The next stop on my trip was Berlin after hearing great things from other friends that had visited there over the summer. And it definitely didn't disappoint! As had become customary on my trip - the first day I was there, I wanted to do a guided tour of the city so I could really get my bearings. At the suggestion of Andy and Scott, I chose a biking tour. Kate and Sara will appreciate this as the only other time in the last say 5 or so years that I was on a bike was over the July 4 weekend in the Hamptons. And needless to say, while I survived that - I wasn't that graceful, so I felt it quite an accomplishment that I was able to bike throughout the city without hurting myself! It's the little things in life.
Even better was our tour guide on the bike tour - who even gave us a brief history of Germany and Berlin using sidewalk chalk! I've decided that after traveling for as long as I have and actually visiting a lot of these places, that I wished I had paid closer attention to Mr. O'Grady in my high school history class - because I find it all very interesting!
The city itself was very interesting, particularly given how much it's changed given the relatively recent events effecting it. One thing that really was shocking to me was to hear the actual stories about the Berlin wall -- it's still hard to comprehend that these things were happening during my lifetime, some of the stories seemed more out of the middle ages than the 20th century.
The bike tour was awesome and I would definitely suggest it to anyone visiting Berlin as it was a great way to see the entire city in one afternoon, including some of most famous sites. Unfortunately, a lot of the things that were pointed out to us were not actually there anymore, but we did our best to imagine. Although, the biggest disappointment was Checkpoint Charlie with the fake American guards. And also, the place where Hitler killed himself - we were standing in the parking lot to an apartment complex between the Jewish memorial and a Chinese restaurant (ironic, I think, no?).
But, as I was doing this tour on 9/11 - it was nice to see the tribute to the lives lost at Checkpoint Charlie:
And obviously, one of the more important ones of our time (sarcasm detected) - the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby outside of the window:
Unfortunately, our bike tour was cut short by a strong storm and we got "stuck" at the beer garden (this was a lot of fun until we had to ride to the train station in the rain and then had to find our way back - luckily after an hour there were enough of us from the hostel that we were able to just split a cab):
Although, one thing I will say that I found amusing was the Germans' sense of humor, particularly at a restaurant called White Trash Fast Food, where this was actually part of the menu:
