred to have more time in Berlin or a stop in Leipzig, Lubeck or the Harz Mountains.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

04/01/2007:
Another Berlin morning. More big Berlin plans. And plans further afield! We had all heard many positive things about Prague. Prague is not exactly “right next door” to Berlin, but it’s certainly not that far by train. Our first stop of the day was to buy our train tickets, so we went to Bahnhof Zoo to figure out how. This also fit in with our next stop for the day since we needed to catch an S-Bahn train.

At the Deutsche Bahn store (which was running a temperature comparable to the Pergamon lobby) we scratched our heads at some timetables. Then we scratched our heads at some automated ticket kiosks. The kiosks had an English mode, but they still seemed a bit confusing. Mary decided that it would be a good idea to perhaps go talk to a live person and got into the longish line. Everyone waited in the store. I was beginning to black out and went to sit outside in the station. After a few minutes, X waved me in since I had our money and passports in case these were needed. When Mary got to the front of the line and spoke to the woman, it became apparent that speaking to her was a Very Good Idea. As it turns out, there is a 6-person group rate. There were only 5 people in our party, but it still ended up cheaper to split the group ticket 5 ways instead of buying 5 individual tickets. Mike fronted the money. Again. 4 days after paying him back for fronting the money for hotels and the apartment I was back in the hole!

Satisfied with our success and excited about visiting another country, we pocketed our tickets and found our way up to the S-Bahn platform. Next stop: Olympic Stadium!

The Olympic Stadium was built on the location of a race track. A stadium was built in the same site for the 1916 Olympics, but WWI prevented it from happening and the original stadium never saw Olympic competition. Towards the end of the 1920s, new plans were made to expand the complex. The Great Depression almost halted the plans, but Berlin was awarded the 1936 games. When Hitler rose to power, he didn’t want to just expand the old stadium, but build a new one. The stadium is one of the few examples of grandiose Nazi architecture, as most buildings built by the regime were demolished after WWII. Hitler wanted to use the Olympics as a chance to show the world German might. Anti-semitic laws were temporarily suspended and lots of pageantry was used to help show the world Nazism’s best face. Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals showing Hitler that perhaps his “master race” idea wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Today the stadium has been modernized and is still in use for soccer, football, concerts and other events.

Two columns with the Olympic rings suspended between them guards the approach to the stadium. Looking back from here provides a commanding view all the way back into the city.

Once you walk in, you get a commanding view across the stadium to the cauldron. The bell tower juts up from the parade grounds beyond the far end of the stadium.

Near this panoramic view stood a soccer-themed Berliner Bär. The emblem and mascot of Berlin is a bear so in keeping with current trend of having painted animals all over the city, Berlin has painted bears all over the city.

We began to walk around the side of the field. Kate and Mary wanted to take a closer look at the field, but when they went to walk around the edge, they found that there are some kind of plexiglas barriers between different sections. My only theory is that this is to minimize the impact of rioting soccer hooligans. The girls were, as you can see, not too happy about having to hike back up the stairs!

On the opposite side of the stadium stands the cauldron.

The Roll of Honor is on the wall near the cauldron. You can see the events won by Owens. Also in this area are plaques honoring many of the people involved with the construction of the stadium. People who were closely connected with the Nazi party have been removed.

Behind the stadium is the parade ground. The bell tower comes up from the middle. This part of the complex was being renovated.

Coincidentally, the original bell is no longer actually in the tower. In addition to time-honored symbols of Germany (an Eagle on one side, the Brandenberg Gate on the other), the bell also bore some Nazi symbols. A fire damaged the tower, the bell was used as a firing target, and when the bell was to be removed from the tower, it was simply dropped from it’s perch 200+ feet up! I probably should have taken a picture of it (duh) but it was interesting to see how the swastikas were obscured on the bell. This picture is expertly composed - you can see the bell tower behind us.

After exploring the stadium grounds awhile longer, we found that we were getting hungry. After a brief consultation, we concluded that the best course of action would be to eat at the stadium cafe rather than be starving by the time we got back into town and found a place to eat. This worked out well - the cafe’s food was both good and inexpensive. This was also my opportunity to sample one of the Berlin standards, currywurst. As the name suggests it’s a sausage that is topped with some sort of curry/ketchup combination. Very tasty.

It’s time to catch the S-Bahn back to town. You can see the rest of the stadium pics if you click this one.

Later, back at Bahnhof Zoo…

We split into teams again. Mike and Mary took off to see some cultural attractions such as some of the few remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall. Kate, X and I made for the Zoo.

