We are chilling in the common area of the hostel here in Berlin now and gearing up to leave to Amsterdam. I have a feeling most of this will end up being written on the train when I'm not passed out from exhaustion. All this travel has been a huge learning experience and I definitely have a better idea how to do this next time. At the end of this trip, I am going to post a decent sized post about lessons learned. In the meantime though, I suppose it's correct and necessary to actually mention Berlin.
The first and most important thing is my obsession. I believe I have mentioned on more than one occassion the amazingly often use of bicycles as a mode of transportation and have been emailing several people about how I want to tour Europe on my Fuji. Well, Berlin has showed me my dream and I love it. There was a ridiculously amazing bike race that got me way psyched and drooling at the thought of abusing the hell out of my body to ride around this glorious city, circling around some of the most importat historic landmarks of the 20th century in this perfect weather. The sun was shining, a perfect, crisp breeze, and just a couple scattered clouds with the sound of bikes flying by made our walk around Berlin perfect for me.
As for the actual touring of this city, it is amazing. The first day here we just wandered, one of my favorite things to do in any new place. We walked over to the victory column which was really cool since we made it just vsrely in time to be able to go to the top. That vantage point was amazing as you could see almost the entire city. Some great pictures from up top of the 300 or so stairs and a few I am going to put together for some HDR shots, hopefully. Without a tripod that can be a bit difficult but I tried to make due.
After enjoying the view for a bit, we went back down and continued to explore. We walked over to Bellevue which we later learned was the chancelor's house. Working our way around to the Brandenburg Gates, we came across the setup for the bike race sponsored by Skoda and, no surprise, I'm the only one paying mler attention to the bikes than the cars. After getting past this area, we came to the square facing the gate and were welcomed by perhaps the most significant building in all of Berlin's history; Hotel Adlon. Who can remember what happened there just a few years ago? That is correct, Michael Jackson dangled his child from the balcony. We learned the next day that our tour guide was the AP press staff on site during this event at that time yet he missed it as he was too busy getting his starbuck's coffee to be bothered with one of the top 5 most historical moments of our time. The rest of the evening was spent making our way to Nikalae Quarters for some old-style German food and a meter of beer. Yes folks, I said a meter of beer.
Day two we took a tour of Berlin to see some of the biggest sites around the city. I did this last time I was in Berlin and I'm inclined to not say much about it as most of the sites were things I ace previously seen. I will say that it gave me a different perspective on what I saw as our tour guide, Alexander McKenzie (keep your eyes open for his book in a few years about the Jeziuts of Berlin from 1773 - 1803), had a different agenda of what details he wanted to cover. It wa definitely very interesting and, mom and dad should be happy to hear this along with my uninvited, unofficial mentor, learned a lot. So much so that we went back and did a different your with him the next day.
But before I go onto that, I should finish off that day. We ended up going to one of the five museums n the muarm district. Originally, I was unsure about the idea of a museum. Especially one that didn't really have much to do with German history. However, our tour guide suggested it on the premise of it housing one of the eight ancient wonders of the world; the Gates of Babylon. The funny thing about it was that James and I actually didn't even realize that we were looking at the gates as they are more of an arch and all the signs were in German only. So we didn't even realize what we were looking at yet we were rather impressed anyways.
Day three has been the Third Reich Tour and train. I'll write more later when I get back.
Cheers.
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