Day 20: The End of our Fabulous Adventure

We had a nice breakfast and coffee at the cafe across from our hotel and leisurely packed up and got ready for the 17 hours of travel ahead of us. It was pretty much a perfect trip with only a few minor travel complications. We had our last pretzel (or brezl) in the Berlin airport before boarding the plane for our trip back via Amsterdam and Memphis. Just being in the Amsterdam airport reminded me how much I want to go there - LOVE the tulips everywhere. Time to start planning our next trip! Croatia, Africa, Holy Land are top of my list right now.

Tschüs Deutschland!!!

Day 19: Berlin - We Heart Berlin

Having five days and four nights in Berlin was awesome! We were able to slow down our pace, see everything we wanted to see and then some, and have more time to act and feel like locals. I wish we could have given every stop this much attention and time, but we would have been there 3 months instead of 3 weeks! I really liked Berlin. It sort of reminded me of London in some ways - mix of old and modern, very open, very international, and pretty much everyone could speak English. A great place wrap things up.

Day 19: Berlin - Dinner and a Spa (Last Night)

For our last night in Germany, we headed to Oranienburger Strasse - a stop we always went through on the subway and referred to as "Orange Burger Strasse" - to eat at Hasir Turkish Restaurant. Berlin is actually home to the largest population of Turks outside of Asia Minor, so there are tons of doner kebap food stations. But this was actually a fancier, sit-down place with very formal-looking Turkish waiters carrying around huge platters of meat. We had the mixed grill for two - a sampler of all sorts of meats and vegetables and salad, and a great Turkish red wine.

If you know Chris, you know he's a sucker for any type of sauna/spa/massage, but rarely gets to indulge. Europe has lots of spas, baths, etc. and he'd been wanting to go to one the whole trip. If you know me, you know I'm not very good at relaxing, much less paying for relaxation... but he talked me into it. So we took the subway south to a local favorite, the Liquidrom. There are several different pools, saunas, and lounge areas, but the highlight is this large round saltwater pool where you float around and there's underwater music and colored lights on the dome ceiling in sync with the tunes . (They have a DJ on the weekends.) I won't go into all the details, but it was a pretty crazy couple of hours in this clothing-optional bathhouse. The intensity culminated in the Finnish sauna with the 11pm"infusion"- honey poured over our heads with 210 degree air thrust at us by the pool boy/masseuse. There were moments when we actually thought we would pass out and die. Seriously. Intense.

Day 19: Berlin - Berlin Zoo

Our last day in Berlin and we felt like we'd seen all the "sights" we needed to see. So we packed a lunch, walked to the train station, and caught the S to the Zoolischer Garten Berlin (aka Berlin Zoo). It's the 2nd largest in the world behind the San Diego Zoo and you know we love us some animals. We thought we'd spend a couple hours there, but ended up staying for over five. They have a great aquarium, over 1400 kinds of animals, and we got to see them feed all the large cats - awesome and a little petrifying. And of course we walked through the farm area and fed and baby goats and sheep with all the other children at the zoo.

Day 18: Berlin - Tiergarten

On our way home we stopped for awhile to lay in the grass in the Tiergarten, Berlin's Central Park. This land was one the hunting grounds for the royal family. We enjoyed the cool breeze, people and dog-watching. There are some great trees with leaves that are silver-ish on the underside so they glimmer in the breeze like sequins shaking.

Back at our hotel we did our workout --spa--pool routine then had our first leftovers of the trip - spaghetti! (I love leftovers, by the way...)

Day 18: Berlin - East Berlin

We walked all around Berlin, primarily checking out the historical sites in East Berlin: Checkpoint Charlie, Cold War/DDR monuments, the Stazi Museum, Holocaust Memorial, and the Victory Column which leads to the Brandenburg Gate and the famous street from there through the heart of former East Berlin - Unter den Linden. Named for its thousand linden trees, the street was once one of Europe's grand boulevards. Hitler replaced the trees - some 250+ years old - with Nazi flags. Residents were so outraged that he actually replanted the trees you see today.

We also spent a couple hours at the Topography of Terror - an outdoor exhibit/timeline at the site of Hitler's Gestapo and SS command center, located behind a remaining chunk of the Wall. Like most Third Reich sites in Berlin, this place is, and will always, remain a rubble due to the horrible things planned here. Done very well, the exhibit traces the story of the Nazi movement specific to its role in Berlin.