X is a big fan of aquariums and zoos, so a trip to the Berlin Zoo (which everyone says is really nice) was probably already a priority goal, but the prospect of seeing Knut sealed the deal. Knut has been drawing record crowds to the zoo and there was a decent line to buy tickets. We managed to skirt this a little bit by finding that one ticket booth was being mostly ignored.

The first thing we did was take a picture of the map. Not my idea, unfortunately, but the girls theorized that if we got lost, we could look at the map on the camera’s display. It actually would work fairly well, except it’s very hard to orient yourself when everything is written in German. Sure, you can see that you’re standing next to some flamingos, but good luck finding this on the map! Can you find the polar bear area? I’ll give you a hint: In German they call polar bears “ice bears.”

We wandered the wonderful zoo where there are not so many walls and fences…many animals are isolated from the people by way of trenches and moats which makes it very easy to see the animals.

Along our travels we saw:

Baby elephants, baby goats, baby black bears…

Flamingos, giraffes, okapi…

Llamas, orangoutauns, and other monkeys…

Birds of all sorts…

Kangaroos, cheetahs, and other cats…

A charismatic seal, a cryptic sign on a goat enclosure that must SURELY mean “NO YODELING!”…

And one REALLY AWESOME male lion…

What are we missing? CUTE BABY POLAR BEARS! We finally consulted a map and tracked down the polar bear enclosure and made our way towards it. We found polar bears doing usual polar bear frolicking. None of them looked very much like cubs. None of the onlookers seemed particularly interested, either. What was going on? Wo wahr Knut?

Well, we couldn’t wander around forever - we had other places to go before meeting Mike and Mary for dinner. And so we decided to ask where the little rascal was. And thus we ran into a common problem with knowing just enough of a foreign language to get into trouble. I taught Kate and X how to ask “Where is Knut?” in German (see the title of this post). Except none of us had any idea how to actually process the answer. As they went to ask a zookeeper, I took some more pictures and suddenly heard behind me “AAAWWWWWWWWWWWW!” The zookeeper must have said something like “Knut ist schlaffen” (which I know now), and got blank stares from the girls so conveyed through a hand signal that KNUT WAS SLEEPING! We (ostensibly) travelled thousands of miles to see that “sleepy bastard” (as he came to be known)! They should have gone and woke him up!

Fail! But the zoo was still very cool and very nice, and at 11 Euro, not expensive.

You can see the rest of the zoo pics by clicking the bear.

After the zoo, we had a little bit of extra time before we had to be at dinner, so we wandered over to KaDeWe, a giant and famous department store, particularly known for its giant deli/grocery/food court on the 6th foor. It’s huge and you could spend a long time there sampling all kinds of good stuff from cheeses to meats to breads and pastries. We didn’t have a whole lot of time so we vowed to return on our last day (which we had planned as our shopping day).

Our dinner plans were at Storch (that link may no longer work, but it used to). The girls seemed certain that the restaurant was very close to KaDeWe so rather than find a U-Bahn stop or bus stop, we decided to walk there. Turns out…Storch was not so close at all. It was a long hike there, and we ended up getting there about 1/2 hour after our meeting time! Oops…

Storch is a cool place. It is Alsatian cooking so that Kate could continue keeping in touch with her heritage. You sit at long tables where, if you were in a smaller group, there would be a high potential that you would share your table with other guests. It is common for strangers to share even a smaller table in Germany if no tables are available, but the configuration at Storch makes it highly probable. Being a group of 5, this did not occur for us.

We were greeted at the door by a jovial man who also seemed to intuitively know that we were Americans and were the rest of the party that the other two Americans were waiting for. We sat down and found our menus. They were in German. And handwritten. In order to read these menus, we would need to negotiate both the language barrier and the somewhat illegible handwriting! Not wanting to be “ugly Americans,” we would have just done our best, but the happy host (who had already translated the menu once for Mike and Mary) took a seat beside us and happily translated the entire menu for us newcomers. What a guy! The menu was full of awesome-sounding dishes and beers. It was hard to decide!

We ended up with an appetizer consisting of some really tasty cold sausages and mustards. I had a dish that consisted of sauerkraut with pork knuckle, bacon and sausage. Christa had a sort of stew with beef and shallots. They were awesome. So good that this is the only meal that inspired me to actually write down what I ate! Everyone else seemed really happy with their food as well and Storch would end up being regarded by all as the best meal we had in Berlin!

