Blogs from Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Europe - page 20

Our train is nearing Prague now as we look back on a fantastic few days in Berlin. We stayed at the East Seven hostel, which was pretty brilliant. They had everything a backpacker might ever want, from Spotify to straighteners. Our room was clean, bright and spacious, and felt like the height of luxury after our time at the more spartan Hans Brinker. This did have the unintended effect of us getting out of bed to go sightseeing later, as lying in was so comfortable. We met quite a few fellow travellers there, some friendly people in our room, who we chatted to every night, but whose names we never caught, and an Australian couple who were 7 months into a year-long trip. The kitchen was a massive bonus of the hostel, it was brilliantly equipped ... read more

After a very, very active first day in Berlin, and exhausted from jet lag and walking around the city for 8 hours, I went into my second day in Berlin with the intention of taking it easy. But that's not exactly how it happened. My German professor recommended to me that I should visit the KaDeWe, the 7 story mall in Berlin, so of course I had to. I am still a little confused about the U Bahn but it is definitely the best way to get around for me. I love the underground and I wish home in Long beach had such a system. Anyways, I got to the KaDeWe and it was beaitiful. I visited each floor; but my favorite floor by far was the 6th, which is the food. I bought some yummy ... read more

Today was a "no-museum" day. So, naturally, we went to Charlottenburg Schloß, which is a museum. :) By the time we were ready to leave the room, we decided to just have lunch, so we found an Indian place on the way to the bus we were going to catch. It was a nice place, and the proprietor (I assume she was the proprietor) was very pleasant and put up with our German (to the point of asking where we learned it). Cheryl had lamb korma, and I had a lamb and chicken biryani, plus we had samosas as an appetizer, and rounded it off with garlic naan. The food was tasty, but way too much; even having eaten only half of our entrees, we were stuffed. We hobbled to the bus stop and caught a ... read more

Our museum for today was the Memorial to the German Resistance, commemorating those who resisted National Socialism through demonstration, writing, speaking, helping the oppressed, or just refusing to participate. We slept in today, because we were up late watching Fußball, so we missed breakfast at the Pension, and when we did get up, we had a bit of a lazy morning writing blog posts and reading up on things we were going to see and watching Big Bang Theory in German. Once we set out, we headed to La Piazza, where I tried their pizza (delicious) and Cheryl tried a pasta dish with pesto and lamb (also delicious) and we had Radler to drink (called Alsterwasser in Berlin). Our waiter correctly figured out we were Americans and chatted with us a bit; he had lived in ... read more

Apparently, Monday is a day when many of Berlin's museums are closed, but the Checkpoint Charlie Museumis open every day, so we decided to make it the main event for the day. Our Pension features Früstück every morning in the breakfast room, so we decided to take advantage and fuel up for the morning. I had scrambled eggs, some salamis and cheeses, a small bowl of Müsli mit Milch and some coffee and orange juice; Cheryl passed on the eggs, but had a bowl of Müsli with yogurt, plus some of the meats and cheeses, and also coffee and orange juice. Except for the eggs, we had this type of breakfast every morning while staying with Andrea and Ulf, and also when we were in Vienna in 2009, our Pension featured much the same fare, and ... read more