Berlin. What is there to say!? What an incredible city, what an incredible history! Everything in Berlin is full of decades of conflict and brilliant history. When we arrived in the city we took the S-Bahn to our hostel and you could tell the visual difference between places in East Berlin versus West Berlin. It was an interesting trip!
We stayed at the PLUS Hostel Berlin, which was one of the best hostels we have stayed at. It was very modern inside, yet it was in a building that had survived 2 World Wars in East Berlin! They had a swimming pool, sauna, laundry, resteraunt/bar, lounge, and courtyard. Our favorite part was the courtyard, where they had bunnies!! There were just free roaming domesticated bunnies all over the place! Some baby bunnies too!! We had a field day running around the courtyard scooping up baby bunnies and cuddling them. It was precious!
When we got to our room it was a 4 bed, with ensuite bathroom! At first we thought we had 2 other roommates, but after further examination we only had one VERY messy roommate. She had clothes piled on the floor, desk and window ledge. Her things were EVERYWHERE in the bathroom and there were maps, empty bottles, and trash under her bed and around the floor!! It was by far the messiest room we've stayed at...and we have stayed in 12 bed co-ed rooms! Judging by her mess, we decided to shower before she got back....in case she was an hour-long shower type of person.
After getting freshened up we headed out to see Berlin. Our first stop was the infamous Brandenburg Gate. I choked up, standing in front of it absorbing the history. People were waving flags and singing songs about peace and Amnesty International was there! It was really powerful.
We detoured and saw the Reichstag. Which is the seat of the German federal government. Then we enjoyed parts of the "English Garden" which is essentially a giant park. It was very romantic at sunset. We took pictures of Victory Tower and headed over to see the wall.
The remains of the wall only stretch a couple of blocks, but they are a powerful reminder of Germany's rich history. All throughout the city there is a brick path where the wall once stood. And its marked on all the city maps too. We even found a spot by Check Point Charlie that had East & West painted on either side of the brick line. Its a simple reminder of the past and a pleasant outlook to the future.
I made a game of finding as many Berlin bears as I could. I'm not entirely sure of heir signifigance, but there and bear statues throughout the city painted in different ways, all with the same pose. I think I found 5 of them? But I found a postcard with about 20 of them!
We found a small Italian place called Resteraunt Edoni, attached to a hotel around the corner from the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. It was real Italian too! The waiter (possible owner) was Italian, but spoke German. We managed to point at things on the menu to order. We took a great picture of me, the American, wearing a Norway shirt, drinking German beer at an Italian resteraunt. If that's not culture, I don't know what is!
After dinner we made our way back to our hostel and spent an absurd amount of time doing a load of laundry. Seems that we had forgotten to wash some things a couple of days ago when we did laundry! We didn't finish until about 1:30.
When we got back to the room our roommate was asleep, and had actually picked up the room ( a very tiny bit).
We went to bed and prepared for a wonderful day at the Berlin Zoo!
Safe Travels,
- Kit & Heather
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