After sticking around for a while having some drinks, we bade the jolly man goodnight and made our way back to the apartment. It was not very late, but we had a 6AM train to Prague and we were going to have to get up very early to get to the station.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

03/31/2007:
After the previous marathon day of tourism and getting up early, we decided to treat ourselves to a chance to sleep in. This was, after all, a vacation! The previous night, we had decided our itinerary. We had read in at least one of our tourbooks (and Maria and Colin corroborated this), that state-run museums (including most of the museums on Museum Island) were free on Sundays, so this seemed like a good day to really burn ourselves out on museums.Mike, Mary and Kate were interested in the Anne Frank Zentrum. X and I were not too keen on going there for a few reasons, one being the cost and another being that it seems a bit odd to have an Anne Frank museum in a city where Anne Frank never actually set foot. Sort of disingenuous. Almost as though, since tourists come to Berlin to see WWII/Nazi/Holocaust history and Anne Frank is probably the most recognizable human face of the Holocaust, someone decided it would be smart (and perhaps profitable) to open an Anne Frank museum in Berlin. Also, after yesterday’s harrowing visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, we were in the mood for something less depressing.As it happens, the Museum Otto Weidt Workshop For The Blind is located in the same nondescript alleyway near Hackescher Markt. The guidebook’s description sounded promising and with no admission charge, the price was right. Our morning plan was to check out Hackescher Markt, the nearby Hackesche Höfe, and the respective museums. After lunch we would move on to Museum Island.

After breakfast and a pleasant ride to Hackescher Markt, we first tracked down an ATM. This fancy-pants ATM gave back money in multiple denominations which was nice to not have a fistful of C-notes. We then found our way to Hackesche Höfe; an eclectic and quaint chain of courtyards lined with trendy restaurants and boutiques and some artwork. Unfortunately with it being Sunday we found most of the stores to be closed. In hindsight, this was probably a good thing, as it prevented X from spending oodles of money

Next we tracked down the alley that plays the gatekeeper for both the Anne Frank Zentrum and Museum Otto Weidt, the entrance to which would be pretty much impossible to identify if someone from the Anne Frank museum happened to forget to put out the sign welcoming you to the museum.

The alley has a lot of interesting artwork in it. To wit:

This large metal sculpture.

This planter. I could be wrong, but I *think* this thing is actually an old-timey urinal. Yes, I did a bit of modification to this picture.

There was also oodles of graffiti, but none of it was all that memorable.

From here we split up for our respective destinations.

Museum Otto Weidt is really neat. For one thing, it’s mostly empty. OK there are some workbenches:

But otherwise there’s not much there. Why is this cool? Well because they decided not to collect a lot of interesting but not actually historically germaine artifacts and corral them. They could have packed this little place with all sorts of WWII memorabilia and multimedia. Instead they simply chose to tell the story of a lesser-known Oskar Schindler, and it’s a fascinating story. Like Schindler, Otto Weidt risked his life and freedom to save his employees who were not only Jewish, but blind. These folks were making brooms and brushes. For a long time Weidt helped them escape deportation first by getting this workshop listed as “vital to the war effort,” and then later by bribing and cajoling Nazi inspectors. When one of Weidt’s clerks, Alice Licht was deported to Auschwitz, Weidt went to the concentration camp under false pretenses and with the help of a Polish worker managed to plant a room, money and clothing in town. Alice Licht escaped Auschwitz and survived. Another survivor named Inge Deutschkron wrote a book about her experience called Outcast.

Weidt had kept Licht and her parents hidden in this small room behind a false wall in the workshop. They were caught after a Jewish informant told the Gestapo where they were hidden. Weidt saved Licht but her parents were never heard from again.

This is definitely worth checking out.

X and I finished shortly before the rest of the team and waited in the alley for the others to finish up.

When they came out, they seemed awfully jovial considering where they just had been!

We also saw some of the memorials that can be found throughout the city in front of buildings that were occupied by Jews.

The tiles set in the ground give the names of the occupants, when they were deported and where they were killed. The harrowing reminders can be seen literally all over the city if you are watching for them.

This picture will take you to the Otto Weidt album.

We then stopped for lunch at a little place under the S-Bahn tracks called Rocco’s. It was Italian-ish. Pretty decent for a quick lunchtime snack.

Off we went to Museum Island! Museum Island is an island in the river Spree that, as the name suggests, has a lot of islands on it, along with the Berliner Dom. As noted above, most of the museums are state-run (Stadtmuseen). As also noted above, the Stadtmuseen were said to be free on Sundays.

