Sights

My God. It is incredibly difficult to get out of bed after a casual evening of beer and gin and three and a half hours of sleep.

My alarm first went off at 6:30. We were up and pretty much ready to
go by 7:15. Why? Apparently the best time to see the Reichstag (and get up into the dome!) is when it opens, at 8. The sun hadn't even risen, why should we?!

Basically, every guidebook and website says get to the 'Stag early, avoid the lines and get into the top of the dome. None of them tell us we needed a reservation. Only to be made online. Three days in advance. This we were told by the security guard at the Reichstag at 8:10 on this brisk January morning. We were very put out.

This setback slightly changed our timing, as the other things we wanted to see in the area (like Unter Den Linden, a long street renowned for its architecture and street life) were either not open or not lively yet. That being said, we got to explore both the Brandenburger Tor [gate] and the Holocaust Memorial alone, unencumbered by tourists and mascots and men dressed in Soviet and American military uniforms holding their respective flags and standing on either side of a foot-high wall (hypothetically speaking of course).

The Holocaust Memorial is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. It consists of a non-symmetrical grid of approximately 3,000 concrete rectangular prisms of equal area but differing height. That's it. You can walk amongst them, and it's hilly inside, paved with cobblestones. I didn't understand why, until it hit me I was asking Judson what it might be like if each concrete block represented one Jewish death, not 2,000. It would consume this city. And that's frightening. Maybe that's the point.

From the Memorial we wandered west, through the Tiergarten, Berlin's Times Square. Very pretty place. But we stumbled on a very confusing site. There was a monument to Soviet soldiers who lost their lives fighting "German Fascists" as it was so eloquently stated. At first we thought the Soviet Union had it built during their occupation of East Berlin... Until as of this writing, when I realized that Tiergarten was in West Berlin. Doesn't make sense.

We made it about halfway through Tiergarten when we turned back. Around 9:45 we found ourselves on Unter Den Linden, which was I unimpressive. We walked down it for a ways on our way to the next checkpoint: Checkpoint Charlie.

Checkpoint Charlie used to be one of the border crossings between East and West in the city. The original outpost still stands in the middle of the road, as well as the sign proclaiming "You are leaving the American Sector" in English, Russian, and German (In that order, of course). There was also a tacky Christmas tree, but I don't think that was there at the time.

We got on the U-Bahn right after Checkpoint Charlie, at 10:15. We didn't get back until 12:15. Here's why:

To the naked eye, the way back was simple. North one stop on U6 from Kochstraße to Stadtmitte, then transfer to the U2 and take that north 6 stops to our stop on Rosa-Luxemburg. Easy.

At this point I would encourage readers to look up a map of the Berlin subway system.

We got on the U2 to Pankow from Stadmitte. Unbeknownst to us, the train went the wrong direction (though we got on the right track!). We didn't notice until Bülowstraße, where we got off.

Being starving, and having joked earlier we could just get on the U-Bahn and ride to find a random spot to eat, we stopped at a Turkish shwarma place called Istanbul Grill. It was delicious (though I messed up order, asking for Menü drei [#3] instead of zwei; I wanted #2).

We got back on U2 to Pankow. This time we headed in the right direction. But as we approached Stadtmitte again, we heard on the intercom that the train was not going  to keep going. Taking the hint, we went back to U6.

We took U6 two more stops north to Friedrichstraße, then got on the wrong train, the S1 instead of S3, and took that 5 stops to Bornholmer, then a stop south on S8 to Schönhauser Allee, the a final three stops south to Rosa Luxemburg.

What should have been 7 stops turned into 22. I will never again go to Stadtmitte.

I took a 3 hour siesta at this point, passing out from exhaustion. Then another 3 hours to relax in the bar, then off to Nefertiti, again!

But not. We got to the Neues Museum and found that you have to buy tickets an hour before closing to
get in. We got there at 7:11. They close at 8. Oh well. Third times the charm.

We got back to the hostel and spent several hours drinking with Lorenzo, Ricardo, Claire, and some new friends, Christina and Jackie (Calgary), Ben (Perth) and Mark (eastern Australia). Judson ducked out around 1:30. Lorenzo around 2. I went to bed around 3.