The next day, May 13, we had breakfast with some Canadian girls at our hostel and headed to the train station. We managed to buy our tickets to Berlin in French since we strangely got a person who did not speak English. The train ride all together took 8 hours or so. (Three to Koln, then five to Berlin.) Our first German meal was at the train station in Koln (Cologne): sausage, potatoes, and beer. Mmmm.
We got to our hostel sort of late at night and caught the end of a Barca game. Everyone was watching the game and the place was full of singing Spaniards--it was like I had never left Spain! Our sleeping arrangement was two bunks in a 50-bed dorm. It looked like a prison hospital ward or something.
On May 14 we woke up at 8:30 and had breakfast at the hostel. The first of many good German breakfasts, the buffet included lots of lunchmeat and even a caprese salad on top of the usual stuff.
We walked to the Tiergarten and saw the Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag, a Soviet war memorial, and statues of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. We walked through the maze-like Holocaust memorial and to a plaza with a library and church and opera house. We then went to Potsdam plaza and saw Berlin wall fragments and the Sony Center.
From there we went to the museum "island" and went into a 19th century art gallery, the Alte National Gallery, as well as the Pergamon museum of antiquities from Greece, Rome and the Near East. We spent some time chilling in the Lustgarten in front of the Berliner Dom (a church).
We had lunch at an American-style restaurant where Alex got "Texas pasta." Then we went back to our hostel for showers before going, like the nerds we are, to see Star Trek at the Sony Center, one of the few places showing Original Version (i.e. in English). We totally sat next to a Leonard Nimoy lookalike, which was perfect. Apparently back at the hostel that night there were quite a few drunken disturbances but only Alex was affected as I slept through it all.
On Friday, 15 May, we had breakfast (croissants, cheese, coffee) and went back to the Tiergarten (a huge public park) again. We saw some fantastic European art at the Picture Gallery, then walked to Checkpoint Charlie (tourist central). We got some pizza and walked to the Contemporary Art Museum, where we saw a weird audio exhibit called Murder of Crows.
We went to the gay district, Schoneberg, for dinner and headed back to the hostel. We played some cards for a while and talked to some German guys and Canadian girls. And that was Berlin!
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