Berlin

On our way to Berlin we were reading about different things to do and one of our guide books mentioned a Berlin Welcome Card which would give you unlimited travel and access to certain museums for free. We decided it was a worthy investment and would buy one when we got to the train station.

By the time we got there I have gone a good 8 hours without eating and was craving a some food and after finding a place that sold doeners I was there. As I was stuffing my face we came across a travel agency and Jeff asked if this is where we buy the cards. I was so absorbed in eating I blindly agreed. As he went in I realized it wasn’t the right company and after he came out with a recite I knew he just made a terrible purchase. The only thing we used the card for was for its unlimited train use, but could have saved money buy just buying day passes from the station directly, and the discounts it gave us on museums was less than the student discounts and therefore useless.

The hostel we stayed at would have a free keg at 8 PM everyday and we got in around 5:30 so we decided to just do a short trip to go see the Brandenburg Gate and then start crushing some brews.  Right next to the Brandenburg Gate is the Reichstag which is now the serves the lower house of the German government but at one point was the head of the German government and where 1,500 Nazi’s made their last stand.

Making it back just a little after 8 the bar downstairs was packed. There was a large group of students from Arizona State that dominated the bar. One guy tried to do the boot and ended throwing up about 5 or 6 times while doing it, but still managed to finish. When people were deciding what to do later, this club called Watergate seemed to be the spot to be at. Small groups of people slowly broke off throughout the night to head to the club. We ended up leaving around 11 PM with a group of 12 or so. Two of the girls (Chloe and Kerbi) we stayed with in Budapest a claimed they knew how to get there. When we got in the area of the bar Chole wanted to jump on another train to avoid as much walking as possible. So the group broke up into 4 girls who wanted to take the train and 5 guys and 1 girl that wanted to walk, so our decision was pretty easy. By the time the train got to the station we need it was about 12:30 and the girls we came with were tired and changed their mind about going out. Not wanting our trek out there to be a waste Jeff and I headed out to see if we could find it. After leaving the train station we realized we were in a sketchy part of town and couldn’t find this bar anywhere. When we got back to the train station the 4 girls where still there so we went back to the hostel with them.

When we got back there was a large number of people out in front that were down in the bar earlier and I guess the people that did find the club couldn’t get in. The only person that did get in was one girl who borrowed someone else’s passport because she forgot hers and now she couldn’t be found. Jeff was a bit tired too by this point so he went to sleep and I went across the street to the bar with some of the ASU people.

After a disappointing night we wanted to try to make sure that didn’t happen again so we signed up to do a bar crawl with a couple of people from our hostel. After we were sure we wanted to extend our stay in Berlin by a day we headed to the train station that morning to make sure we had a spot on the sleeper train to Zurich. Once we were done with that we headed to the Berlin Dom (cathedral) and the Pergamon Museum which had a lot of artifacts from Greece and Babylon. 

One of the entrances to Babylon reconstructed from ruins.

After that it was time to head back to start the pub crawl but not before we got a few 8 o’clock beers first. Their advertisement for the crawl was that you get a free beer at the beginning as well as a free shot at every bar we went too.  The crawl started out pretty shady by the starting point being a park and them just giving you a Becks. After a couple minutes tho we really didn’t care anymore lol. He also told us that don’t ask the bartenders for the free shots but rather they would come around and give them to us. By the end of the night the guides where pretty well gone and he came up the to the group I was with and said he was too drunk to carry around the shots and just go up to the bar and grab them off the table.

The next day Jeff was feeling pretty sick and I was walking with a gimp because I messed up my knee doing work on the dance floor. We ended up leaving a little later then expected and went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews. It wasn’t until we were there that we realized there was a museum in the underground and had lots of powerful stories and pictures. And just a block down from it was where Hitler’s bunker was where he committed suicide.  To avoid Neo-Nazis from congregating there, all that is there is a dirt parking lot. From there we headed to the German History Museum which I found to be one of the best we visited.

Jeff ended up leaving earlier since he wasn’t feeling to good and so I met back up with him at the hostel. Figuring that we weren’t going out tonight I decided to go to the Reichstag building since it is open till midnight. I was able to get Jeff as well as Michelle and Shaun (two girls we hung out with earlier) to come out to it. By the time we got to the top of the building it was night and was therefore able to get some awesome night shots of the city on the roof as well as on the way back.

Dome on top of the Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate at night from roof of Reichstag

View from the street

The next day Jeff was pretty much immobile and our train to Zurich was that night. I was able to negotiate with the hostel to let him pay half price to stay in bed all day until our train left. I headed out to the aquarium which was self proclaimed as “world famous”  but turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. On the upside though, I got out earlier then expected giving me time to go to Olympia Stadium where the 1936 Olympics were held. When I got there I didn’t realize how massive the complex is and there was more than just the stadium.

Entrance

The pool to the west of the stadium.

The Reichssportfield to the north.

The next stop I wanted to go to was the East Side Gallery which is about a mile long strip of the old Berlin Wall that is full of paintings.

And finally, Check Point Charlie which was the major crossing point for going from one side of Berlin to the next. The museum there was full of crazy stories of how people got across the border and a whole room dedicated to Ronald Regan lol.

The original Checkpoint Charlie