Berlin!

Post about Berlin yesterday...

I love Berlin. This city is so choice. I want to visit here again. I don't know, it is just the vibe I get. There was nothing in particular that was so amazing, I just really really love it here.

Today we spent the day exploring the city. We got up and got breakfast at a nearby cafe. We then got on the metro (got a day pass) and headed to the Brandenburg Gate to meet up with the New Europe free tour. We took the tour, our tour guide was a kiwi named Stephanie and she was really awesome, and we saw a ton of stuff. This tour in particular had the most sort of history lesson type of things and interesting stories, and it was really great. We saw so much, it was the longest free tour yet (3.5 hours) including... (excuse my bad spelling, I'm sure I will butcher some stuff)

• Brandenburg Gate
• Reichstag
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews
• Site of the bunker Hitler killed himself in... now a nondescript dirt parking lot. Suck it Hitler.
• Checkpoint Charlie
• A Standing segment of the Berlin Wall
• Bepel Platz
• Hitler's Opera House (rebuilt like 4 times)
• Underground empty bookcase, memorial to the 20,000 books burned by the Nazis
• Memorial to the New Watch
• TV Tower, known as the "Pope's Revenge" because all the crosses were taken down in Berlin but the sun reflects off the TV Tower in the shape of a cross.
• Museum Island - island formed by the river running through Berlin with multiple museums on it.

The tour was totally awesome. After we wandered around a bit on Museum island, then headed back towards our Hostel meandering around, and then stopped at a beer garden called Prater Beir Garten. We hung out there for a while, got some German food such as brotwurst, and watched some world cup. We then stopped into some stores and fooled around, looking at various things for sail. Caption for the picture of me with the big fake revolver: "I have THIS!"

After we headed back to the restaurant from last night and got another strudel. Sooo good! Then we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and headed to Berlin Hbf station.

We were waiting for our over night train and met a guy named Ian from Michigan who had been living in Vienna for the past 6 weeks for school and was now traveling for the next 10 days before going home. We hung out for a little while on the train and decided that we would all hang out the next day in Munich and go on the tour together. Then there was the overnight train... which was seats and not beds. Woah... that sucks. So we had to spend all night sitting in the train. Yuck. Oh well, Berlin was awesome and Munich now!