Berlin

Berlin is awesome... nothing like we expected. The city is packed with history, museums, and commercial centers. We were very happy that we gave up a day in Brussels so we could enjoy three day in Berlin. Our first day was mainly spent recovering from the nightmare train, but later that evening we ventured out to the Sony Center (in "The Glass Mount Fuji" building) for yet another dinner and a movie (Melinda and Melinda). We went to bed early in our beautiful hostel.

The next day we met in the lobby of our hostel at 10:15 to begin our 8 hour WALKING tour of the city. The owner of the tour company, Terry, met us and quickly walked our "doddling" (as he called us) patoots to the next stop. He told us "If Germany isn't invading their neighbors every 25 years, they're digging holes in the road or making noise... and often doing all three at once" he then proceeded to tell us this philosophy verbatum a few more times before dropping us off at the gorgeous temple to meet our tour guide, Preston. While Preston was from Oregon and lived in Berlin, he tended to speak in a combination of an English and Australian accent. He stuttered and carried a rainbow umbrella the whole day(it didn't rain) ... enough said. Despite the odd tour guide, the tour was very informative and literally walked Berlin. Highlights included Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the wall, Hitler's covered bunker, and much much more. After the scheduled 8 hours, Franki and Denise decided they didn't want to take advantage of the tour company and left early (among other reasons). Nicole and Amanda stayed on for the extra 2 hours and saw museum island and the book burning site. Needless to say that night we crashed.

Our final day in Berlin got a late start. After finally booking our hostel, getting our train tickets and putting money on Nicole's phone we were ready to start. Amanda went to two museums while Franki, Denise, and Nicole ran errands and walked by the zoo. With little time to go in they saw a rhino and three alpacas through the gate. We all met up at the Checkpoint Charlie museum and read stories about incredible escapes over, under and through the Berlin wall. We then went to Berlin's parliment building and took an elevator to the top. We walked around some and then entered the glass dome on the top of the building. The view was incredible and at this point we realized how far we had actually walked the previous day. We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and arrived back at our hostel around 11 pm, packed, slept and woke up at 5 for our 6:42 train to Warsaw, Poland.