We thought the Pergamon sounded interesting. It’s full off antiquities and archeological wonders. It has a glass atrium in the front of it. In the April sun, the glass atrium was probably 100 degrees or more. Positively sweltering. We had to dump our coats and bags in lockers (which, BTW, you get your money back when you replace the key!) per museum policy, but we would have died if we hadn’t done so. When we finally get to the desk (I am pouring down sweat by now) we attempt to acquire a ticket only to learn that: NO! Die Museen sind nicht heute frei! The museums are NOT free today! Perhaps this was a fairly recent change, but it seems like now museums are free during the evenings on some weeknight.

We huddled together to decide what to do next. At this point I was so hot that I determined that I didn’t care what we did as long as the next course of action included leaving the sweltering glass atrium AND SCHNELL! The fastest way to accomplish this goal was clearly to go get our stuff out of the lockers and get outdoors. Who knew if the whole museum was like an oven!

Outside, we grouped and decided on our next course of action. Colin and Maria had told us about another museum near the island called the DDR Museum. Our eyes lit up upon hearing about an entire museum devoted to Dance Dance Revolution! Not so much…What we Anglophones call former East Germany, the German Democratic Republic or GDR is in German the Deutsche Demokratische Republik…DDR. The museum is about Communist East Germany. But they still described it as fun and cool. Not free, but obviously we were going to have to pay to go in one of these museums and the DDR Museum seemed more interesting than antiquities or art.

But first, outside the Pergamon we noticed an outdoor market stretching along the riverfront and decided to go check it out. It was evenly split between Flohmarkt type secondhand junk and people selling handcrafts and other new products. There was also some live music. There was not a whole lot to see here, but we did find a woman selling earthenware plates with line-drawings of animals on them that we thought were cute. We bought 3 little plates to adorn the wall of our dining room. The woman running the stand asked where we were from. Cautious of not being the “ugly American” who assumes that everyone knows where Philadelphia is, I first told her we were from the US and did not volunteer Philadelphia until she asked what city. I was tempted to tell her we were from King Of Prussia because I imagine that someone living in the part of Germany formerly known as Prussia might get a kick out of learning that somewhere in the US a city was named after an inn that was named after Old Fritz. But, I was concerned that due to lingustic differences she might not have a clue what I was talking about.

Then we went on our way to the DDR Museum. Maria and Colin had given us a general idea of where it was and getting there involved a pleasant jaunt across Museum Island where we saw:

The Altes Museum

The Berliner Dom

The Fernsehturm

And this lovely fountain. I am quite proud of myself for capturing the rainbow and even prouder of myself for managing to accentuate it in post-production.

Despite seeing all these lovely things (and other things) we had not found the DDR Museum. The hour was getting late. We were running out of time before we were to meet up with the others. We stopped in another museum both to see if we could get in for free (maybe it was just the Pergamon) and also to get directions to the DDR Museum. The person there told us it was near the Dom. After wandering around the Dom, we asked at the box office and got some odd directions about going around the side of the Dom and down some steps. It took some searching, but indeed the DDR Museum is located at the foot of one of the bridges crossing the Spree that is just behind the Dom! At last!

The DDR Museum is cute and somewhat campy. If nothing else it is a pleasant break from looking at art and antiquities and staring bleary-eyed at captions on placards (that might not even be in English). It takes you through aspects of life in the DDR, revealed by opening doors and cabinets. They have mockups of apartments, clothes people wore, diaries and all sorts of other neat things. One of the most fun things is the body of old Trabant. You can actually get in the car and “drive” it as you watch on a screen footage of what the old East Berlin looked like. Might be cooler if they made it actually interactive so that your steering actually had an impact on where the car went. Either way it’s a good photo op.

The DDR Museum was worth the ~10 Euro each that it cost. It’s also one of the few places in Berlin where you can actually use a credit card so it can save you a trip to the ole bankomat.

