I set out on Monday (day 2) with not too much of a plan. Most of the museums close on Monday, so that option was out. I set off with a bike and a map.
If you look closely in the background you can see the ping-pong tables. This is not an uncommon thing. I saw people playing ping pong in the park. It's interesting.
One of the things I did on Monday was go on a boat tour. There is a river that runs through the heart of Berlin and they drive you up and down and show you the sights. This is the Berlin Haubtbanhoff. It's the main train station. It's very big and has lots of glass.
This guy is wearing a grill and an umbrella selling Bratwursts. There's not much else to say.
Compared to Washington DC when I visited there wasn't that much security in Berlin. In DC it's really visible. In Berlin, not so much. This was the only place with roadblocks, and armed guards. It was......... The American Embasy
The Crazies had set up a tent in the middle of a square.
This is the Bundestag. The German equivalent of the Capitol.
This is the last picture I took on the second day. That night I went out to dinner to an Indian restraunt. It was pretty good.
My first stop on day 3 was Checkpoint Charlie. Especially as an American it was somewhere I wanted to go. There is a museum that is next to the actual checkpoint. It was really interesting. they had a lot of stuff that people actually used to escape. They had a car with fake compartments, a balloon the people had flown over the border. It was rather inspirational.
This is the token picture of the Checkpoint Charlie sign. It's a tourist trap, but it's also pretty amazing that 17 years ago there was a huge wall here. That the Cold War was still going strong. It feels so distant from the world we're in now.
This is your intrepid adventurer in the Jewish Museum. It's was opened within the last couple years and it's very nice. It does a good job of portraying Jewish culture in Germany and Europe and also dealing with the horrible episodes in this history.
This is a view down a huge flight of stairs in the Jewish museum. The architecture was very groovy. Lots of sharp angles and non-right angle corners. It wasn't too out there where it distracted from the exhibits, but it did give you a sense of things being a little different. It also worked very well to guide you through the exhibits, without you quite realizing that it was happening.
This was a poorly translated sign on the door of a buffet that I decided it would probably be better to skip. A lot of people speak English in Germany. But not everyone does it well.
My next stop was the Berlin Zoo. It has the highest number of different species in the world. It looked like a solid stop, and at this point I needed something a little bit lighter.
These monkeys were the first thing I saw when I went into the Zoo. I watched them chase each other around for about 15 minuites. It completely validated my choice to go in. They were just playing, and it made me happy.
More Monkeys
Very cool looking African porcupines.
How can you not include the picture of the baby elephant?
The Lions where the most impressive part of the entire zoo. The wall of the cage was only about 3 feet from where you could stand. When I got there it was right before they were going to be fed. This meant that the lions were pacing back and forth. They are really big. Like up to my chest and they are very powerfull as well. I was frightened.
I was attempting to take a picture of the tiger when he ran towards the wall of the cage and jumped pretty much straight at me
A Bear
Apparently The Hartford has an office somewhere in the Zoo.
From there I went to the Musiem of German History. The museim spans all of German history. From the barbaric times, through today. And entrance was free because I went on the "Tag der Deutscher Einheit. This is a really sweet ivory horn that was used as a signal horn during hunts. It's not perticularly German, but it looks cool.
This is a 14th century circumcision knife. It's another one of those things that's not extrodanary in itself, but to think that it was doing it's job 7oo years ago, and now it's just lying there, right next to where I am is pretty crazy.
This is the entrence to the Underground/Illegal techno party that I went to with the other 3 guys who were staying in the guest appartment with me the first night I got there. From the street, you can't tell anything's there. Below is a picture of it from the street.
Since the third movie, Shamu has really been branching out. He's the Jay-Z of Killer Whales.
This is the German equivalent of the Capitol. It is very pretty and everyone told me I had to wait in line and go up into the glass dome. I didn't. It was a really long line an there was too much to see. This is the last picture I took in Berlin. It was a great trip. A big thanks to Lucy for getting me in touch with Tomas and Wolfgang, who were wonderful hosts.
