We got a good night’s sleep and woke up around 7 am. We ate breakfast at the hotel since it was included in the price. The breakfast buffet was a little similar to Amsterdam, but they had fresh fruit, yogurt, tomato/mozzarella/basil and these cheese stuffed peppers. I don’t typically eat peppers for breakfast, but I had to try it. It resembled what a fried jalapeno popper would taste like without the breading and being fried. It was yummy. After breakfast we hung around the hotel until 10 am, when we walked over to the tour office near the TV tower. Our laundry was being done while we were on the tour. We rode beach cruiser bikes, which were easy to ride.
They had nice cushy seats and only 3 gears since Berlin is pretty flat. We all had our own bell or squeaky clown to make noise as we rode through Berlin. It’s mainly to annoy the locals and their dogs. The day started out really sunny and bright. We were blessed, because it is never sunny in Berlin. We started off at the TV tower and rode to the oldest functioning church in Berlin, Marien Kirche or Mary’s Church.
We were also in the square across from the Red Town Hall,
which was given to Berlin by the Prussians to shut them up for a while. In the square, there is also Neptune’s Fountain.
We took a short ride to Marx & Engels Platz and took some pictures with the giant bronze statues of the two famous communists.
We also got a good shot of the sun reflecting off of the ball of the TV tower, which happens to form a cross of light.
This is pretty ironic considering that East Berlin was primarily atheist and Communist. They paid some Swedes to come design and build the TV tower to make the West Berlin people jealous. Since the sun rarely shines, it wasn’t obvious until it was too late. Now every time the sun shines, a giant Christian cross can be seen all over Berlin. We got back on our bikes and went past St. Hedwigs, which is the oldest Catholic Church in Berlin.
It resembles the Pantheon. In Berlin, you have to pay extra taxes if you claim to be Catholic. Most people claim to be atheist so they don’t have to pay taxes. You also have to pay taxes on your pets, even a hamster. Berlin is very poor, so they need to get their money where they can. We then stopped in the Bebel Platz, where the Nazis burned thousands of books they thought to be bad influences or that did not agree with their crazy ideas.
Humboldt University is located on Bebel Platz, this is where Einstein went to school and taught. There is a monument in the square to all of the burnt books.
It is a piece of thick glass in the ground and you can look into a room underground with walls that are lined with empty white book cases. Near it is a plaque with the quote by Heinrich Heine a famous Jewish Poet, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” That was in 1821. He was a pretty intuitive man. We got on our bikes and rode to where they are tearing down the Palace of the Republic.
This was once an amazing palace that was turned into a great entertainment area. Now it’s being torn down due to asbestos and will probably end up a parking lot. What a waste. We then rode to the State Opera House.
It is situated right between the French Protestant Cathedral and the German Protestant Cathedral that are almost identical.
Apparently the French were invited to build a Cathedral and they gladly accepted considering they were not welcome in a very Catholic country. After they built their cathedral, the Germans were a bit jealous and built one that looks almost exactly like the French one. After this we rode to Checkpoint Charlie.
This is one of the crossing points at the Berlin wall where both the USA and Russia had posts on either side. Checkpoint Charlie was not named after anyone named Charlie. It happens to be the word used for the phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, Charlie…). Many people died trying to get to the West.
There were walls in the area with pictures and stories of those who died trying and stories of the people who were successful. The wall was not just one wall, but two. The space between the walls was called the death strip. They had sniper towers with soldiers ready to kill those trying to escape. I took a picture of Adam straddling both sides of the wall, or where the wall once stood.
We rode a little further to see the last remaining pieces of the wall.
There is an open-air museum called the Nazi Topography of Terror. It used to be the headquarters of the Gestapo and SS. There are random painted bears all around Berlin that are each painted differently (just like the bears, cows and other animals in the USA).
The bear is the symbol of Berlin. We then rode through Potsdamer Platz to get to the only remaining sniper tower left in the city (out of 304).
After that we rode back through Potsdamer Platz and admired the fake buildings.
Like I said, Berlin is poor, so if a building is torn down, instead of having the empty space, they put up scaffolding and canvas painted to look like an actual building. You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t told that they were fake. We then came to Hitler’s bunker.
You can’t go into it at all. It’s only a patch of grass in front of an apartment complex. When the Russians invaded and found Hitler and his woman dead, they burned the bodies and destroyed the bunker by filling it in. Apparently Katarina Witt once lived in the apartments. This bunker is where Hitler married his mistress and then committed suicide with her. They were nice enough to first test the arsenic on their dogs. Hitler then shot himself to make sure the job was done right. Hitler had one of his cronies burn their bodies so that no one could parade him around town. The Russians still found the remains that didn’t’ burn and decided to finish the job. We then passed by the new memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.
It took up an entire city block and consisted of various sized concrete blocks representing the individuality of every person killed. The ground that these rested on was at different levels, so when you walk through it, it should be disorienting. This is to mimic the way the Jews felt in the concentration camps. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the memorial. Many were offended that it was only for the Jews and not for every other race or religion killed. Berlin also has a huge graffiti problem, and after building this memorial they realized they just put up hundreds of blank canvases. So they came up with an idea to put a coating on the blocks that would make washing the graffiti off, unfortunately they came to find out that the company that made the chemical is also the same company that manufactured the deadly gas that killed the people in the concentration camps. It was a no win situation. We then rode on towards the Tiergarten and made a stop at the Brandenburg Gate.