But now it was time to head out to the rendezvous point. While we go, you can check out the rest of the Museum Island pics here:

After picking up the rest of the group and sitting down for a little while to rest our legs, we boarded a bus in the general direction of where we thought we wanted to eat dinner. But we really didn’t know specifically WHERE we were going to eat. After digging through some of our guidebooks, X presented us with a few choices and we settled on Carib a Caribbean restaurant (but you knew that, right?) in the Schöneberg section of town.
We were greeted in English by a jovial guy who looked a lot like David Bowie. Was it THAT obvious that we were American? I feel like we all kept a fairly low profile but I guess you still stick out. In any case, he was really nice and a lot of fun. He was mixing up Shandies with fresh ginger at the bar (and a lot of other fruity drinks for the girls). When it came time to order, I went with the old standby jerk chicken (mainly because I wanted plantains!) and David Bowie Guy asked me how spicy I wanted it. Remembering Maria and Colin’s note on spicy foods in Germany (”At one restaurant they are given a choice of spiciness from 1 to 5 and people ask for ZERO!”) I said “Very spicy.” As if he could read my mind, Mr. Bowie said “The chef is not German; he is a Jamaican native…” That set me straight. “Medium, please!”

Food was great. We had a few more drinks. Kate convinced David Bowie to take a picture of us. This may be the only picture of the entire group. Maybe they took a pic with Mike’s camera, too. Either way, it’s not in my gallery (yet). I’ll add it when I get it.

It really wasn’t very late, but we were bushed. And a little bit buzzed. We made it a fairly early night. We had fairly big plans for the next day and we would need the rest.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

03/30/2007:
After a busy day 1 and a fairly late night, we had no trouble sleeping and were able to get up fairly early in order to make breakfast and meet Maria and Colin to see a flohmarkt and taste some German street food. Buoyed by a tasty breakfast and some of strong coffee, we took the U-Bahn down to Maria and Colin’s apartment.

After relaxing for a few minutes, off we went to Rathaus Schöneberg for the flohmarkt. Flohmarkt is literally a flea market, and these are a big part of life in Berlin. All the refrigerators I saw in Berlin (of course I only saw 2 or 3) were quite small. I imagine most Berliners don’t keep much food in stock; they just get things fresh at the flohmarkt 2 or 3 days each week. The square was full of tables and stalls selling flowers, meats, strong cheeses, clothes, jewelry and pretty much anything else you could imagine. We wandered around awhile picking up some gifts for the homefront. X got a necklace in keeping with her tradition of buying unique jewelry whenever she travels. I would later learn that Rathaus Schöneberg was also the site of John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

As the day wore on and we got hungry, we decided to get some food. I love sausage so I got some sausage mit brotchen. Brotchen being a little roll (literal translation: small bread) that basically serves as a handle to hold the sausage that is probably a foot long. Most of us got the same thing, but Kate (being of Alsatian heritage) could not resist tasting the Flammkuchen, a very tasty treat that is akin to pizza. We also had some orange juice. On the plane I observed that SGG and his entourage were dropping OJ faster than an LA cop. At the flohmarkt we noticed a huge preponderance of folks squeezing fresh OJ. OJ is apparently VERY popular here. It smells heavenly being squeezed. Colin warned us that it was different from the OJ back home and it certainly is. It’s not nearly as sweet, but it is quite tasty.

After lunch we parted ways. Maria and Colin, who were not actually on vacation, had to actually go be real people for awhile. Colin showed us the way to the station and we then embarked on a long day of hardcore tourism in the heart of Berlin’s Unter Den Linden section.

First stop: The Reichstag. The Reichstag is the home of the German parliament and a turbulent history. You can read the history over at the Wikipedia so there’s no need to recount them here. As a tourist stop, the Reichstag sits on the end of a huge open space. After East and West Germany reunited, the building was renovated and capped with a huge modern glass dome. Tourists may go to the roof of the building and walk a ramp to the top of the dome. At certain times it is also possible to observe parliamentary proceedings. There was a line waiting to get in…it didn’t take long, although X lobbied to skip entering the building and just “check it off.” There were some buskers to entertain us while we waited.

X bought a bottle of water and was dismayed to find it was carbonated. In many parts of Europe, bottled water is carbonated by default. I guess after a long history of water that was not safe to drink, it still isn’t very popular. If you are a water drinker and are ever travelling in Germany, here is your mantra: Stilleswasser. This will score you normal water (or at least prevent you from getting fizzy water). In a restaurant you can also order Leitungswasser which is tap water (literally pipe-water). You may get funny looks. We stuck with Stilleswasser mainly because it’s a pretty much a cognate and so it’s easier to remember than Leitungswasser.

In any case, the line did not take long and it was well worth the wait.

The Reichstag Building

The dome

The dome presents both some beautiful views (and it was a nice day!) and the opportunity for some interesting abstract shots.

Here is a picture of the spectacular central rail station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof

And an abstraction from part of the dome.

This pic will take you to the Reichstag album.

At the base of the dome there is also a history of the Reichstag building and the German parliament (Bundestag).

