3 days in berlin

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Day 2

After a night of restless sleep, we pulled ourselves up around 11am. This gave us just enough time to grab a quick starbucks and currywurst before our alternative berin tour. This one started in Alexanderplatz, in a more discrete location. Fortunately, google maps saved the day and pointed us to the right location. It is pricy getting a roaming data plan, but I admit that it's come in handy during times like these. At 1pm, a cheery Californian tour guide led us on our tour of Berlin's graffiti and local art scenes. First, we walked along the Mitte neighborhood. He pointed our notable pieces of graffiti by famous artists such as El Bocho (and his crazy lucy and her cat), and Alice. We wrapped up the Mitte portion of the tour at the graffiti courtyard. While graffiti is illegal in Berlin, it is legal in the courtyard, so almost all corners are filled with quirky pieces of art. Next, we took the subway to Eastside Gallery. Just our luck - David Hasselhoff was at the gallery when we arrived! apparently, he was rallying against gentrification. Some large institution wants to buy areas around the eastside gallery to build luxury condos, and understandably, a large part of the population wants to preserve that historical area. Because there were so many people there, we could only see a small part of the wall. But, even the small part that we were able to see was enough to juxtapose what was once east and west berlin. The art on the west side is beautiful, organized, reflecting the artistic freedom that was rampant in West Berlin, while the art on the east side is more recent, and seems to have been thrown up by amateurs.

The final stops on the tour were through the neighborhood Kreuzberg, which is a largely Turkish immigrant neighborhood. It is a markedly poorer area of Berlin. There were squat houses and trailer parks. One of the squat houses apparently housed the RAF when they were still in existence. Our tour guide gave us a brief introduction to the interesting history of the RAF. They are an anarchist, anti-Germany (some more generally, anti-government) terrorist group. They did crazy things such as setting a department store on fire, and kidnapping and killing a politician. This is where our tour ended, and fortunately so, because our stomachs were starting to growl. We asked our tour guide to recommend a doner kebab restaurant, and he pointed us in the right direction! We went to an amazing place by the Kottbuser subway stop, where the kebabs were only 2.5euros!! We ended up splitting a kebab, since dinner was only a few hours away, but we promised ourselves that we would come back before leaving Berlin.

After the tour, we went back to the hotel and rested up before dinner. For dinner, we met up with our friends Alex and Nithya, who happened to be in the city during the same time as us! We met up around our neighborhood at a restaurant called Dicke Wirtin. It is a cozy, German restaurant off the main K'damm road. Michael and I shared a Schnitzle dish, which was the right decision because it was seriously the biggest piece of meat I've ever seen! We also shares a couple more beers through the night. The beers are cheaper than water here, so why not! We also tried the apple strudle, which was delicious! Finally, we ended the meal around 11pm, and stumbled back to our hotel, exhausted from the long day.

Day 3

Day 3 in Berlin started out pretty miserable. The past two days have been frigid, but it actually started snowing on the third day. We were tired from the walking tours on the first two days, so we decided to take it easy on our third day. We also knew that we would have to stay out all day on Day 4 (we had to check out of our hotel at noon, but our train to Amsterdam wasn't until midnight), so we decided to take advantage of the availability of our hotel room by basically taking naps, getting some work done, and watching German MTV. Before settling into our cozy room, we did take a walk outside in search of the nearest doner place. After last night's exceptional experience, we needed more doner! This time, we found a place called Super Hahn, which was right around the corner at the Zoo stop. The Zoo stop is just a few blocks from our hotel, fortunately, because the snow was really coming down at this point. We quickly realized that it would be miserable walking around in the snow, so we brought our kebabs back to the hotel, and spent most of the day hiding out. Later in the afternoon, we decided to venture outside again. This time, we also didn't go very far -- only to the mall on the K'damm -- Kadawe. Kadawe is the largest shopping complex in Berlin, and it has rightly been dubbed so. It has 7 floors full of luxurious goods. Even the food court has lobster tails and delectable looking desserts. We didn't end up buying or eating anything because we were still full from the kebab, but it was a good experience just window shopping. After our feet got tired, we decided to walk to a coffee shop that we passed on the way to Kadawe from our hotel. It was a cute little shop with only about 5-6 seats. We split a cappaccino and a chocolate croissant, and spent an hour or so using their incredibly fast and free wifi!

