Berlin, Germany

---

Day 2: Today was such an exhausting day, but so much fun. Berlin is such a huge city with so much to see and we learned that we can't see it all in one day. We started off the day by enjoying a huge buffet breakfast that came included with our hotel stay. We made a couple sandwiches for the road as well. At 1000 we arrived at the starting point of our city tour. We used the City Circle Tour Bus Company, recommended by the concierge. It was a hop-on, hop-off type of tour. There were a total of about 15 stops. And we ended up getting off on almost all of them. We saw several sights including the Victory Tower, the parliament building several beautiful churches, the Charlottenberg Palace and some museums. We got off an walked around the shopping areas in downtown Berlin. We learned that because Berlin was so recently reunited that there are still two city centers...one on the former western side and one on the former eastern side. So we took quite a bit of time strolling up and down the streets of shops in both city centers. Kyle enjoyed curry wurst and a berliner pils for lunch and I enjoyed a ham and cheese crepes. Curry wurst supposedly originated in Berlin, so we just had to try it. While we were able to see almost all the sights from the outside we didn't have enough time to visit any of the museums...and there were tons of them! By 5:30 p.m. we were absolutely exausted and the tour was coming to an end. We got back to the hotel and took a short nap. Then we cleaned up and got ready for a night on the town. We were pointed in the direction of the Marktplatz for several delicious restaurant options. It was an awesome area with several outdoor restaurants and little live entertainment all around. We would have loved to have visited it during the day. Kyle and I enjoyed some traditional German fare. He had the saurbraten and I had a beef rouladen. We also had the Czech version of Budweiser...it was decent, but I didn't enjoy the aftertaste. After dinner we headed to a happenin' club called The Weekend. The cover was definitely priced like a popular club. It ended up being a nice club with good drink prices, but they only played house music so it got a little tiring after a while. We headed out to catch the tram after we had our fill and on our way we heard some American hip hop playing in the distance. So we dance our way towards it and found another little hoppin' club. We danced there for a while and then decided we should call it a night. We headed back to the tram station and realized that they had stopped running for the night...or should I say, morning. So we made the two mile trip back to the hotel by foot...and when I say foot, I mean heels. Kyle offered to carry me; what a gentleman. But we eventually made it back to the hotel and crashed after a long day. Tomorrow: the zoo, the aquarium and Britney Spears!

---