Upon leaving the Reichstag, we scratched our heads at some nearby memorials before making off for one of Berlin’s most well-known icons, the Brandenburg Gate. It is a very cool and imposing structure, although it was thronged with tourists.

There is the gate. Note the crowd.

You also get a nice view of the Funkturm from here. The former East Berlin side is under massive construction and revitalization.

This pic will take you to the Brandenberg Gate album.

Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

As you approach the memorial, the stone stelae do not appear to go more than about 6 feet high or stretch very far. What you do not realize is that pathways actually descend and the farthest stone you can see here is pretty much the midway point - the Memorial basically occupies a city block. If you view the satellite map of the area, you can get a feel for the magnitude of its size.

As you approach the center, the stelae quickly grow over your head. 303 of the stelae are over 4m high with the tallest being 4.7m. There are 2711 stelae. Despite what I’m sure you are wondering (and what I also wondered) there is no significance to the number. It was simply the number of .95m x 2.38m stelae they could fit in the space! In an interesting twist there was a controversy because the anti-graffiti paint used to treat the stelae was developed by a company that had participated in the holocaust. One of the company’s subsidiaries even produced Zyklon B.

After wandering the labyrinth of stelae to get yourself in the appropriately somber and contemplative mood, you will eventually find your way into the underground museum where there are artifacts, exhibits, and a reading of the names of all known victims. It is harrowing and fascinating.

This pic will take you to the rest of the album.

After finishing at the museum we stopped for a snack at the nearby Terrace Cafe. We next ventured to Bebelplatz, the site of a Nazi bookburning. There exists now a window in the ground that looks into a basement library, painted stark white, devoid of any books. It serves as a memorial to the unfortunate event. It was now beginning to get dark…we were getting tired but we still had one more stop in our itinerary, Checkpoint Charlie.

My honest opinion of the Checkpoint and the accompanying museum: Do a walkby. It’s a bit out of the way, the museum is a bit expensive, and the “checkpoint” building that stands there today is not even original (nor are the faux Soviet artifacts being peddled nearby, I’m sure). The museum does have some fascinating stories about the evolving technology of the wall and the ever more ingenious methods devised to get to the other side. The museum and the man behind it have a fascinating story, but the unfortunate part is that he was by no means a professional curator, and it shows - the museum is packed with artifacts and exhibits that seem to have no logical flow and are even duplicated in multiple places. It’s long and hard to follow. Perhaps it was hunger and fatigue that tainted my judgment a bit, but I don’t think so.

You’ve all seen the booth and the big sign; no point taking a pic of that, and no photography allowed inside the museum itself.

Upon leaving Checkpoint Charlie, we sought a place to eat somewhere not too far from there. We decided to check out the spectacular Sony Centre. We actually had a hard time finding our way into it (suprising because it’s huge). Once we did, we looked around at our choices and settled on the Hofbrauhaus which is sort of chain of breweries. The food is standard German food…schnitzels and the like. We were able to get beer in litre quantities which was fun. I had a dish with some very doughy dumplings and pork. It was good, although it was probably one of the least memorable meals of the trip. We also got cool pins for drinking mass quantities of beer.

At this point we were dead tired. We slogged to the U-Bahn station and finally made our way back to the apartment for a well-deserved rest. But not without incident - when we got into the station, we realized there was a train right at the platform! What good luck! We ran in and sat down on the train. The doors closed. The train did not move. After a few seconds someone noticed that we were the only people actually ON the train - everyone else was on the platform. But we were trapped on the train - pushing the “exit” button on the doors did nothing! The girls were beginning to panic, but Mike and I felt that we were perfectly safe - we were on a train in a well-lit station that was full of people. Sure, we could not leave the train, but aside from looking like complete idiots and providing the a good laugh for the folks on the platform, there did not seem to be any immediate danger. Eventually a conductor came by and let us out. Turns out the train was being taken out of service, so he locked all the cars down so that he could go through and empty them one-by-one to make sure no one stowed away to wherever the U-Bahn trains go when they are taken out of service.

THEN we finally made our way back to the apartment for that well-deserved rest.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

03/29/2007:
At last the day had come to depart on our next adventure. We all piled in Mike’s car to head off to Berlin, Germany with a side trip to Prague, Czech Republic. The trip to Newark was uneventful. We got the airport and checked in and then went to get some food. Our outbound flight was delayed by a couple of hours which was probably a blessing in disguise - our original flight plan would have got us in to Berlin fairly early in the morning and also would have us in the air earlier in the evening. The delay meant we would not arrive in Berlin until after 10AM and we would hopefully be a little more tired and able to sleep during the flight.

