Berlin

I spent this past weekend in Berlin with one of my friends from Rolls-Royce. Dan had worked with me in Indianapolis and had then gone to Germany for a secondment very similar to what I'm doing now. However, instead of coming home at the end of his secondment, he decided to quit his job in the U.S. and move to Germany permanently.

I flew in Friday night and left after lunch on Sunday. We had a good time going around to all of the different sites. Probably what I enjoyed the most was the food. Germany has some excellent grub that you just don't get much of a chance to sample in the U.S. More on that to come.

I also enjoyed the German language. I was surprised to find that I could understand quite a bit of what was said. I don't know German any better than I know Chinese, but I found that many of the words, especially when spoken out loud, sound very similar to English. I guess this shouldn't surprise me, since English is a concoction of both the Romantic languages and the Germanic. Since I've always studied Spanish I guess I've just never had any experience with the Germanic side of things. I also found that I could distinguish individual words much better than I can in Spanish or Italian. They tend to break their words more clearly. This definitely helped me to understand things.

We didn't do much on Friday night. We walked around his neighborhood a bit, taking in the hustle and bustle of a Friday evening. He lives in an area with lots of restaurants and stores. Many of the restaurants have tables on the sidewalk, so there is lots to see and hear. We ate at a little place in the basement of a building. It has some historical significance, but Dan couldn't remember what it was. Mostly, he just wanted to go there because it's gotten good reviews. We weren't disappointed, the food was great. I had what amounted to a giant hunk of ham on a bone. Quite hardy.

Later that evening we went to Potsdamer Platz (sp?). It's a hip area with lots of office buildings and shops. We went to the Sony Center. It consisted of an outdoor area between four or five modern office buildings. The top of the plaza was covered in a huge dome of metal & fabric. Lights would shine on it and change color every few seconds. It looked like those scenes in Independence Day where the alien space ship hangs over the city, waiting to strike. We decided we were still hungry so we got a plate of what turned out to be the best cheese I've ever had. Good stuff, although at one point I mistook a pad of butter for a piece of cheese. That was a surprise. :^)

The next morning we went on a whirlwind tour of Berlin. After an amazing pastry for breakfast, we started the tour at a "needle" similar to what they have in Toronto. We were able to go up and look around all of Berlin. This gave me a good overview for everywhere we were going to go that day.

After the needle we headed to a large section of the Berlin wall. There's not much to say about it, but it was quite long. There's a picture below.

Next up was "Checkpoint Charlie". This was where the standoffs with the Russian tanks happened. A lot of history about post-war occupation and the conflicts between Russia & the allies centered around this area. There was also a museum right next to the checkpoint with lots of photos, videos, and paraphernalia about the checkpoint's history.

Next up was the Brandenburg Gate. There were originally five gates to Berlin, but Brandenburg is the gate that kings and queens have used for centuries to access the royal hunting grounds. It has become an important area for politics, etc. Napoleon travelled through the gate during the ill-fated conquest of Europe. On top of the gate is an angel of war riding a chariot. Napoleon stole the angel, and it had to be returned decades later to reconstruct the gate.

On our way to the gate, we stopped for lunch at another great restaurant. This time I had wiener schnitzel, breaded veal with fried potatoes. This was probably the best thing I had while I was in Germany. It was awesome! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Anyway, while we were sitting there we noticed a political demonstration heading down the road toward the gate. There were probably two or three thousand people in the demonstration, if not more. When we left the restaurant they were still streaming by. I got some decent picture of them, but unfortunately the demonstration stopped right in front of Brandenburg Gate. This made it difficult to get good pictures.

I did get some good pictures from the back of the gate. I had mentioned that the royal family used the gate to access the royal hunting grounds. Much of these grounds has been preserved as a giant park. We took a walk through the park from one end to the other. It was probably two or three miles all together. That was quite tiring. Ugh. We ended our walk near the Berlin Zoo. Right next to the zoo there is a bombed out church that has been left since WWII.

From there it was on to the parliament building. We didn't take time to go in, because the line was so long, but you can see from the picture that there is a glass dome on top. Apparently you can take stairs up into the top of the dome. We were so tired by then that we just settle for a picture of the front. Standing in line for an hour or two didn't seem particularly appealing after all of the walking we had done.

That was pretty much it for the sight-seeing. We finished the night off with another very hearty meal at The Berliner, a restaurant on the river near Dan's apartment. I had meat on top of mashed potatoes. Simple but good.

We weren't able to do much on Sunday because I had to leave fairly early. After a good breakfast and a quick walk we hopped on the train to the airport. Then it was back to Bristol. All in all, a great weekend.