Day 18: Berlin - Reichstag Building

We spent our 2nd full day in Berlin on-foot checking out the sites we had gotten a glimpse of on the bike tour the day before, beginning at the Reichstag Building, which houses Germany's Parliament. Being the frugal German that I am, I had bought the cheaper 2010 Rick Steves guidebook instead of the new 2012 version and didn't know that the policy on visiting the Reichstag had changed in the past year. Apparently there was a minor terrorism scare and now you have to register several days in advance to go inside. Big bummer.

Like many buildings, the Reichstag has a short but complicated history. Inaugurated in the 1890s, it was called a "house for chatting" since the real government work took place inside the city center at the Imperial Palace. It was at the Reichstag in 1918 that the independent German Republic was proclaimed. Then in 1933 it was nearly burned down. The Nazis blamed the Communists but many believe Hitler himself had it burned down, using it as an excuse to frame the commies and grab power. When the war was coming to an end, 1500 German soldiers made their last stand here, extending WW II by 2 days. The Allies had the glass cupola with its double helix walkway built on top so the people could look down into parliament. Glass was a major theme in the reconstruction of Germany to promote transparency and show the people there would be no more secrets in government.

Day 18: Berlin - Schumannstrasse!!!

The next day we started walking from our hotel in Mitte (the historic core of Berlin) toward Alexanderplatz. Schumannstrasse (strasse = street) just happened to be along the way.

Day 17: Berlin - Buddy Bears

All around Berlin there are these large fiberglass bear sculptures with various designs on them called Buddy Bears. The bear is sort of the symbol of Berlin, being somewhat "founded" by Albert the Bear in the 1200s (a pretty young city by European standards). The Buddy Bear program started in 2001 as a cooperation between businesspeople and sculptors; they began sculpting and placing these bears all over Berlin. It soon turned into the United Buddy Bears program, an international art exhibition teaching and expanding the art of tolerance. The Buddy Bear Exhibition is on tour around the world promoting peace, tolerance, love, and international understanding. They are in St. Petersburg, Russia now.

So, being Baers and all, we tried to snap a picture of every Buddy Bear we came across and really wanted to buy one of the tabletop replicas to bring home. But being that they were €60, we settled on the smaller version for €14. This one was in the train station representing the Berlin Zoo.

Day 17: Berlin - Fat Tire Bike Tour

On my previous Europe trip, we did the Fat Tire Bike Tour in Paris and loved it; the company was started by some A&M grads and is in Paris, Barcelona, London, and Berlin. So I knew this was something we wanted to do as soon as we got to Berlin to orient ourselves to the city.

The bike tour was great - despite the sporadic drizzling. We had a cheeky little British guide who had fallen in love with the city on a weekend visit and had lived there several years now. She was as interested as I am in the historical aspects and Berlin's sometimes bewildering ways of doing things.

Most sites in Berlin are new construction, considering the city was basically flattened during WW II. But the buildings look old because they generally rebuilt everything to look the way it did before. It's so interesting to look at a building or plaza and learn all about how it came to look the way it does, or in some cases even be in the place it is considering how many monuments and structures Hitler relocated for his planned "perfect city". Whether it was the early imperialists, the Nazis, The Soviets, or the Allies, every site has its own history. There is still considerable controversy surrounding what to do with certain monuments/memorials; our guide would tell us - take a picture of this because it most likely won't be here on your next visit -like the statue of Karl Marx.

We got a great view of the city overall and specifies on certain sites, which gave us an idea of the places we wanted to visit on the following days. We also went to a great beer garden with our group - delicious cream of asparagus soup and French style pizza for me and schnitzel for Chris. (Plus great beer of course.) This picture is in front of the Brandenburg Gate - check out our sweet gloves borrowed from Fat Tire - it was pretty chilly.

That night we made some delicious pan-fried pork chops, steamed asparagus (spargel), and avocados for dinner.

Day 16: Berlin, Germany

We took a morning train from Prague and arrived in Berlin around 1pm. The hotel we'd booked the night before was about a 10min. walk from Berlin's massive, shopping mall of a train station. It was a windy, considerably cooler walk than we were used to.

We got to Adina Apartment Hotels and were completely wow'ed and excited. We had no idea how nice the place was going to be and I didn't realize it had a kitchenette and everything. It was the most expensive per night thus far, but totally worth it because we were able to grocery shop and save lots of money cooking plus it had its own washer/dryer. It was the best place to end our whirlwind 3 weeks. Probably the nicest place we've ever stayed - and much cheaper than something comparable in the states would have been.

We unpacked, went to for a workout/sauna/swim in the hotel "wellness center" and then headed out for some groceries - excited for the chance to cook and eat-in. We made some pretty delicious spaghetti and steamed broccoli, and bread. Plus some yummy cheap wine.