While we waited for the flight, we discussed some of the places we wanted to see and began working out a rough itinerary.

Kate, having slacked off on her German-language studies, tried to pick up a crash course in the language.

Mike and Mary chilling at the gate.

Kate and X by the gate.

We boarded the plane and found our seats. I had an encounter with “Scary German Guy.” SGG might have been in a rock band. He was travelling with 4 or 5 other people. His head was completely shaved except for a 2-3 foot braided pony tail coming out of the back of his head. His beard was similarly braided and of a similar length. When I went to put my bag in the overhead compartment, I found 2 of the packets the airline leaves in every seat containing blankets, headphones, etc. These were presumably extras and were in the way, so I took them down to put them in the next bin over which had a small space that was perfect for them. Apparently they were actually claimed by SGG and Mrs. SGG. Why they didn’t keep them in their seats with them like everyone else is beyond me. SGG stood up, yoinked the bags right out of my hand, and threw them back up in the compartment. Because he didn’t say a single word, I assumed he did not speak English, so I decided that now was as good a time as any to start fumbling through German. With a combination of elementary German and hand signals, I managed to convince SGG that I was not trying to steal his blankets (Why would I? I had one of my own already!) and, again without saying a single word, he took them down and put them in his seat pocket. I put my bag up. Mrs. SGG smiled at me. A smile that said “I know he’s a jerk, but you handled him admirably.”

Later on, all of us recalled thinking “I hope this isn’t the way most Germans are!” Fortunately they are not.

The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful. I stayed up for awhile watching the movies and then tried to get some sleep. I put on an album that is approximately 70 minutes long and tried to get through it as many times as possible. I found myself falling asleep for about the middle 50 minutes and waking up for 15-20 minutes at either end. In this way, I got a fairly decent amount of sleep. I also observed during the flight that SGG and his party were all fairly good at English. Certainly better at English than I am at German. SGG’s silence was simply because SGG is…well…SGG.

I was also mildly nervous about our arrival in Berlin. This was really my first time travelling in a region where it was entirely likely that communicating in English would not be possible, and my command of the native language was not that great (I’m not fluent in Spanish, but I can at least get by…and I’ve never been in part of a Spanish-speaking country where no one speaks English). To add to the concern, we had booked an apartment for the week. We had seen pictures of this apartment online, but let’s face it - pictures are easy to fake. The place could really be a total dive, and the owner could be a total flake. I really felt bad for Mike since he had read about booking apartments for European trips and would no doubt be the bad guy if it turned out to be a disaster. I took comfort knowing that we had only paid a deposit, so if the place was a total dump we could turn tail and find a hotel.

We landed in Berlin sometime around 9 or 10AM, claimed our luggage and went through customs. Thus did we encounter our first challenge - getting a taxi to our apartment. The taxi stand was easy enough to find and did not appear to function any differently than it would in the US, however we needed to find a van large enough to carry the 5 of us and our luggage. As luck would have it, after a few minutes, just such a vehicle dropped some people off and Mary ran over to see if he could take us. Of course the driver was happy to be able to jump the line at the taxi stand (I hope he didn’t get in trouble for that) and there were no other large vans in sight, so this worked well for all of us.

It did not take long to get to the apartment building, which was in a very nice-looking area right along the river Spree, adjacent to Schloss Charlottenburg. This was encouraging - the building was at least not in a slum! We buzzed the penthouse apartment and were soon greeted by Patrick, the very warm and friendly landlord. A French expat, jazz afficionado and former restaurateur, Patrick speaks at least Engish, French and German and knows all about hospitality. All fears of a sketchy of apartment and sketchy landlord were allayed when we walked in the door. The apartment was beautiful and spacious. Patrick spent a long time showing us around and giving us advice on operating all of the appliances and fixtures, some of which are quite different from those found in the US. He lives in the penthouse with his wife and assured us that one of them would always be around if we needed help. He also gave us some tips about how to get around.

This is the main living room (and Kate’s bedroom). Clicking on it will take you to the album containing all of the pics of the apartment and the views from the balcony.

If you are interested in staying here, please let me know - we can get you in touch with Patrick. When we booked, we believed the weather would be too cold to enjoy the balcony, but it was very warm all week!