Around 6pm, we decided it was time to make the trek to Mitte, which is where we were planning on meeting Alex and Nithya for dinner. THis time we were going to another traditional German restaurant called the Beriner Republik. The interesting thing about this restaurant is that it has a "beer stock market," which means that all beer prices fluctuate throughout the evening. While the range was not significant (maybe 20 cents or so), it was interesting keeping track of whether we make a good bet or not with the beers that we ordered! In terms of food -- oh my god. I ordered the pork knuckle, which is something I had been craving for since I landed in Germany. I am a huge fan of pig's feet (CHinese cuisine), so I figured maybe the German dish would be similar. Oh boy, was I wrong! The pork knuckle is not like pig's feet at all! It is a huge piece of the pig's thigh (or something equally ginormous). Everyone at the table was shocked at the size of the knuckle, and it was a struggle to finish, to say the least. Michael got a fried sausage, which surprised us all in that it was the most reasonably portioned dish of all. We finished eating around 9pm, at which time we all decided that we wanted to stay out a little longer. I yelp'ed some jazz lounges, and found one that was a few blocks away. In the snow, those "few blocks" took us about 15 minutes. Also, the jazz lounge's entrance was hidden in a side street that required some macguyvering to get to. Fortunately, the website had a pretty good map describing this process (of course, we only realized this after a lengthy, futile search on our own). Becuase it was a Monday night, the performance was free. We each ordered a drink and sank into the cozy atmosphere. It was nice to relax for a few hours, listening to live music--something that I haven't even done in NYC! I felt like a true Berliner!

Day 4

Day 4 is our last day in Berlin. We had a reservation at the Reichstag at 10:45am to climb the dome. But, because we had stayed up late the night before, we unfortunately missed it because we couldn't wake up on time. Nonetheless, after taking a look out the window and seeing the bounty of snow, I figured that the visibility probably would have been pretty bad anyway. We finally checked out around 11:30am. After storing our luggage, we made the trek to Tim Raue, which is an esteemed 2-michelin starred restaurant by Checkpoint CHarlie. It took us a while to get there, and of course, we were late again, but fortunately, the restaurant had barely any people inside when we arrived. Although the normal tasting menu is exorbitantly priced, we were able to take advantage of a 3-course lunch menu for 38euro. Even with a 12euro supplement for one of the dishes, the total bill was reasonable -- or would have been reasonabe, if not for the 8euro bottles of water that they charged us for. We will never understand the europeans and their aversion to tap water... nonetheless, the meal itself was amazing! We ordered 6 dishes and shared all of them between the two of us. All of the dishes had a complex mixture of ingredients. I ordered a fish dish, a lobster dish, and a chocolate dessert. Michael ordered a steak, a pork, and TR's famous duck dish. SOme stand outs were: 1. the fish, drizzled in soy sauce that's been aged for 10 years 2. the duck, which came in three ways: seared meat, liver, and soup 3. the steak, which was looked blood red, but was cooked to the perfect consistency and 4. the dessert, with its delectable assortment of chocolate, lime ice, and banana stars. The bill certainly took a punch to our wallets, but I think it was worth it. Plus, after so many days of eating ridiculously large pieces of meat with uncouth flavors, it was nice to get a refined taste of Berlin.

We got out of lunch at around 3pm, at which time we decided on a last minute trip to Potsdam. We had bought the unlimited ABC subway ticket, so we figured that we might as well maximize our use out of it. We finally arrived in Potsdam around 4pm, and went directly to the tourist center -- and thank goodness for that, because we managed to buy tickets to the last tour bus! Given the snow and frigid weather, we honestly would have rather huddled in the train station than walk around outdoors! The bus ride took around 1.5 hours. It was a pleasant ride, taking us around to the important sites in Potsdam. Potsdam was once the site of military garrisons and many royal residences, especially for Frederick the Great. Now, it remains a functioning town, containing Potsdam University, mansions for the many wealthy residents, and summer homes that I mistook for more squatter shacks, in addition to the meticulously maintained gardens, castles, and palaces dating from the Sixteenth Century. We stopped by the Potsdam version of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate (the oddly spliced English audio told us several times that it was the better one, and if the Berlin gate was the "bigger sister," then it was the "beautiful one"). and we saw many castles in the distance. Since we barely caught the last bus of the day, we couldn't "hop off" the bus to take more time to explore, as there would be no subsequent bus to "hop on" to; yet with the snow falling, we weren't complaining. We saw entire neighborhoods built by Dutch Construction workers who specialize in building towns on marshy areas (30,000 logs prop up parts of Potsdam!), a dis-used steam house turned into an imitation mosque by one of the German monarchs, and a ferris wheel being constructed at an alarming pace. The falling snow dampened the noise and made for a serene viewing experience: I bet the place is even more beautiful in the summer!

We made one last stop at the Kotti kebab shop, where Michael partook of the "Rambo" ground peppers (as compared to the "Justin Bieber" version: their description, not ours). Best street food of our leg in Berlin! After running some errands at the grocery store and the tourist shop, we've been hanging out at our hotel lobby, mooching off the wifi. On to Amsterdam!

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