If you look closely in the background you can see the ping-pong tables. This is not an uncommon thing. I saw people playing ping pong in the park. It's interesting.
One of the things I did on Monday was go on a boat tour. There is a river that runs through the heart of Berlin and they drive you up and down and show you the sights. This is the Berlin Haubtbanhoff. It's the main train station. It's very big and has lots of glass.
This guy is wearing a grill and an umbrella selling Bratwursts. There's not much else to say.
Compared to Washington DC when I visited there wasn't that much security in Berlin. In DC it's really visible. In Berlin, not so much. This was the only place with roadblocks, and armed guards. It was......... The American Embasy
The Crazies had set up a tent in the middle of a square.
This is the Bundestag. The German equivalent of the Capitol.
This is the last picture I took on the second day. That night I went out to dinner to an Indian restraunt. It was pretty good.
My first stop on day 3 was Checkpoint Charlie. Especially as an American it was somewhere I wanted to go. There is a museum that is next to the actual checkpoint. It was really interesting. they had a lot of stuff that people actually used to escape. They had a car with fake compartments, a balloon the people had flown over the border. It was rather inspirational.
This is the token picture of the Checkpoint Charlie sign. It's a tourist trap, but it's also pretty amazing that 17 years ago there was a huge wall here. That the Cold War was still going strong. It feels so distant from the world we're in now.
This is your intrepid adventurer in the Jewish Museum. It's was opened within the last couple years and it's very nice. It does a good job of portraying Jewish culture in Germany and Europe and also dealing with the horrible episodes in this history.
This is a view down a huge flight of stairs in the Jewish museum. The architecture was very groovy. Lots of sharp angles and non-right angle corners. It wasn't too out there where it distracted from the exhibits, but it did give you a sense of things being a little different. It also worked very well to guide you through the exhibits, without you quite realizing that it was happening.
This was a poorly translated sign on the door of a buffet that I decided it would probably be better to skip. A lot of people speak English in Germany. But not everyone does it well.
My next stop was the Berlin Zoo. It has the highest number of different species in the world. It looked like a solid stop, and at this point I needed something a little bit lighter.
These monkeys were the first thing I saw when I went into the Zoo. I watched them chase each other around for about 15 minuites. It completely validated my choice to go in. They were just playing, and it made me happy.
More Monkeys
Very cool looking African porcupines.
How can you not include the picture of the baby elephant?
The Lions where the most impressive part of the entire zoo. The wall of the cage was only about 3 feet from where you could stand. When I got there it was right before they were going to be fed. This meant that the lions were pacing back and forth. They are really big. Like up to my chest and they are very powerfull as well. I was frightened.
I was attempting to take a picture of the tiger when he ran towards the wall of the cage and jumped pretty much straight at me
A Bear
Apparently The Hartford has an office somewhere in the Zoo.
From there I went to the Musiem of German History. The museim spans all of German history. From the barbaric times, through today. And entrance was free because I went on the "Tag der Deutscher Einheit. This is a really sweet ivory horn that was used as a signal horn during hunts. It's not perticularly German, but it looks cool.
This is a 14th century circumcision knife. It's another one of those things that's not extrodanary in itself, but to think that it was doing it's job 7oo years ago, and now it's just lying there, right next to where I am is pretty crazy.
This is the entrence to the Underground/Illegal techno party that I went to with the other 3 guys who were staying in the guest appartment with me the first night I got there. From the street, you can't tell anything's there. Below is a picture of it from the street.
Since the third movie, Shamu has really been branching out. He's the Jay-Z of Killer Whales.
This is the German equivalent of the Capitol. It is very pretty and everyone told me I had to wait in line and go up into the glass dome. I didn't. It was a really long line an there was too much to see. This is the last picture I took in Berlin. It was a great trip. A big thanks to Lucy for getting me in touch with Tomas and Wolfgang, who were wonderful hosts.
