Ahrensfelde

This is our second visit to Berlin. We fell in love with it 8 years ago when we visited during the 25th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Wall. It will be hard to compete with seeing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra backing up Peter Gabriel singing David Bowie's "Heroes" with the Brandenburg Gate in the background, but we'll try.

We found an aparthotel near Checkpoint Charlie that had just opened and wasn't quite ready for visitors yet, but it worked well enough. It was near an Ubahn station, and that's crucial. We bought a week transportation pass and made good use of it. Even though we also bought a 3 day museum pass, this trip was about exploring neighborhoods and relaxing a bit. Berlin is such a chill place. It's got a great vibe. You see people drinking beer at all times of the day, and everywhere, including parks and subways. But nobody is ever loud or obnoxious or fighting. It's like having a coke here. I love it. I just feel like I'm getting away with something when we go to a kiosk and buy half liter cans of of good, inexpensive beer and walk around to enjoy neighborhoods. Certain ones like Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg are vibrant with restaurants, clubs, art scenes, and bars.

We revisited a few museums on "museum insel" or museum island. There are 5 full of glorious booty from around the world. The Germans are really giving the Brits a run for their money here. Our favorite was probably the Ishtar Gate, a blue-tiled gate taken from Babylon and now housed at the Pergamon museum. Another classic was the bust of Nefertiti housed at the Neues museum. On our last day, we visited the free and powerful Topography of Terror museum, half of which is outside. It explains the rise of Naziism and is located on the grounds of the former SS headquarters. We've seen this information multiple times in multiple countries and it's chilling every time.

Deanne has a friend from Madison who's also in Berlin at the same time. He is visiting his daughter who lives here. Andre recommended a show that is similar to Cirque de Soleil and we weren't disappointed. It's like a Vegas show. I was astounded at the dancing, music, and yes, acrobats who performed death-defying stunts. The technology was pretty amazing too. The floor rose up, tilted, rotated, and receded, only to be replaced by a shallow pool with fountains and then the pool sank and dancers that were tapdancing in a rainy pool started swimming as the shallow pond became a deep pool. Then it all disappeared for the trapeze artists. Somehow the producers of "Arise" managed to weave a simple plot into this spectacle. We didn't see any punk shows like last time, but had a drink in a metal bar in Kreuzberg, across from S036, the music club we visited last time.

We met up with Andre for coffee in Alexanderplatz, a large, central plaza at the base of the huge radio and TV tower that is an icon of Berlin. He used to live here and left 17 years ago. This was his first time back and said it's changed so much since then. We've also noticed lots of development in the 8 years since we've been here. But it's still got that edge to it if you peek under the covers. We ate a variety of food and we tended towards ethnic. We even found a nice, cheap Indonesian place in an apartment block. And I realized that we're soon leaving Germany for good, so we went to Max und Moritz, a 120 year old classic German restaurant for my Sauerbraten fix.

We had 5 nights here and that gave us the time we needed to revisit favorite haunts and explore new places. I could spend weeks here I love it so much. We actually took most of a rainy Monday off to just chill out at the room and relax. That's not something we do too often. We've got less than 2 weeks left and are starting to think of home. But the next stop is some small villages near St. Poelten, Austria to visit Deanne's AFS exchange family from high school. We'll spend one night there before heading to Italy. We'll take our first overnight train on Austria's OBB NightJet. They've made overnight train travel in Europe popular again. Low cost airlines almost destroyed this class of travel, but the green alternative of night train travel is appealing more and more to Europeans and Americans alike.

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