First Day: Got to Berlin and found our hostel in the middle of the suburbs. We actually were in the city, but the way the city is setup made many places within the city actually feel like the suburbs. It took a long time and a lot of walking to find it. It was an apartment building that had a hostel on the first 2 floors. So far one of the nicest hostels we have stayed in. 24 hour bar on the ground floor was nice as well. They also had a buffet breakfast that included cereals, meats, eggs, yogurt, juice, and various types of bread and jam. It definitely beat the European breakfast we have become accustomed to. Our 6 bed room was huge and we got the pleasure of sharing it with a British guy that looked like Jason Statham. He was very nice and drunk the day that we spent with him. We spent the remainder of the day exploring our neighborhood and drinking beers/diet cokes in a park where there were tons of people just hanging out. The park was Volkspark Garten, and it was really cool to see the “alternative” culture, basically everyone drinking at parks, museum lawns, anywhere they want to.
Second Day: We started out our day by switching from our 6 bed room to a 4 bed room (we planned this before arriving and the hostel unfortunately had no 4 bed rooms available all 4 nights). We were sad to say good bye to our roommate Jason (real name Luke), but we luckily saw him wandering around drunk from time to time after our departure. After we got everything figured out with our room, we decided to take a free tour of Berlin and were lucky enough to get a great tour guide that was extremely knowledgeable and fun to listen to. The tour lasted around 4 hours and we got to see; The Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, stand over Hitler’s bunker, Holocaust Memorial, Book Burning Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, SS Headquarters, The Berlin Wall, TV tower, Gendarmenmarkt, Museum Island, Pariser Platz, Luftwaffe HQ, and Bebelplatz. The main sites where cool, but his stories of the underground Berlin, as well as about David Hasselhoff really made us like him. Apparently the hoff feels he is responsible for the fall of the wall by the hit song he put out right before it fell. He comes to the museum yearly asking why he doesn’t have his exhibit. I believe every bit of it, and how could you not after watching this... .
After the tour we decided that it was time to do laundry. Laundry is always an ordeal because we all wash he entire contents of our bags and it usually takes a little bit of time. Luckily for us, the machines were German, which meant that we didn’t entirely understand what the buttons we began pressing, actually did. Our crappy German laundry skills lead to us having tons of damp clothes after our 2 hour attempt at trying to dry them. They have actually stayed wet easily the rest of the trip. One was a washer slash dryer combo in the same machine; unfortunately it did neither very well.
Once we were done with the wash, or done trying to figure out how to get our clothes dried, we went back to our room, to meet our 4th roommate. Now we had already dealt with our first problematic roommate, Hairy Bitch Boy in Munich. Well, apparently Germany has attracted these kinds of people to us as we were greeted by Stinky, the Italian from Milan. Although he was very friendly to us and not nearly as Hairy (well he was, but his hair didn’t cover the bathroom on a regular basis) he still smelled like a wet muskrat. Seriously, it smelled like he dipped his bag of clothes in vinegar and left it in a football locker for a couple of weeks before he got to our room. Luckily for us, he wore the same shirt every day, so that was a plus. After we became accustomed to the stench (David was lucky) we fell asleep and dreamed of Garbage Pail Kids thanks to inspiration from Stinky.
Day three: We got up nice and early, noon, and made our way to the east side gallery. It is the longest stretch of the wall that is still intact, but is filled with colorful street art and graffiti. Some of it was really amazing and all was laced with inspiring words written all around it. After that we took the S-bahn down to Alexanderplatz. There was another Easter festival thing, a terrible modeling show and half-assed street performers that were dancing as they jump roped. Not like cool jumping, retards with a rope. Other than those keen observations, it was really cool. There were tons of people, and stands, and trampolines and such. We then took the advice of our guide to go see a part of the town where all the punks go get “pissed”. Pissed meaning drunk we assumed. It was called Friedrichschain. Well we got off the train and definitely crossed the tracks. We saw a lot more of this DIY (Do It Yourself as they call it) lifestyle we were hearing about and it was really cool. Tons of secondhand stores everywhere, where Alex broke down and had to buy a corduroy vest. There were plenty of cool restaurants and we ate at an Asian place out on the patio. Everyone was on bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes. No one walks in Berlin; it is too sprawled out, suburbish. We went to a park that had a market in it and just basically walked around getting the feel of the city. When we were leaving we did see the punks he was talking about, down by the tracks getting trashed. What more could we want? We then had to eat dinner downstairs at the bar with paninis, while Brittany ate a store bought salad; salad, salad, salad she loves the store bought salad, which we always reply that it doesn’t constitute as a full meal for 2 growing boys.
Day four: Flea market, cool toys for all! Alex felt compelled to buy this 1952 twin lens reflector camera! All pieces present and in working condition. Brittany was equally compelled to buy a locket with two random faces in it! David showed a little more constraint but he was tempted by this or that for example, antique cutlery and accordions. This little market right by the s-bahn station had it all! Just more stuff to lug around with us for the rest of the trip. That was more of a side-trek and we soon took a train to downtown. We arrived at the Reichstag, the German parliament building. It has a clear dome at the top that you can walk up to and look down at the people working and make funny faces. Well we didn’t do that, the line was too long. What we did do was even better. We went across the street to the Tiergarten , the largest park in Europe, and the games began. We played great games like David and Alex throw sticks at each other while the other can’t move. We also played “bet you can’t karate chop that stick in half”. Alex did, and won 2 euro for it. The bruise on my (Alex) forearm was more of a trophy than a scar. Brittany also liked the games as she would throw sticks and huge logs at us, point blank, while we weren’t looking. It was a fun day all-around. After dinner at one of the cooler parts of downtown Berlin (unfortunately not much was open but everything looked cool closed), we decided to call it a night for our early train to Copenhagen.
new pictures up at the following:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion/
&
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euroexplosion2/
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