This is where the wall initially came down, and by complete accident. The East Germans had planned on letting people enter West Berlin with proper paper work. When the news got around the press came to the gate and asked the man in charge about the situation. They asked who could get these passes? The man replied, “Anyone I suppose” not knowing any details of the entire situation. The wall later came down in 1989 officially and the Brandenburg Gate is now a symbol of the re-unification of Berlin. We started our bike ride through the Tiergarten.
The leaves were all turned yellow, orange and red and it was the most beautiful bike ride I’ve ever taken.
We stopped at a Beer Garten in the Tiergarten, called Schleusen Krug (Canal Mug).
We had beer and food. The beer was a pilsner called Veltins.
I got the hot chocolate with cream and it was amazing. For lunch, Adam had the French pizza (very thin crust with no marinara sauce) and I had a salad topped with roasted goat cheese and pumpkin soup with mozzarella. It was all very yummy. You should see the way our tour guide lined up our bikes.
Some people had a difficult time (after a few beers) getting their bike out. After eating and drinking, we got back on our bikes and went back through the garden to stop at the Soviet War Memorial. Unknown Soviet soldiers are buried beneath, to keep Germany from later tearing it down. They couldn’t afford a good brass sculptor, so they ended up with a disproportionate statue on top of the monument.
His hands are huge! We also rode by the victory column that was erected after defeating France in the beginning of Germany’s unification as one country.
The French soldiers during WWII were a little bitter, so they tried they’re hardest to destroy it. Obviously they can’t do anything right. We then rode along the river to Museum Island.
We ended up at the Reichstag, which is the German parliament building that has been restored since the war.
The dome was rebuilt in glass and you can actually go to the top of it and look out. Along the river we had sent the German Chancellor’s home, which was very modern.
We then made our way back towards the tour office, but first stopped at the lustgarten. This garden was the first place potatoes were grown in Germany, but it was not only an actual garden but also for strolling, which is how it earned its name (Lustgarten means pleasure garden). It was destroyed in WWII, but was restored in 2000 according to its original plans.
There was a temporary art exhibit in the garden while we were there with some strange and erotic statues. We got back on our bikes and took our final ride back to the tour office.
We dropped off our bikes and went inside to pick up our laundry and while I was in there, I picked up a piece of the Berlin wall. When we were all done, we headed to the Ampleman gift shop. Ampleman is the nickname of the little me on the crosswalk lights. The East Berlin stoplights had the Ampleman who is short and stocky and when it says to walk, it looks like he’s running off to work. When he’s telling you to stop, it looks like his arms are outstretched to give you a hug. The lights in West Berlin had tall skinny and fit men on their crosswalk lights. The ampleman lights were in threat of being torn down, but too many Berliners had grown fond of the little guys so they decided to keep them around. We stopped in the gift shop and we each got a t-shirt. After that short shopping spree, we headed back to the hotel to pack up and get ready for our train ride to Prague tomorrow.
Our overall impression of Berlin was “Eh.” The people are a bit grumpy and it’s a bit sad knowing the city is so poor. Hopefully one day it will be rebuilt to all it’s original glory. Maybe that would cheer up the people. Right now they pay 125 Euros to own a dog, 25 to own a hamster and an additional 7% tax if you’re Catholic. The youth fashion reminds me of 80’s punk rock, but many of the people here have no fashion sense. Berlin has the 3rd largest gay/lesbian population and the largest population of Turks outside of Turkey, so you can conclude that Berlin has the largest population of gay Turks!
When we got off the train, we decided to get our tickets to Prague while we were there. The lady at the ticket office was the least helpful person on the planet. She told us the tickets would be 109 Euros, but the price online said 22 Euros. She said we should take the train to the border of Germany and then get a ticket to Prague there. I told Adam to forget it because I wanted to check online again to see what the deal was. We attempted to find our hotel on foot; however we could not decipher the map and had no idea where we were going. We decided that since it was raining, we’d just take a cab. It was the newest and cleanest cab I’ve ever been in. The hotel wasn’t too far, so it only cost us 5 Euros. We never would have found it! The Alameda hotel is on the 5th floor of an office building. 
Our hotel is in the former East Berlin where things look very industrial. 
They gave us a key for the main gate to the building, another for the elevator, and another for the front door of the hotel and then our room key. This hotel is amazing compared to the others. It’s very modern and clean. 
The bed is comfy and we each get our own comforter. The bathroom is great and it even has a towel warming rack! 
Thanks Angela for this recommendation! We both took showers and got refreshed. Adam went to talk to the very helpful front desk girl (who gave us a great map and showed us places to go and see) to find out where we could get our clothes washed and get on the Internet. We forgot all about the Fat Tire Bike Tour Company.
In our search for the office we walked around the square and saw some beautiful buildings and a church. 
