July 12

7/12 - Berlin

(Still on the overnight train)

After a few hours of sleep, the conductor came by to wake us up, as we knew he would.  It took about 5 minutes to realize that someone was knocking on our door and when we finally did the conductor just started talking to us in German.  I mumbled a few times to request that he speak English, but it wasn't for another minute or so until he said, "Oh, do you speak English?"

Berlin's main train station

We arrived in Berlin around 4:30 a.m. and sat to get our bearings in the main train station until we maneuvered our way to Katie's house, to whom Maryanne's family is close because she used to date her aunt.  

Maryanne and Katie!

We met Katie and dropped our stuff off at her apartment.  Her apartment was built similarly to a coop where all of the inhabitants committed to the building prior to its construction.  The apartment was very open and we stayed in a small guest bedroom. 

Katie's beautiful apartment complex!

After arriving at Katie's and taking a nap, we made our way into the center of Berlin to see some sights.  Our first stop was to a museum where about 99% of the words were in German.  It was good to be there, though, because we bought a 3-day museum pass for 9 euro 50, we shopped in their gift shop which we loved, and we avoided getting caught in the rain.  

Our first museum in Berlin before the rain!

Adolf Hitler's globe.

From there, we walked to Museum Island.  We stopped for lunch at a pub with a lot of frogs as decorations and ate bratwurst with sourcrout  and mashed potatoes.  Side note - For the majority of our trip, we saved a lot of money by purchasing one meal to share.  Some restaurants didn't appreciate this, but most didn't care and it ended up saving us a lot of money!

We went into a few museums while on the Island, including the Altes Museum, which had a lot of ancient Greek and Roman art and sculptures, and the Pergamon, which had a huge altar, among other things.  

The Altes Museum...

I definitely thought it was an Egyptian musuem... it definitely wasn't.

The giant altar at the Pergamon!

What was actually at the Altes museum...

Maryanne insisted that she had a picture with this giant tub-like structure.

After hitting a few museums we went back to Katie's and she took us out to eat.  Maryanne had __________ (I guess we never figured out what she had...) and Karen had what Katie described as German ravioli.  We all drank apfelschorle, which is a popular summer German drink that mixes apple juice and seltzer water. 

After dinner we watched Goodbye Lenin, which is a comedy that is based around the fall of the Wall.  In the film, a very socially active woman goes into a coma and wakes up after the wall has fallen.  Her family, in order to not cause a shock that could kill her, hides the new westernized world from her and makes her think that the more simple, Eastern ways of life prevailed.

Below are a few more pictures from our first day in Berlin! Berlin was definitely a museum-rich city!