A few things I first noticed... Berlin is considerably less touristy than Amsterdam or Brussels, there is a lot of graffiti around the city, and the city is HUGE.
As I went around the city on the way to our hostel, I was excited to get to use some of the German I have been learning. And then some one spoke to me in German (queue blank face). I was like, whaaaat? Sprechen Sie Englisch? I don't know near enough to actually carry on a conversation with anyone. But it still was helpful and I do recognize way more words than I would have had I not started learning it.
While we were walking around the city the first day, we went to Potsdam Platz we walked down to where the Berlin Philharmonie was and wanted to see if there were any tickets for shows there. The box office didn't open until 6PM so we didn't get tickets to see anything, but we met a Colombian man at the information desk who loved us. He mentioned that Hilary Swank was right down the street and we should go talk to her and would probably be able to because we are Americans (Ha!). Then as we left he told us "God Bless America!"
We then walked to where he said Hilary Swank was and couldn't find her... But we did see the actors from the new movie Monument's Men doing a press conference (If you don't know who is in that, we saw George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman) we didn't talk to them though.
After that we walked to the Brandenburg Gate. That gate is a previous city gate commissioned by king Frederick William II as a sign of peace.
We then walked around the city some more grabbed some dinner and ate at the hostel. I watched some Bundesliga highlights and then went up to go to bed... remember the night bus? That took a lot out of us so we were pooped.
Today was filled with much more. It is sunday, so there are Flohmarkte (flea markets) all over town. We woke up and decided to venture out to a Flohmarkt in town. When we got out of the U-Bahn tunnel, we came up to a street where the Berlin Wall Memorial was (happy accident, we planned on going eventually, but didn't realize it was that close to where we were headed). It was interesting to see where the wall was and what the place looks like now. It was really cool to look at all the stuff that people make and sell at the market. While at the market one of the stands was playing an american musician called Adam Green who reminded me of a mix between Cake and Avett Brothers. If you like both of those bands, check him out.
After that we went to another market on Museum Island called the Kunstmarkt (Art market). There was some really cool artwork there. Also on (Museum Island are a bunch of... wait for it... Museums. The National Art Museum is there and the Pergamon, which is an ancient Greek and Roman museum, and the Neues Museum (new museum) and the Altes Museum (old museum).
The Berlin Cathedral is also on that island. That is a protestant cathedral that is massive. They still have services there and at 6:00 we went to the service. It was all in German but it was still cool to be there. We actually did the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer. They have a huge organ and the inside is beautiful.
We also saw the East Side Gallery. This is a section of the Berlin Wall, about a mile long, which has 105 paintings on it from artists all over the world. It is an awesome display of unity among people all over the world who value peace.
For dinner we went to a place called Brauhaus Lemke. That was a cool place that was underneath the strassenbahn (like an Elevated train, sort of).
It has been fun discovering the character of the city, the more you see, the more you understand about it.
Organ in the Berlin Cathedral.
I imagine it was totally AWESOME to worship in such an amazing place!!!
ReplyDelete