One of the appliances was a fancy Solis Super-Automatic espresso machine. Patrick clearly felt this to be one of the apartment’s greatest features. It is a great thing - beans go in one side, water goes in the other side. You select how much water you want added to the espresso, push a button, and 30 seconds later a hot cup of coffee squirts out! The coffee was very good, but Mike and I were both intrigued at the idea of a machine that squirts out a single cup of coffee in a short time. I made a note to research these things when I got home.

You may be wondering about this picture. This is the “shelf toilet.” It seems to be a German tradition. There are a lot of apocryphal stories about just WHY this is a common commode in Germany from it being a way to force men to pee sitting down (sitzspinkel) or perhaps so that you can inspect your own work to help you look out for diseases. I had read about these but didn’t really believe it was true. It is. And it’s VERY unpleasant.

And here’s a view from our balcony looking west towards Schloss Charlottenburg. The view was amazing.

This is the view back east towards central Berlin.

Again, to see the rest of the pics, click the pic of the living room or check out the album in the gallery.
After getting settled in the apartment, we went out to the grocery store, ReWe. Getting there involved a nice walk in a park along the river. I noticed a lot of graffiti around and this made me a little nervous that the neighborhood was not as safe as I thought. As the trip wore on, I realized that there was graffiti EVERYWHERE in Berlin. Grocery shopping is a great and free thing you can do as a tourist to really see how people in other countries live and eat. They don’t have any shopping bags in these grocery stores - you are supposed to bring your own. They do sell canvas totes for a couple of Euro. They make a nice cheap souvenir. Some other things we noticed are that eggs are sold un-refrigerated and they eat a lot of “paprika” potato chips, which are actually red pepper flavor and quite tasty.

Our plan was to save money by cooking breakfast every morning. We picked up eggs, bacon, bread, strawberry jam, juice and other items. We joked with Mike (who had picked up the jam) that we would never finish it, but over the course of the week I think we pretty much knocked it out!

We dropped off our groceries and decided to set out and get to work. We decided to do some “light” tourism since it was our first day and we were tired from the flight. We hopped on a bus and took this towards the Ku’Damm to visit the Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, corny, but all of us have gotten into the habit of picking up glasses, pins and whatnot at the various HRCs around the world. We also grabbed lunch there to help ease us into the particulars of the region’s food. Not that there was much German about the food in the HRC. We explored the area around the HRC a bit and then went back to the apartment to freshen up before meeting up with Maria and Colin for dinner.

We left the apartment and took the U-Bahn to Eisenacherstrasse near Maria and Colin’s apartment where Colin met us and brought us back to their place. They showed us around and we hung around catching up for a little while prior to heading out for dinner at Massai, an African restaurant. This was a great opportunity to get some fairly adventurous food. I had an assortment of meats in a sort of curry sauce. They also had some fruit-flavored beer. I had the banana flavored one and it was great. Eating in Berlin is typical Europe - it’s a relaxed pace and no one minds if you hang around in a restaurant for awhile after your meal. If you want to order something else or pay your bill, you just call them over…otherwise you will be left alone after your meal is served. Maria and Colin gave us some good tips on German culture (spicy food is not common, for instance), tourism (free state museum entry on Sunday!) and getting around (the 100 bus basically goes by all of the major tourist attractions). They also felt that Germans in general were very closed-off. Not necessarily mean like SGG, but just that they keep to themselves. I think I big part of this is simply part of urban life - New Yorkers don’t really seem all that friendly to an outside either. Another part of it is surely that they are on the rebound from a very bizarre and oppressive half-century of life.

After dinner we headed back to Schöneberg where we got some ice cream. X and I chose a flavor call Butterkeks which had all sorts of good stuff in it wafer cookies, butterscotch, etc. Very tasty. We then spent the evening walking around the Schöneberg neighborhood looking at the signs there that are part of the Bavarian Quarter Memorial. This memorial is comprised of 80 signs that are on lamp posts and illustrate the laws that were put into effect as Hitler rose to power and began oppressing Jews, homosexuals and other minorities with increasingly restrictive policies. The link will take you to a site that has pictures of all the signs and English translations of all the captions. While were there, Colin translated for us. It was an interesting experience and one that I imagine a lot of tourists do not realize exists.

Finally around 10 or 11PM, we headed back to our apartment. We had managed to make it through the entire day without falling asleep, which is a good step in battling jetlag - exhausted from our travels, none of us had any trouble sleeping through the night. I was feeling a lot better about our trip - everything that was concerning me had worked out. We even found the language barrier to be very minor - many Berliners speak good English and between the 5 of us, we could get by OK in German.

It was shaping up to be a great trip!

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!