Museums and Pork Knuckles

April 3, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

Berlin has a lot of green space, and the boys have been inspired to be world cup football players, so were keen to run out some energy. They got talking to a young dad at the playground, before they cajoled him into playing a game of mini soccer. Tom and I then joined in and things got a little competitive. The other dad and I stepped out after a while, and before long a throng of kids appeared from nowhere, forming a full on 10 on 10 game of soccer. Jack and Campbell were in their element.

Campbell discovered a year or so ago, that the Melbourne Museum houses the most complete Triceratops skeleton in the world. When researching this trip, we then discovered the most complete T-Rex skeleton is in Berlin. We had to go. The Berlin Natural History Museum was outstanding, with a section devoted to explaining how taxidermy works. Some of Tom's squirrels' cousins were the unfortunate exhibit showing the gory details.

We then made our way to Museum Island, a drop of land in the middle of the Spree River that houses some of the most amazing buildings. The Humboldt forum was spectacular, and we read the story about the building that was almost completely destroyed in the war, and the amazing rebuild they undertook to recreate it.

Standing in the main plaza, the Berlin Cathedral is an imposing structure, so we headed over to have a look inside. Suffice to say it's a little fancier than the local church in Newcastle. We made our way through the main vault and tried to answer Fred's questions like - "but if God made Earth in a day, how did the big Bang happen?" Good question, kid.

We saw the steps to the dome and decided to make the trek up the 267 steps to see the view. Jack was quite bullish to start with, but must have remembered halfway up that he's actually scared of heights, which came to the fore when we stepped outside. However he did terrific, as did the rest of the boys, and the view of Berlin was absolutely worth it.

We finished the day with a few beers, pork knuckles and schnitzels. What a day.Read more