round 6: Berlin!

Berlin is one of those cities that makes our friends (and ourselves, now...!) excited, whenever it's mentioned. It's big, it's bustling, it's modern, it's full of good food, its history is fascinating (albeit dark), and its museums are first-rate. My first brush with Berlin, however, was not so shiny: it was December, I was by myself (on my epic solo backpacking trip, having [very, very sadly] missed a rendezvous there with some friends who'd forgotten what time we'd planned to meet), it was my birthday weekend, the Pergamon Museum was closed, and the only hostel I could get into was in a sketchy part of town. My first night there was cold and lonely and shared (in a giant, cheap room) with about 20 other people, all of whom decided to come and go through the constantly slamming door at all hours of the night. Not. Fun. The next day being my actual birthday, I splurged and booked myself a night in a one-star hotel (complete with shared bathroom), and it turned out to be infinitely nicer than I imagined. I sat on the bed and ate gummi bears and watched C-SPAN (which was the only English channel on TV, and during the infamous "hanging chad" incident, no less! the excitement was palpable!) and felt much better. I went to the aquarium, saw the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church purely by accident, visited Checkpoint Charlie and the East Side Gallery, did a little window shopping, and capped off the day with a giant blueberry sundae. Day 2 in Berlin had been a vast improvement over Day 1, but that was my only brush with the city until last month, with Mike and my parents. And now I can say that I get it. What a fantastic place.

We rolled into the city with just enough time to check into our funky little black-and-white hotel in Charlottenburg, then set out to find dinner. Having eaten enough German food for a while, we settled on Nu, a bustling Asian fusian restaurant just a few minutes away. The place was ridiculously crowded, but they got us right in, and, despite rather slow (although pleasant) service, we had a great meal. Mike and I started with an app platter of tuna skewers, vegetarian spring rolls, deep-fried beef rolls, shrimp won tons, and shrimp and sweet potato tempura; Dad went for the cauldron of shrimp, coconut milk, lemongrass, and onion soup; and Mom had a giant breaded, fried prawn. (A solid start, for all of us.) My entree was wok-fried veggies and chicken with lemongrass and oyster-chili-soy sauce; Mike had the pad thai with shrimp (...surprise!); Mom went for beef in ginger-lemongrass sauce with veggies and cashews; and Dad ate what I believe was an entire crispy duck in honey-sesame-chili-malt sauce with veggies and cashews. (Or at least, it seemed like a whole duck. THERE WAS LOTS OF DUCK.) Yum, yum, yum. Well worth the trend-of-the-minute atmosphere.

Our first full day in Berlin started with breakfast at a darling little cafe around the corner from both our hotel and the Savignyplatz train station, and then it was off to Brandenburg Gate. Because where else would you start?

Last time I was here, it was covered in a giant Advent calendar featuring the Pink Panther (for restoration/maintenance, one can only assume). It's a little more impressive in its full glory. 

Then, around the corner to the Bundestag.

Also impressive in its sheer scale. Nope, we didn't climb the dome...maybe next time.

The Berlin Wall ran immediately past both the Bundestag and Brandenburg Gate, placing the gate just inside East Berlin, and the Bundestag in the West.

One of my latest fascinations: manhole covers. I think it's amusing how much pride a city can display on top of its sewers.

Then, a "quick" walk over towards Checkpoint Charlie past Konzerthaus Berlin, through a ridiculous chocolate store, and finally to our destination.

Das Konzerthaus. They seem to appreciate the monumental architecture here.

At Fassbender & Rausch: the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial in chocolate.

This guy was sculpting the Titanic for its 100th anniversary. 

  

Brandenburg gate...chocolate. (They also had the Bundestag and Berlin's TV tower in chocolate, as well as cupids, airplanes, piglets frogs, and numerous other items.)

The praline counter. Longest one I've ever seen, and they had SO many miniature one-bite desserts. Mesmerizing.

After a short, chocolatey distraction...Checkpoint Charlie. The American guard house here was moved elsewhere, and the East German watchtower demolished, in 1990 after the fall of the wall, but the museum nearby is fantastic. It was opened by a private citizen in 1963 (!), and it's a crowded and chaotic, but it's full of stories about the building of the wall, subsequent protests (which began almost immediately), escape attempts (and some of the gadgetry involved), the Berlin Airlift, the fall of the wall, an exhibit on artists' interpretations of the wall, a Reagan room (a bit of a shrine, really), and a large section on nonviolent protest around the globe. And all sorts of artifacts relating to the wall and the East/West divide. It's all quite moving, and it's good to know that this particular era of history is not forgotten in the least.

Well, except for the goofy guard house replica out front, utterly thronged with tourists. But at least that makes it easy to find.

Next, a quick trek past the Trabi museum...

...to the Topography of Terror exhibit, an open-air display next to a long portion of the wall left in place. This particular site was chosen for this exhibit not only because of its location immediately under the wall, but because it once was the site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters, which was razed after WWII. The trench in front of the wall allows for display of the remaining pieces of the demolished buildings, as well as a lengthy exhibit on Nazi propaganda and actions in Berlin between 1933 and 1945. We hadn't planned on spending much time there, but the exhibit is really well done and we ended up reading the whole thing.

I didn't take any good photos of the exhibit, but it's under the glass on the left, with the wall to the right.

The wall segment, from the sidewalk. Pretty bleak, even now. I didn't realize there were still portions this long that somehow managed to survive.

The next day was a little lighter: the Pergamon Museum and the Berliner Dom, both of which I didn't get to see my first time in the city. Pretty impressive stuff.

The Pergamon Museum! I knew it was famous for having entire giant pieces of monumental architecture, but I wasn't quite prepared for how monumental, exactly. This is the Pergamon altar.

The market gate from Miletus.

The gates of Ishtar.

Assyrian carvings. The detail on these things is insane.

An Islamic prayer niche. The collection of Islamic art was just breathtaking.

Mosaic floor from the Acropolis, 2nd century BC.

Hellenistic architecture, with the temple of Athena in the center. The columns on the sides are impossibly huge.

The Berliner Dom: known as the "Protestant St. Peter's," this place is massive, and the current building fairly young. A version of the current building was finished in 1905, the dome was destroyed by bombing during WWII, and reconstruction began in 1975 and lasted through 2002. The pipe organ was dedicated in 1905 and survived the war intact; it has 7269 pipes and 113 registers. Craziness.

Exterior...note people for scale.

Former tomb of Elector Frederick I (1657-1713) in the main sanctuary. (He's now in a coffin in the crypt, along with several other members of the Hohenzollern house.)

Creepy skeleton thing at the foot of Sophia Charlotte's monument (Frederick's wife).

The dome and pulpit.

Wider angle of the sanctuary.

The Imperial Staircase.

The Sauer organ!

Dinner on day 2 was Italian food...and some of the best we've had outside of Italy, I'd say (with the exception of our homemade, naturally). We ate at Gusto, just a short walk from our hotel, and almost entirely empty...which means we had decent service and got to listen to the owner and waiters speak Italian all night. Lovely. We shared a couple of appetizers (beef carpaccio with parmesan and arugula, and shrimp with mushrooms), then Dad and I split the pasta sampler (linguine with chicken, cream, and pine nuts; spaghetti with shrimp in tomato sauce; penne with eggplant, peppers, beef, and zucchini); Mom had a whole plate of the linguine with chicken and pine nuts; Mike had a first plate of spaghetti with black pepper, parmesan, and black truffle; and then he finished with a plate of beef and veggies in Barolo sauce. Great meal. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm sure: really good Italian food is hard to beat. 

Next up: a quick day trip from Berlin to Wittenberg.