5 Days in Berlin!

For the past five days, Pia and I have been enjoying Berlin, Germany! We arrived last Saturday afternoon, took the S Bahn to our hostel (which was a GREAT hostel!), and checked in. Pia may or may not have made a tiny lie that got us free breakfast in the mornings... let´s just say she saved us 4 euros every morning and we might have some bad karma coming our way. Hopefully it won't be on the cruise ship next week, otherwise we might be victims of the next Titanic.

Saturday night, we had a couple Berliners at the bar in our hostel. A couple guys from Mexico who work here sat by us. One of them was wearing a sombrero, which was a huge hit the rest of the night. I went out in the hallway to Skype my sister, who was not answering so I guess I looked a little sad because a guy came up to me and said (in the sassiest voice I ever heard... even sassier than my dear friend, Mindy Dickerson), "Girrrrl, why you look so sad?!" I explained to him that my sister wasn't answering my call, and he said I needed to come out for a drink with him because it was his birthday. So I went in to get Pia and the two guys from Mexico (and the sombrero) and we went to an Irish Pub (go figure) with a Puerto Rican, an Argentinian, and a guy from Finland. I practiced my Spanish, learned how to count in ten in German, and I learned the bachata. It was an interesting night to say the least!

On Sunday, Pia and I took our time getting ready in the morning, then went to the Sunday flea market in Berlin, which was so much more than a flea market! There were food vendors everywhere, street performers, karaoke, and a stage with live music. To all my Sioux Citians out there, it was something very similar to Saturday in the Park, times 100. We sat next to a very nice man from India while we ate lunch, then we went to the main stage to watch a very strange, but entertaining, German concert. While we were there, we ran into our friend from Finland!

That night, Pia and I decided to go for a run and burn off all those Berliners from the night before. We went to a nearby park and during our run, we heard some music nearby, so we went to check it out. The music was coming from an outdoor dancing area next to the river! The dance floor was packed with couples who were ballroom dancing. As Pia and I were standing there watching, these two very sweet guys (a German and a Hungarian) come up to us and ask if we want to dance. Of course we are all sweaty and smelly THE ONE TIME this happens to us. So we reluctantly said no, but had a nice conversation with them and exchanged emails. Pia and I returned to this adorable dancing venue the following two nights, drank wine on the hillside, and watched couples dance a new theme each night... swing dancing one night and the cha cha the next night.

On Monday, we went on a FOUR HOUR walking tour throughout the city of Berlin. We saw the Holocaust Memorial, The Book Burning Memorial, Charlie Checkpoint, a couple cathedrals, part of the Berlin Wall, the grounds where Hitler's bunker was, and many other memorials and famous sites.

We spent the majority of our day on Tuesday walking across the city to the Eastside Gallery, a large stretch of the Berlin Wall that contains some very interesting artwork Then we went to eat on this side of the city at a Mexican restaurant that was recommended to us by our new friends from Mexico the other night. I had been craving Mexican food for SO long so this was perfect.

Eastside Gallery

Yesterday, Pia and I split up for the first part of the day. She went to an art museum and I went to a couple cathedrals - Mariankirche and St. Hedwigs (unfortunately, the name has nothing to do with HP). But as I walked in to St. Hedwigs right at 2:55, I found out that there was a free organ concert that started at 3pm! Perfect timing. So I stayed for the concert, then met up with Pia and The Topography of Terror, a Holocaust museum which is on the same grounds as the Nazi Headquarters were many years ago. We spent a few hours at this museum and at the end of it, our brains were on information overload. So what cures this, you ask? Chocolate. Pia and I stopped at one of the famous Chocolatiers in Berlin, where they are constantly making large and interesting chocolate sculptures in the store. They also have fine dark chocolate in this store with 80% cacao... that is some bitter chocolate right there.

So much chocolate.

Today was our last full day in Berlin. We spent most of our day doing little errands - buying stamps for all my overdue postcards, getting some birthday accessories at H&M, etc. Then we went to our pre-scheduled tour of the Berlin Parliament, where we walked up to the top of the dome and took in some great views of the city. Afterwards, we went to another famous Chocolatier and then walked back towards our hostel where we picked up our last Currywursts (until we come back to Germany in a few weeks) and ate them in the park for dinner.

Currywursts and fries!

 This blog post would not be complete if I did not mention two of our roommates in our hostel these past 5 days. There were two very cute boys from England, and as Pia would say, I am "smitten-kitten" with them. But wouldn't you be smitten-kitten with two boys who have British accents, sleep in boxers and eye masks, have stuffed animals, and speak to each other like this (make sure to read this with a British accent... it will make it 10 times better):


English boy 1: Cyrus, what time should I set the alarm?
English boy 2: Oh, I don't know, 9:30 or so?
English boy 1: Okay, see you in the morning, matey.

The English boys' stuffed animal!

Tonight we leave at 11pm on a 7 hour bus ride to Copenhagen, Denmark. We have all of tomorrow to see the city of Copenhagen, then tomorrow night we are meeting up with some new friends we met on the train to Austria a couple weeks back!

On Saturday, Pia and will be sailing out of Copenhagen on a 7 night cruise around Scandanavia (including Tallinn, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm), a birthday present from the greatest dad a girl could ask for! We won't have wifi on the ship, but we'll try to stop in cafes with wifi when we're on land.