We finally found the office and dropped off our laundry and hit the Internet. I looked at the train ticket info and they are supposed to be 22 Euros. So we decided we’d just get the tickets to Prague the day we left at the station that the train leaves at, not the one we arrived at. We also decided to take the bike tour they offered tomorrow. Once we were done, we went back to a restaurant we had passed to eat dinner. 
It was called Alex. Adam and I both had the schnitzel and Adam ordered the local beer, Berliner. 
We came to find out that this is Berlin’s “crap” beer, as Adam puts it. It was reminiscent of Bud Light or something like that. So to redeem himself in the waitress’ eyes, he ordered a beer recommended by her, the Carlsberg. 
That one was actually pretty good. We actually had to pay extra for a side of Ketchup, and it tasted pretty weird. It almost tasted like the curry ketchup we tasted at Rob’s. Adam was very talkative with our waitress that night. It turns out she was ½ American. Her father is in Michigan and was in the military, which explains it all. He must have been stationed in Berlin and knocked up a Berlin girl. I knew the waitress looked Americanized. After dinner we walked back to our hotel and passed out. 
We didn’t sleep on the train at all, so we were beat.
It was a great way to see the city. 
The tour ended where it started, which was right in front of Centraal Station. We hopped on the tram #5 to get to the Van Gogh museum. Our passes got us the tickets and we decided to pay the 4 Euros for the audio tour. The audio tour gives lots of good information not provided in writing in the museum. It kept Adam interested the whole time, so it was well worth the money. I totally missed the sign that said no pictures, and I snapped one before the security guard came up to me.
Unfortunately it wasn’t even a Van Gogh. There were so many great works in there; it was hard to peel my eyes away. Not all of his famous works are there. We went into the gift shop and Adam found a little puzzle like the one he got at the Louvre. They had more complicated ones, but after our last puzzle attempt, we went with the small one. I got a sketchbook for me while I was there. The Rijks Museum was a short walk from the Van Gogh. We stopped at a sidewalk vendor for a bite to eat. Adam had a sandwich and I had a normal hot dog (on an actual bun instead of a baguette). I also picked up a little pair of red wooden clogs. At the Rijks Museum, we decided to do the audio tour as well. 
This museum was full of Flemish art masterpieces. We saw Vermeer, VanDyk and a lot of Rembrandt. I got to see Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” at the very end. This was amazing to see in person. The detail was just plain nuts! This museum was not as overwhelming as the Louvre. After the Rijks, we headed towards the Anne Frank house. Adam wanted to be brave and try to connect to another line instead of going back to the main station to switch there. That plan backfired, because we had no idea how to do that. While searching for the right train stop we saw the grand palace (once thought to be a wonder of the world)
and Madam Trausads Wax Museum. We saw some grim reapers in the square in front of the palace. 
We got in quickly thanks to our reservation. We were not allowed to take pictures in the museum. I find it strange that I could take pictures at the Louvre, but not at any of the museums in Amsterdam. Regardless, the Anne Frank house was amazing. It was strange walking around in a place where you knew everything about its inhabitants and their struggles. It’s such a tiny place for so many people to live in for so long, and only to be ratted out and sent to die. Only her father survived and he donated the house to become a museum. He also had her diary published and it is one of the most popular books ever sold. It’s offered in hundreds of languages. Anne and her sister Margot died only a month before the liberation. This house was so sad. I don’t know how anyone can believe that this atrocity, the holocaust, never occurred. What ignorant people. They probably don’t believe in global warming either. The steps in the house were so small and steep, you hit your shins on them when going up and you had to turn your body when going down to make sure you got your foot on the step. I plan on getting her diary when I get back. I haven’t read it in so long. After the Anne Frank museum, we started heading back to the hotel. We stopped into the Cheese Gift Shop to get some cheese.
We nibbled on the samples and hopefully we don’t’ eat all the cheese before we get back. We decided on pizza for dinner so we stopped into Marco Polo. It’s not like there are any authentic Netherlands food, so there is tons of different types of places to eat. You can find just about anything your heart desires to eat there. I had proscuitto pizza and Adam had pepperoni.
Those pizzas were the bomb! I can’t imagine how good it could have been if we had been high. The cheese was so silky smooth and melty. While we were walking back to the hotel, Adam tells me that he thought he got poked in the rear by a bedspring last night. So when we got back to the hotel, he told the clerk and they offered to flip the mattress or bring in a new one later that night, but we laid down for a nap and that was that. We decided to take the 6:55 am train to Berlin, since that would be our longest train ride. Going to bed early was a good idea since we’d be up at the crack of dawn. I tried to smoke the last of the herb before we left, but there was still a little left over. We stopped in a head shop earlier that day to get a cheap pipe instead of rolling joints. We’ll just throw it away tomorrow when we leave. It was another bad night of TV. This time it was As the World Turns soap opera. After watching the cheesiness, I realized I was glad I only got into Days of Our Lives, which can be pretty crazy at times, but my mom watched it when I was little and it stuck. After a trip to the vending machine for some juice and another piece of chocolate, I hit the sack.
